Just to be clear: I am viewing the following as positive for Poythress and Johermyn Chavez.
I may be wrong, but I believe that the Z regime has a very, very strong (if not virtually iron-clad) preference for LH and SH batters at the corner positions. One of the first things Blengino said was (paraphrasing) "we went over the roster and were just amazed at what a bad fit the team was for the park."
Since then, I believe that almost every player destined for a corner fielding spot has been LH or SH: Figgins, Branyan, Smoak, Kotchman, MB, Carp. Draft picks, too: Seager, James Jones, even Mickey Wiswall.
There are two exceptions that I can think of: Poythress and Johermyn.
So there are two ways to view it:
1. They did their due diligence and decided that these guys bring something extra that overcomes the presumption (namely, some ability to hit in a non-typecast manner); or
2. They were brought in primarily to run up glossy stats in the minors and then get flipped to another team for something else.
It may well be a combination of the two, but when you see a RH corner guy that the Z-crew goes out and gets (as opposed to fall in their lap, such as Liddi), I think it means something more than that he was just the next guy down on the checklist.
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