Tui has bounced around from "eh" to "ack!" with his fielding skills IMO. I've seen both. He can look okay out there, and he can look really bad. Minor league fielding stats are kludgy at best, but a .930 fielding % at 3B is awfully low, and his SS numbers are barely above .900. Just because they let him play it doesn't make it a good idea or representative of his skillset. Now, I personally think Mangini is worse than Tui (and the Ms seem to agree, because Tui is still being worked at other spots). There's no way they play Mangini at 2nd. Tenbrink is worse than both of em from what little I've seen, and watching Liddi in Futures games and the like I think he's more agile than I expected, and would put him about with Tui (though I think Liddi's frame is gonna bulk out and make him a 1B in a couple of years).
The numbers, rough as they are, bear this out.
Can they get better? Sure, minor leaguers get better at things all the time - and so do big leaguers. Jeter, one of the most reviled fielders in modern history, legitimately got better for a few years with some extra hard work and was not the atrocity he was earlier. I sure hope guys can get better - Nick Franklin hasn't been a fielding demon this year, and we really NEED that kid to stick at short.
But improving enough to stay at the 3B position means something like a .950 fielding percentage at the hot corner, which none of them have now. Right now there are 6 guys in the bigs at 3B under .950, a couple of whom are power bats, and just 2 under .940. Last year? One under .945. .940ish is the cutoff for position switch, and it's one none of the current 3B options we have are managing yet, but at that low a percentage there would still be a power need with the bat to compensate.
I would forgive Tui for not being Beltre if he can hit. But he can't hit like Beltre and field like Adam Dunn. However, since none of the other guys are likely to show Tui up (unless Triunfel can't stay at SS and has to go to 3B since Ackley's plugging 2nd) he still remains probably our best shot to get one of these guys to stick at that position and produce.
Which is why we gave Chone 4 years.
~G.