Adam Duvall faced a crossroads in his baseball career when the Cincinnati Reds traded Mike Leake to the San Francisco Giants to acquire the 27-year-old last season.
The Giants were already in the process of moving Duvall from third base to first base. He started just 48 games at third in the minors for the Giants in 2014 and 42 in 2015 before he was traded. Duvall fielded poorly both years. He had a .915 fielding percentage at third in 2014 and fielded .913 at third last year.
The Reds were likewise inclined to shift Duvall. Instead of moving him to third base, the Reds switched his position to left field. Duvall played an error-free left field in 15 games for the Reds last year and 16 games in Triple-A.
The right-handed hitting slugger broke camp this year with an opportunity to make the Reds as a starting or platoon left fielder. He’s helped his cause to make the team in that capacity. Duvall is hitting .310 with a .524 slugging percentage in 42 spring training at-bats so far.
But Duvall has helped himself even more this spring by showing he can still play third base at a passable level as a backup. He’s played 15 innings at third so far with eight chances and no errors.
Duvall flashed some leather and strong arm in his most recent start at third against the San Diego Padres. He threw a strike off balance after fielding a slow roller to third in the first inning. He then made a backhanded grab behind the bag in the second and muscled a long throw on target to throw out the speedy Melvin Upton, Jr. He followed that gem up with another in the fourth inning when he corralled an in-between hop off the bat of Upton and looked back the runner at third before firing a high but on-target throw to again nail Upton at first.
Duvall has shown enough to expand his role as backup third baseman in addition to platoon left-fielder. If he can solve big league pitching better than he has so far in his few chances during the regular season, he’ll make it hard for the Reds to keep him out of the lineup.
Robb Hoff writes about the Cincinnati Reds for OutsidePitch MLB. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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