The Rockies filled a hole when they traded right handed pitcher Clayton Mortensen to the Red Sox for Marco Scutaro. As a shortstop for the Red Sox, he was solid enough with a .299 batting average and 59 runs. For the Rockies, it looks like he’ll move over to second base and be the double play complement to Troy Tulowitzki.
Scutaro has had some of the best seasons of his career at the plate the past three seasons. Three of his top four seasons when measured by OPS have come here late in his career and while his defense seemed to slip this year, he’s been solid in the past. He hasn’t played a lot of second base the past few years and you have to go way back to 2008 when he played 50 games at second where he got a nice chunk of action there.
Mortensen was solid in 16 games for the Rockies last year after a train wreck of a season at Colorado Springs. He was going on 27 so he’s no spring chicken and he doesn’t look like he would have done well in a hitters park like Coors Field. Then again, Fenway has it’s own difficulties so it’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts.