Plus: “I was eating until I wanted to throw up, basically,” A.J. Puk said after putting on 25 pounds in the offseason.
MESA, Ariz. — When the A’s traded their star third baseman Matt Chapman to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, the main player they got back could end up being the guy taking Chapman’s position.
“You look at Toronto and third base was kind of their question mark, too,” Smith said. “So [I’ve been] working at third and trying to make it more of a home for me and feeling way more comfortable.” But third base and shortstop aren’t the only places Smith’s played. Even with the Blue Jays, he played in one game in left field and one at first base, leaving Oakland manager Mark Kotsay feeling ready to get a look at him at multiple positions throughout the spring.
“I debuted when it mattered the most,” Smith said. “They were in a playoff run, in the East and they wanted to win and go to the World Series. Getting called up at that time, when it was so competitive and every game mattered, I thought it was really cool. You know what that culture is like and what it feels like to play in that.”
“The impressive thing is all three of the players that came to big league camp through this deal, they got on a plane immediately after they were told and got here within 24 hours,” Kotsay said. “It says something about all three, their character and it’s what we want from them.”When he did his first media session after the lockout lifted on March 11, the one guy that stood out to Kotsay was former first-round pick A.J. Puk.
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