Rudy Pemberton said:
For this to happen, you give Swihart AB's over Papi or Napoli. I'm not sure how that makes any sense. If Swihart has enough of a bat to play at 1B / DH, and is at least decent defensively as a catcher, shouldn't he catch? Or, you fully convert him to another position, or trade him. Some odd arrangement where he bounces around the field doesn't seem the best way to utilize his skill set.
But the goal isn't to best utilize his skill set, the goal is to win the World Series as many times as possible before we die which means you want some combination of putting the pieces together to get more out of them than any other team does and shuffling the pieces around so we're very good as often as possible.
Imagine for the moment, that Swihart hits the bigs to start 2015. I don't think anyone thinks that's going to happen, it's just a hypothetical.
If Vazquez starts five times at catcher during a week, and Swihart starts two times at catcher, and two times at first base, what happens?
Well, it means Napoli gets two days where he isn't playing first base. If you DH him one of those days, you're giving Napoli and Ortiz both a day off. I don't think anyone really thinks Swihart is going to hit as well as Napoli or Ortiz, but I do think that giving guys time off is one of the best things you can do to keep them healthy. Human bodies are great at healing themselves but they need some downtime to do it. Giving Napoli and Ortiz more time off is likely to keep them healthier, which means they're more likely to be around when you really need them like, say, in post season games.
And the same thing aplies to the catchers. If they share the load, they will likely both be healthier and since we're talking about young guys who are going to be around for a while, this is fairly likely to extend their careers.
And you know what? Having two starting caliber catchers is some of that deep depth that gets bandied about. If we trade Swihart and Vazquez gets a significant injury, our chances of winning it all that season take a sizeable hit.