Player Profiles: Shortstop - Nomar Garciaparra

Player: Nomar Garciaparra

2008 Stats: .264, eight homeruns, 28 RBIs

2008 Analysis: Oh Nomar, what are we to think of you? When you are consistently healthy, you can still hit, but therein lies the problem. Nomar made three trips to the DL this season.

The weird thing is that I can't quite figure out how to judge Nomar this year. He played half of April, none of May or June, almost all of July, the second half of August, and parts of September. He didn't play one season this year, he played three or four, so it's hard to really say how Nomar did.

I will say this though, he did flash signs of his offensive goodness in places during the season. He also played in three of the four infield positions throughout the season (including playing shortstop for the first time since 2005), moving around to help out the team, and that's definitely a big plus.

2009 Outlook: Nomar is currently a free agent. Of course I don't know what Nomar is thinking, but if I could take a guess, I would assume Nomar would like to be a starter somewhere. I would also assume Nomar would like to still play for the Dodgers. Well, we have a hole at 3rd base that needs to be filled, and it seems like a good fit to bring him back. ...but here's the thing. As much as I like Nomar, I can't trust him. I'm not willing to just resign Nomar and ink him in for 3rd base for the 2009 season because of his surprising ability to get hurt. He did make it into about 120 games in both 2006 and 2007 for us, but he hasn't played in more than that since 2003, so I'm a little bit scared of having a big hole at 3rd base for a good portion of the season.

I would, ideally, like to resign Nomar to be our mega-utility infielder. I'd like to keep him on the bench to pinch hit and spot start at 1st or 3rd, or maybe even a little shortstop and/or 2nd base, but I want, in no way, to end up relying on him. I want him to be part-part time player, part-coach, part-Dodger ambassador, but I don't want to put much more on him other than that. I've been disappointed too many times in the past, and I don't know if I can be hurt by him anymore (*tear*)...