Rosenthal: Flip-flopping Cabrera’s position is problematic

meep-meep…some afternoon Robothal for ya’ll.

“You can see that he’s a tremendous player, but he’s still young — he has a lot of exuberance, a lot of vim,” Dombrowski says. “Once in a while at third base, maybe his concentration wanes a bit. But at first base, it appeared that didn’t happen at all. It can’t — you’re involved all the time.”

The difficulty of playing first base is consistently underestimated, but Cabrera has a good arm and good hands. He once was a shortstop, and began his major-league career as a left fielder with the Marlins in ‘03.

Perhaps Cabrera will follow the example of the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols, who moved to first base full-time in 2004 due to his elbow condition, only to evolve from a below-average defender into a Gold Glove winner through hard work and determination.

Then again, when Cabrera trimmed down for his first spring training with the Tigers, he seemed committed to improving his defense at third; his biggest problem last season was that he was overweight, limiting his ability to field slow rollers.

Turns out he was not much better than before.

He’s only 25. And he’s already restricted to first base.