{"id":1487,"date":"2013-02-28T19:05:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T00:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2013-02-28T19:05:55","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T00:05:55","slug":"white-sox-brent-morel-plays-at-shortstop-in-cactus-league-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2013\/02\/28\/white-sox-brent-morel-plays-at-shortstop-in-cactus-league-game\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox: Brent Morel plays at shortstop in Cactus League game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1391\" alt=\"brentmorel\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/02\/brentmorel.jpg\" width=\"594\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/02\/brentmorel.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/02\/brentmorel-300x194.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Brent Morel was the starting third basemen each for the last two Chicago White Sox opening day games. That trend is unlikely to continue but the 25-year-old is finding ways to stay in the teams plans.<\/p>\n<p>The White Sox &#8211; read Robin Ventura &#8211; see Morel as a super utility player. Morel is expected to see time around the infield this year even as the team signed Jeff Keppinger to a three-year deal worth $12 million to man third.<\/p>\n<p>Morel had not played shortstop since 2010 when he played an inning at the position in a spring training game against Milwaukee on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We went to him, and he&#8217;s done it before in the past in the minor leagues, as well as second base,&#8221; manager Robin Ventura <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/sports\/baseball\/whitesox\/chi-chicago-white-sox-brent-morel-shortstop-20130228,0,5002043.story\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a>. &#8220;With all the guys competing for jobs, it&#8217;s good to be able to have a little versatility like that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Still Morel has not given up the idea of being the teams regular third baseman.<\/p>\n<p>My goal still is to play third base every day,&#8221; Morel said. &#8220;I think that kind of has to be your mindset. And if they want me to play other positions and that&#8217;s going to get me to break camp and on that 25-man roster, then I&#8217;ll do anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Keppinger and Morel have comparable skill sets so if one player becomes hot the White Sox could easily exchange their roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brent Morel was the starting third basemen each for the last two Chicago White Sox opening day games. That trend is unlikely to continue but the 25-year-old is finding ways to stay in the teams plans. The White Sox &#8211; read Robin Ventura &#8211; see Morel as a super utility player. Morel is expected to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[203],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-1487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-brent-morel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}