Mike Wilner agrees with me!

So apparently the all-knowing Mike Wilner of the FAN 590 agrees with me. I make posts on Wilner's blog on the FAN website regularly, and posted my ideas about how to get Randy Ruiz into the lineup, and his response was: It’s not a bad idea, and it keeps Bautista from being a complete bench player. And Encarnacion can play first against lefties to keep him in the line-up everyday.. For Wilner to say, "it's not a bad idea", I interpret that as he thinks it's a good idea, or as good of an idea as any out there.

I like his addition he's made to my plan to put Encarnacion at 1st base against lefties. Offensively, it makes perfect sense. Lyle Overbay, being a left-handed batter, fares much worse against left-handed pitching than the right-handed batter, Edwin Encarnacion. Against left-handed pitching, over the course of their careers, the two players' numbers are as follows:
OVERBAY - .262/.307/.398
ENCARNACION - .270/.375/.464

Overbay's batting average isn't that much worse against lefties than it is against righties, but you see a much more significant decrease in production when it comes to his on-base percentage (walks) and slugging percentage (power). I'm just a touch skeptical about Wilner's suggestion to put Encarnacion at first base simply because of the fact that Encarnacion has started just a single game at first base in his major league career. However, the transition from 3rd base to 1st base is not a difficult one. That is actually the transition that Blue Jays' prospect Brett Wallace has recently gone through. With Encarnacion, in my opinion, it's his throwing arm that is of more concern than his glove, and at 1st base, there's much less need to have a solid throwing arm than at 3rd base. Let's just hope that he doesn't throw the ball into left field when he's trying to turn a 3-6-3 double play!