MAN, I am SO here for a Dorrian feature on this fine Friday. Woot woot!
SO, to that end, let's dive into the defense - personally, having watched a significant number of his innings in Nashville - I want to highlight some of his web gems to showcase his underrated range; arm; and athleticism.
Firstly, from SS. A significant reason why I find his errors frustrating is he routinely showcases he has the athleticism to handle the position. I personally feel the errors are more a result of rushing things. Just take this play for example:
As I state above, when he is fumbling things at SS it is typically rushed or it is typically just a possible mental error in the moment getting ahead of himself. He has the athleticism in spades:
Interestingly, Dorrian even filled in at 1B in a pinch. Wether it was injury-induced or that strange Toro/Dorrian/<insert Catcher>/Devanney (after one egregious fill-in, Devanney was given the axe😅) rotation after Singleton left for Houston. As one would expect, he more than fit the bill in a pinch:
As I've said on more than one occasion, however, Dorrian's best work likely comes from 3B where his underrated athleticism and arm continually rises to the occasion. Here's a series of fantastic plays (from 3B and SS)showing that undervalued range. He does this routinely:
Suffice to say, there's a bevy of reasons I've been banging the "Why don't we talk about Dorrian more?!" megaphone for a season and a half. Since acquiring him from Norfolk, he has only gotten better and stated his case. We have a guy doing this routinely on defense and he's giving 20 + HR pop? That's smack dab in the middle of the prospect radar for me. It's been a true pleasure watching him rock the Sounds uniform. When the Brewers traded Devanney this off-season, one of the first things I considered was they have an equal if not more talented player with better range in Dorrian. They traded from depth. They have ready depth. And, also, long live the legend that is Cam Devanney. May he flourish.