It is happening in most professional sports. Teams are looking for "versatile" players, athletes that can play more than one position. The concept is that would give the manager or coach flexibility in game planning and strategy if he has more interchangeable pieces.
This may be well and good for bench or role players. But it seems to diminish the value of starters.
As for the Cubs, this year again they have a bunch of bench players vying for starting and platoon roles.
New infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio could be paid starter money if he makes the team, and deposes either the unknown center fielder already in camp, or displaces Barney at second base. Or, he becomes a super utility bench player.
As bad as it seems, the Cubs have really only have
two openings among position players.
Infield: Anthony Rizzo, Darwin Barney, Starlin Castro, Luis Valbuena and Donnie Murphy have jobs/platoon roles to go along with catchers Welington Castillo and George Kottaras.
Outfield: Nate Schierholtz, Ryan Sweeney, Justin Ruggiano, and Junior Lake are the only outfielders on the club's depth chart. Lake is a converted infielder playing out of position. Sweeney and Ruggiano are journeymen outfielders.
It would appear that the 5th outfield and one infield position are open to competition. Already on the 40-man roster are Logan Watkins, Josh Vitters, Brett Jackson and Mike Olt, all of whom have performance issues to address. The non-roster invitees are long shot darkhorses: Ryan Roberts, Ryan Kalish, Darnell McDonald, Mitch Maier and former rookie of the year, Chris Coghlan.
If you look at the potential final roster, you can see that it will be filled by mostly utility bench players. Only three position players could start elsewhere: Castro, Castillo and Rizzo. That is only 27 percent of your positional starters are projected to be major league starting material (possibly a combined 6.0 WAR). The rest of the positional squad appear to be replacement level talent.
So the Cubs will once again field a versatile squad of players, most of whom are not very good.
