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          Dodgers Report

          Could Chase Utley be Dodgers' everyday second baseman?

          • Mark Saxon, ESPN Staff WriterDec 9, 2015, 10:39 PM
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              Mark Saxon covers the St. Louis Cardinals for ESPN.com. He served as the Dodgers team reporter for ESPNLosAngeles.com. through the 2015 season. He spent six years at the Orange County Register, and began his career at the Oakland Tribune, where he started an 11-year journey covering Major League Baseball. He has also covered colleges, including USC football and UCLA basketball.
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          NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- What's to say Chase Utley can't be the Los Angeles Dodgers' everyday second baseman next season?

          The snarky, but also factual, response, of course, is that he batted .212 in 2015 and had a career-worst .629 OPS, that he will turn 37 in about a week, and that his previously stellar defense regressed to roughly league average. according to several advanced metrics.

          But the Dodgers seem to think a bounce-back isn't out of the question. In fact, they believed that notion enough to invest $7 million to bring him back. The deal became official Wednesday after Utley's physical turned up no red flags.

          The front office is being vague about his role, suggesting he will play some second, third and first base. Considering the Dodgers have no obvious solution at second base, it's also possible Utley could seize the position, either during spring training or once the season starts.

          Other in-house options are 21-year-old rookie Jose Peraza and Enrique Hernandez, whom the Dodgers might prefer to keep in a utility role. Utley is the only one of the three who bats left-handed.

          For his part, Utley said he's not ruling out playing every day. He has always been one of the most physically fit players in the game.

          "I spend a lot of time during this part of the year to prepare myself to play as many games as possible," Utley said. "That would be the goal in my preparation. Again we'll see what happens, but I'd like to play as much as possible."

          An arbitrator has yet to hear Utley's appeal of a two-game suspension stemming from his hard slide into New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada during the playoffs. Utley didn't want to discuss the play in detail before the appeal but said, "I felt I made a hard, aggressive slide trying to break up a double play in a playoff game."

          Mets fans, of course, booed Utley mercilessly during pregame introductions and serenaded him with chants during both games there. Utley didn't play in either game at Citi Field. Utley said the treatment wasn't much different than what he, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard heard when they went to New York with the rival Philadelphia Phillies.

          "Yeah, they didn't seem like they were too nice to us back then either," Utley said.