Seattle Sports Insider

"Degree of Difficulty" Tweener Calls

BJOL chimes in on Gordon's article (well, kinda-shorta)

Posted by

4/22/13

Gordon wrote a fascinating article about "tweener" position players, Degree of Difficulty. The Founding Father had -- in effect -- a reply for us:

...............

In the 1990's, if am remembering it right, you wrote an essay -- it observed that the best, most winning organizations had a tendency to put "tweener" position players at the easier position, the one at which they could relax, hit, and succeed. (Might have been centered on Howard Johnson.)

You remarked that in Strat-O-Matic or APBA or whatever, it was an obvious strategy to put the LF/CF's in CF, the SS/3B's at SS, etc ... but that in real life, the clubs that had success tended not to do that. ...

Would this still be your perception of what the best teams do nowadays? If you're GM, and in doubt about a player's best position, would you have a tendency to put the player in the easier position or take it case-by-case? - thanks, Jeff

Asked by: jemanji

Answered: 4/21/2013

Well, I don't remember writing that, but I think that's essentially right. Successful organizations generally don't ask players to do things that tax the limits of their abilities. If there is a pitcher who can post a 3.50 ERA as a reliever or a 4.50 ERA as a starter, a 100-win team will make him a reliever. A 100-loss team will make him a starter. If there is a hitter who would be pretty good in the 6 hole but poor as a cleanup hitter, a 100-loss team will use him as the cleanup hitter. If you're a basketball team using a power forward as a center or using a point guard as a scoring guard, you're probably not going to win.

It's not philosophy; its resources--but it has implications for game theory. In a table game it may help you to play a third baseman as a D+ shortstop and live with the defense, but in real life it only helps you if you're going to lose, anyway. It only helps you when you're short of resources.

Most of the time, but not absolutely. Derek Jeter is not what you could call an A+ defensive shortstop. The Yankees COULD have reacted to his defensive challenges by moving him to second base or left field or something--but they didn't; they left him at short as he got older and older, stretching his defense to get more bats in the lineup. That was the right thing for them to do, obviously. If you can get by with it, go for it. But most of the time, you won't get by with it.

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"When you're short of resources." Hmmmmmmmm.

The less you like your minor-league system, the more you would tend to shift Ackley from LF to 2B, Montero from C to DH, etc.

The more you like your minor-league players, the more you would tend to push these players to their easier positions. ::taps chin::

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"Most of the time, but not absolutely." I think Dustin Ackley is COMFORTABLE at second base now; he doesn't have fans and announcers and etc etc yapping about how much he's hurting the team out there. If there's an exception, he might be first in line.

All sorts of players we could chat about through this lens -- Blake Beavan as swing man, Nick Franklin's switch hitting, Michael Saunders' CF/RF splits, Carter Capps' RP/SP gig --

Blinkin' right, it ain't absolute. Should Chris Sale have stayed in the bullpen?

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Zduriencik did, boldly, move Ackley and Montero to positions that were not only "tweener" positions, but actually to positions that drew huge amounts of scoffing. Naturally we wonder whether the trio (with Smoak) is slow to evolve because of this. Of course, SSI was emphatic about moving Ackley to 2B -- see "Large mammals, small mammals" -- and very open to Montero catching. On the other hand, it's been emphatic about allowing Franklin to bat lefty.

Ackley is taking good swings now; Montero, I'm not sure is behind the curve when you consider his age anyway. Smoak is on his last gasp for me.

Not sure that Mo' Dawg isn't right to wonder whether it's the MANAGER who is in danger of being ID'ed as the root cause, whether that is accurate or not.

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Ax yer own Q's for $3 per month. Why BJOL wouldn't be the MOST expensive baseball site on the internet, we got no idea. But it's virtually the cheapest, right?

Cheers,

Jeff

Blog:

Sabermetrics

Comments

Short on resources

I like that phraseology! When the Ackley move took place, we were short on 2B, or guys that projected to MLB 2B.
Now? We're loaded at that position. No such move would take place with Romero, Franklin and Miller hanging around, not to mention Seager.
It's LF that is a scarce resource for us. My goodness, we're running Bay, Ibanez and Chavez out there. Ackley would be a LF, were he drafted last season and this his first in AA.
If it takes sending him to LF to get Franklin's LH bat into the lineup, make it so (if we've decided to be willing to pack forever Ryan's Mendoza line bat).
We should be using this same reasoning to move Franklin AWAY from the switch-hitting. The Smoak failure should plug in here, too.
Interestingly, when we moved Ackley off of 1B, we did not yet have Smoak. We did have Branyan, but he was 33 years old. We weren't 1B rich at that time.
I have no sense of Wedge's locker room relationship with his players. I would think his schtick might get old, but that is only a guess. He may be well-liked and even well-respected.
I think the journalists who hang in the locker room day-to-day like him. I sense they get great access, which they should like. But we're in Year 3 of the Wedge Era. There is no way he survives into Year 4 unless we push over the 80 Win threshhold. It's hard to call that a decent bet, right now.
So at some point, it becomes apparent somebody will fall on the sword (or be forced to) and changes will be made.
Eric Wedge may well be a terrific guy, for all I know. But the Sarge thing isn't working. Let's try something else.
This week.
Ditto 1B. Ditto LF.
Just plain ditto.
moe