to Van Slyke!
Now I wonder if this same approach will work with MLB quality hitters? We're on pace to have an all time worst hitting OF. OPS+ of 77, 59 and 69? C'mon, three black holes in the OF? With the other contributors being 94 and 11. Weren't we better off with Ibanez and his 124 last year? Or if we went with a backed-up Saunders in CF and added Nelson Cruz and his 155 OPS+ in RF?
Two easily addressed areas, OF and bullpen, could have been upgraded for low $ in the offseason. Now here we sit in April with very few options. Go ahead and call up the 29 year old career minor leaguer. Throw all the bullpen up in the air like a handful of pick-up sticks and let their roles fall where they may. Move guys around the lineup. Not gonna make much difference, we're pretty much stuck with what we have for now. The time to get help was in December.
OF defense might not be killing us, but it's barely helping in a 3-3 ballgame.
.
Subscribers to Bill James Online have daily access to John Dewan's defensive runs saved. By permission, we'll run those for Apr. 26, 2014, so's y'all can see what yer missin':
Can you read that okay? Well, here is last year's final chart:
The 2013 Mariners had, more or less, the league's THREE worst outfield defenders, all lined up beside each other. That's not unlike an NFL team putting three 209-lb. defensive linemen adjacent to one another; it creates a certain appeal as to a rather obvious offensive attack.
As SSI pointed out at the time, the OF numbers were unnecessary because the OF's were playing too shallow. This year they've moved the OF's way back.
Now, it's not that Dustin Ackley suddenly takes Cavalia-graceful routes to the fly balls. Both he and Abraham Almonte here a "THHOOOOOOCKKKK!", snap their heads up into the sky, and start running in a generally backwards direction. If the ball is near the fence, then the ball is going to be off the fence, and Ackley/Almonte are going to be lying in the warning-track dirt.
But it goes to show you: Get some fast guys, and back them up, and fly balls aren't rocket science.
..........
It's interesting that the Mariners, uniquely, don't benefit defensively from shifts. (Dr. D can certainly guarantee you that, offensively, they're being crushed by shifts.) This is just soooooo ... MARINER.
But hey. Last year, the M's were -99 runs with the leather. This year they're perfectly decent. That is one whale of a nice accomplishment in one offseason.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
Why do the runs saved in both 2013 and 2014 suggest that the AL loses a giant pile of runs to the NL?