Look a lot better if you just look at the 3 years before 2010 (including 2010 in their average OPS+ to comment on how 2010 wasn't that aberrant is cheating a bit). Franklin Gutierrez had a 98 OPS+ in the 3 years leading up to 2010, so an 87 OPS+ (and especially the 80 OPS+ he posted after May) was a big decline. You already noted Lopez, but Kotchman was at a 101 OPS+ over the last 3 years so it was an almost identical OPS crash. Milton Bradley was a 136 OPS+ over the previous 3 years and a 127 OPS+ since 2003. Perhaps he is done now after his worst 2 years in that span, but there was certainly a lot of hope, even here, that he would rebound to a 115-125 OPS+ with the Mariners and be a solid 3/4 hitter.
And you can't bury Jack for being a "Defense first, second, and third" guy. He moved Ackley to Second, and kept him there despite consistently mediocre reviews of his defense, The switch of Figgins from his strong position at third to second where he had less than a 1000 major league innings of experience, the position players he drafted were not reknown for their defensive abilities, such as Rich Poythress who is already being talked about as a career DH.
I don't think there's any real evidence that Jack is thinking only of defense.
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