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...It's a question of how many runs does he save you with a glove over your other options?
If you're playing in Cincinnati or Colorado or Arlington where any idiot can hit the ball out of the stadium with a half-decent check swing, how valuable is a big bat to you?  Yes, it's valuable, but if you can get a pitcher who can dominate for you and still easily replace your 30 HR / 30 2B top prospect with not one but TWO players from your minors with similar skillsets in THAT park, why not do it?
That was the thought of the Rangers, who had Chris Davis, Smoak AND Moreland who could all hit well in that park from 1B.  So they traded the most valuable one to other teams for the ace they needed and made the WS.
Is Smoak still likely the best of those 3 players?  Yes.  Is the delta between he and the other two especially significant given the park they play half their games in?  Not compared to Cliff Lee it isn't.
If Safeco DOES keep flyballs in the air for a really long time and make all its outfielders look like heroes of Greek myth, then how valuable is a truly special OF defender?  If Griffey can leave and Cameron is better in CF, then Winn comes in and excels, then Gutierrez makes all of them look like chumps...are we really that good at getting outfield defense or is it more likely that the home park helps everyone?
If it helps, then the difference between a special defender and a merely good one goes down, because there's only so special you can be on defense.  At some point all the territory is covered and you're overlapping with other defenders and that extra range is going to waste.
Franklin is a terrific defender.  But if the park makes good defenders into great ones anyway, how much value do I put on "terrific" versus "great?"
For me, the value of that delta between Gutierrez and Saunders does go down.
~G