The question for me is at what point do your returns diminish with defensive adds? We were already first in DER, so how much of an improvement can be had? How much more can be squeezed out of the defensive end of the equation?
It becomes an obsession instead of an undervalued commodity when your returns fall off considerably.
The Rangers used to try to win everything with offense, but at some point you need to be able to pitch against the other guys. We already play D - what we don't do is score. The Yankees won a WS when they added defense to their incredible offensive machine. Without some offense, we're not winning anything, even with all the gains we can possible harvest from defense.
I don't know where the tipping point is on the tradeoff from scoring to defense, and the adage is that a run saved is equivalent to a run scored, but at some point the defense is so tight that almost all the runs that can be saved ARE being saved, and there's nothing left to harvest from a defensive perspective.
And at that point we'll need to add runs by actually SCORING them - whether or not those scored runs cost us more money to obtain. Refusing to add offense and instead going for the cheaper add of more glove savvy then does become an obsession instead of a value choice.
~G
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