Add new comment

There was a time when Bay was a much better player than Figgins. It just doesn't look like thats the case anymore. Bay is still an excellent hitter, but has declined significanly defensively in LF over the past 3 years, and hes probably not that far off from becoming a DH-only type.
Figgins, on the other hand, has turned into a tremendous defensive 3B and has polished his plate skills over the past two years. He led the AL in OOZ plays at 3B and was #1 in PMR in '08.
Guess who also tied Franklin Gutierrez for the most defensive runs saved according to Bill James' plus minus? Gutierrez and Figgins tied at 31 runs saved in '09.
I remember when we traded for Gut in the first place and the argument against him being a historically great defender was essentially "nobody is this good". This was despite the fact that we had all sorts of data that Gut PERFORMED as a +20-30 run full-time RF over the past two years. 
Over the past two years theres a lot of evidence that Figgins is one of the elite defending 3Bs in baseball. I'm thinking that Z is probably buying into Figgins' improvement as well. I'd bet on a 4-4.5 WAR season for Figgins in '10 (with a +10-15 run glove at 3B). We can get our offense at 1b and DH a LOT cheaper with something like Branyan + Thome.