How About 9 Endy Chavezes?
I know that Wak said “If the season started today … Endy would play left.” ... I also see it as an indication that the club is SERIOUS about defensive effort. A key point here is that everyone, (including Wlad, I’m sure), knows that Endy is an empty spot in the batting order. The *ONLY* reason he’d be queueing up in front of Wlad for PT is because the club is actually serious about upgrading the defense.
Ya Sandy... let's hope that it's aimed at Wlad.
... they are indeed serious about DER, but how serious do you want to get? You want to play a SS/2B at first base? oh, wait... :- )
Personally I'm bemused at the whole idea that you could, in theory, put nine TERRIFIC defensive players out there, all hitting for Chavez' 69 OPS+, and that you'd win. ... as though everybody in the history of baseball missed this idea.
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=== REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM Dept. ===
"Reductio ad absurdum" being the logical device of taking a principle to its furthest point -- so as to make it easier to see the implications involved.
If putting Endy Chavez / Charlton Jimerson / Jason Ellison / Carl Lewis in left field were a net gain to the ballclub IN LEFT FIELD, then by extension the principle would apply for all nine positions as a group.
There isn't any debating this point. To the neo-sabermetrician who sees baseball as a John Benson RAR/$ exercise, Endy Chavez simply pencils out as providing more net at his position than (say) Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr. and/or Raul Ibanez.
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Endy Chavez is a 3.2 runs per game hitter.
So what happens if you put nine 3.2 RC/27 hitters out there, in the American League 2009, and these nine guys are all among the top three defenders at their positions? What happens then?
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You take 11 pitchers who would otherwise run ERA's of 4.60, and you put nine great defenders behind them, and if the DER goes from .700 to (absurdly) .740 ... their ERA is going to drop to 4.00 - 4.25.
Now, Matty, grab your Pythag calculator. What happens when a ballclub scores 3.2 runs a game, and gives up 4.0? Does it contend?
Or supposing that the nine best gloves in the game cut your ERA, impossibly, to 3.50. If you score 3.2 and give up 3.5, do you win ninety games?
(The 2001 Mariners had a DER that was miiiiilllllllles better than #2, possibly the widest DER gap in history. Their ERA was 3.54 -- WITH a terrific pitching staff including Moyer, Garcia, Sasaki, Nelson, Rhodes, and a K/BB/HR result that was scary good. The tremendous defense *might* have shaved 0.3 runs off the ERA.)
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Nine Mark Belangers, Endy Chavezes and Jason Ellisons are going to score 3.2 runs a game, and there just isn't any way that a .740 DER is going to turn 3.2 runs and 11 average pitchers into a winning club.
Nine Mark Belangers and Endy Chavezes are going to lose to nine Ted Williamses and Mike Piazzas, and they're going to lose by average scores of 4-9. The best-fielding 69 OPS+ hitters in baseball are going to go 30-132 against the worst-fielding 140 OPS+ All-Stars in the game.
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This simple understanding, which has been agreed on by EVERY great manager since Connie Mack, has now become completely opaque to the neo-sabermetrician -- who no longer can decide whether Bobby Abreu or Endy Chavez is the better choice to start in left field. We have reached the point, in our zeal for defense, where we literally no longer can decide whether a HALL OF FAME BASEBALL PLAYER IS BETTER THAN A BENCH PLAYER.
Paralysis by analysis. :- ) Bill James was always very careful to run all of his ideas through the chuckle-meter. That's why you never saw him write anything like "Endy Chavez may be as valuable as Bobby Abreu."
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If baseball were as simple as putting Pokey Reese at 2B and backup CF's in the corners, then Charles O. Finley would have won pennants for $8M. He didn't, because he knew that it wouldn't work.
And since you can see that it does not work with a team full of Endy Chavezes, you ought to be able to see that it does not work, in real life, when you are talking about the LF position in isolation.
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I'm not trying to be snotty. This idea, coming from terrific analysts, that maybe the 31-year-old Endy Chavez is a starting left fielder to be preferred over Raul Ibanez or Bobby Abreu, is simply the most amazing thing I've ever read in baseball literature. I mean it good-naturedly, but I have NEVER seen such a mass hallucination.
Nine Endy Chavezes can't be right, and therefore Endy Chavez, LF cannot be right.
Gimme nine Rauls against your nine Endys, at 2:1 odds to you. How much equity do you have in your house? :- )
Cheers,
Dr D