Random Hypothetical on a Slow Friday Morning

I could be working, but screw that.

Let's say you're a GM and you manage to stumble into two genuinely extraordinary defensive outfielders- think peak Andruw and peak Devon White. Whoever the specific names might be, they are two wonderful center fielders, once-every-20-years kind of guys (you have two of them, so it's not really "once" every 20 years, but ignore that).

Would it ever be feasible to play extended time with just the two outfielders and five infielders? Teams obviously do that in desperation at the end of some games, but I mean as a regular thing. Maybe if you played in a park with a really small outfield? Or only games started by extreme ground ball pitchers? Or would it just be a catastrophe in every possible scenario?

I would not. I would add a great hitting horrible defense guy and stick him on left field line. Let him hit .330 with 35 home runs and just play a small part of the outfield.

You'd get absolutely destroyed. Think of all the plays Andruw just barely got to out of his zone during his career. Now add roughly twice the distance he needs to cover.

I don't think the added value of essentially eliminating ground balls would make up for the dramatic increase in doubles and triples (and fly all singles).

When we talk phenomenal outfielders we are talking about them having a catch radius of an extras.. 10 feet? If that. You are still leaving a drastic amount of space.

It maybe could work for a brief time. And that's assuming you have the right kind of pitching staff. But I think over time those exceptional outfielders would start to wear down.

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Originally Posted by thewupk

It maybe could work for a brief time. And that's assuming you have the right kind of pitching staff. But I think over time those exceptional outfielders would start to wear down.

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Yeah, that occurred to me too. You'd need pretty good back-up outfielders to rest your starters, which would basically defeat the purpose of the two-man outfield.

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Originally Posted by MadduxFanII

Yeah, that occurred to me too. You'd need pretty good back-up outfielders to rest your starters, which would basically defeat the purpose of the two-man outfield.

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I think you would definitely lose all your foul ball (RF, LF) outfield outs and likely end up with a ton of triples on balls down the line.

So, unless you have a staff FULL of ground ball pitchers, I can't see it.

A bigger problem to me is trying to sort out the offensive impact. The only reason I could see making this move is to add a solid fielding IF. These dudes tend to suck at hitting, so you're likely replacing a Corner OF bat with a Middle IF bat. That alone would seem to negate the benefit of a 5th IF before we even consider the 2 OF portion.

For that reason, Coach Chris's idea would make a lot more sense to me. Put a dude like David Ortiz in left and let the others do most of the work.

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Originally Posted by Coach_Chris

I would not. I would add a great hitting horrible defense guy and stick him on left field line. Let him hit .330 with 35 home runs and just play a small part of the outfield.

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If you can find that guy, I’d play him on the the line in left no matter who you have in center and right.

No, this would be a catastrophe in every sense.

Even all-time great OFs aren't playing in a video game where they can hit a 'turbo' button and run at 3X speed. You would either play them closer to CF and have everything anywhere near the line fall in for a hit, or you would play them further away from CF and leave not only everything down the line open but also everything hit to CF.

Even if you had 3 all-time great OFs, there would still be plenty of balls fall in for hits. With 2, you would be screwed.

You probably couldn't do it full time, but I bet there are some batters whose spray charts indicate this would be the best defensive alignment against them.

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Originally Posted by Enscheff

You probably couldn't do it full time, but I bet there are some batters whose spray charts indicate this would be the best defensive alignment against them.

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Like those extreme left handed pull hitters. Just load up the right side of the field and pitch in.

Tend to agree with everyone else BUT...

In some parks I think it could work, for example:

Fenway Park- With the green monster in LF you can have your two outfielders play extremely shaded to the RF side.

AT&T Park- The Giants already do this with their RF by shading him towards triple's alley (this would be the hardest of them)

Minute Maid Park- Same thing as Fenway, but with the Crawford boxes's in LF you could have your outfielders play a normal CF/RF with a little shift towards LF


Again, let me say I agree that this wouldn't work but there are a couple ballparks where I think maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't kill you.





By the way... Fun little hypothetical [MENTION=236]MadduxFanII[/MENTION]

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Originally Posted by Coach_Chris

I would not. I would add a great hitting horrible defense guy and stick him on left field line. Let him hit .330 with 35 home runs and just play a small part of the outfield.

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I'll take that guy anytime. How about Ryan Klesko?