Braves1976 (03-14-2017), jpx7 (03-14-2017)
Honestly, I would just as soon give the job to Micah Johnson. The blessing of being a bad team is that you can afford to take chances with players with loud tools and hope that you strike gold with one of them.
Braves1976 (03-14-2017)
jpx7 (03-14-2017)
Braves1976 (03-14-2017)
Yeah...I was talking about a 4th OFer that could produce in a semi-platoon role over 300+ PAs, not a guy who wasn't good enough to be the 25th man on another team's bench.
I guess you could call your idea a valid argument though. So at least there's improvement on that front.
One of Micah Johnson/Jace/Bonifactio/D'Arnaud or a player not yet on the team is likely to serve as a late inning defensive replacement/pinch runner for Kemp.
Yes, dammit. Chris Ellis. I even looked it up, but I guess that tells you what I subconsciously must think of Blair's chances.
Maybe they should have gotten a better return out of Simmons. I just don't fault trading him in their particular situation.
I tend to think defense value is overrated by the measurements and I have trouble taking the ones that fluctuate drastically year to year very seriously. But defense is not unimportant by any stretch. Simmons was really fun to watch and he'd be a great player to add to a contending team full of offense, but I'm not sure what his purpose was going to be in Atlanta. Hopefully, they will end up getting something out of him.
Runs saved can fluctuate in a given year due to many reasons just like offensive runs. A couple if the chances and the overall small sample size a defender has in a given year compared to being on offense. It's usually a third of a full offensive season.
And Simmons would of been here to help win games.
Braves1976 (03-14-2017)
Braves1976 (03-14-2017)
Well there's certainly less randomness in a defensive play than an offensive play, i.e., a defensive player doesn't have to worry about the offensive player knocking the ball out of his glove the same way an offensive player has to worry about (1) who is pitching and (2) if the defender catches his line drives.
I'm also not stating that defense can't vary year to year, but logically I would presume it's much more consistent than offense.
Think of how small a sample size is for hitters a 1/3 of the season. That's a whole year for a defender. Chances a player has can vary from year to year just as the level of play at that position can vary from year to year. Also actual defensive ability comes and goes a lot quicker than offensive ability in most cases.
Braves1976 (03-14-2017), jpx7 (03-14-2017)
Braves1976 (03-14-2017), jpx7 (03-14-2017)
I agree in the aggregate, but if you distill it down to a single play, defense is less random then offense.
Circling back to your original point - I agree with your overall premise, but I think it's fine to reliability of defensive metrics, while acknowledging their value. I refer defensive metrics all the time and accept them at face value for the most part, but there's certainly limited cases where I don't think they match reality.
Freshmaker (03-14-2017)