Fly Ball Staff/Outfield Defense

[nsacpi]

One of the subtleties of building a team efficiently is to match your defensive strengths to your pitching staff's tendencies. It is no accident that when Hudson and Medlen were replaced by Harang and Santana that Simmons' defensive metrics dropped off and Heyward's went up. The value of both was closely tied to what kind of pitching staff we had.

Now we are contemplating an outfield with Gattis in left and Justin Upton in right. Miller, Teheran and Minor are all extreme fly ball pitchers. Wood is the only ground ball pitcher in our current rotation. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

[chipchildress]

that's just in the short term with a team in rebuilding mode.

on the flip side, if gattis is hitting home runs and not as many in the gap as others might, his ability to beat these new and improved shifts and stronger defenses paired with pitching will increase his value. maybe his ability to beat the shifts and strong outfield defenses with his power will end up being more valuable than having him be an average fielder.