Baseball Musings: The Finley Deal

September 16, 2005

The Finley Deal

If the Angels fail to reach the post season, some of the blame can be attributed to the Steve Finley signing. Finley did not perform offensively this year, and his lack of offense led to the defensive hole that lost last night's game.

The Angels, despite the fact that they have led the American League West for all but a few days this season, have not played well starting with the series before the All-Star break against Seattle.
The problem is basic -- lack of offense.

One of Scioscia's attempted solutions was installing Chone Figgins, his all-purpose guy, as his regular center fielder.

Figgins is an infielder learning to play the outfield. In the major leagues. In a pressure-packed pennant race.

Last night that hurt LAnaheim:

Colon no doubt thought he was sailing along with a 2-0 lead in the third inning. With Brandon Inge on first and one out, Chris Shelton hit a lazy fly to short center for the apparent second out.
As Yogi Berra might say, the ball ain't caught until it's caught.

Somehow, Figgins outran the ball, which is quite an accomplishment when said ball is in front of you. Instead of running to where the ball would land and stopping, which is standard procedure, he continued to run and the ball fell behind him.

Inge scored from first as Figgins scrambled back to get the ball. That was an official error, pure and simple, no argument.

Colon no doubt thought he still was in pretty good shape in the fourth with two out and two on when Curtis Granderson hit a blast to center. It was a blast, but it was going to stay in the park.

In the bottom of the inning, Bengie Molina would hit a similar blast that Granderson, the Detroit center fielder, would catch at the fence for a long out.

Figgins managed to misplay his ball into a three-run inside-the-park home run. It was not an official error. It was a colossal misplay.

Finley, a fine defensive outfielder, makes one and perhaps both of those plays.

In this case, the best defense is a good offense. :-)

Posted by David Pinto at 08:34 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Man, if only they had another Gold Glove center fielder on their roster...

Posted by: Ryan at September 16, 2005 10:10 AM

I don't know the numbers from this year but watching and anecdotal evidence says that Finley has lost 3-4 steps and is now a bad defensive CF. Figgins may be the best the team has.

Posted by: Andy at September 16, 2005 10:55 AM

Unfortunately for the A's, they have their own bad deal in Kendall. The two players have similar OPS, Kendall has 10 winshares to Finley's 5, but he is been paid much more.

Posted by: wilson at September 16, 2005 11:04 AM

Well, Ryan, I guess they DO have Darin Erstad, but really...you couldn't have meant him, could you? I mean, isn't 1st base the more important defensive position? Plus, they get all of Erstad's terrific hitting value more at 1st than anyplace else. It isn't, you know, a total misappropriation of available resources or anything.

Posted by: Dave S. at September 16, 2005 11:17 AM

Anybody who's watched the Angels on a regular basis this year would know that Finley has been absolultely horrible defensively in center field. It's one of the most disapointing things about the signing, because not only is he incapable of hitting, but he's nowhere near his gold glove self. In fact, I would say that Figgins is the superior defender this season. Yesterday is just one of those days, and he had a bad game. I think, up until yesterday he had made 2 errors in his last 90 or so games while playing six different positions (that's what they said on the broadcast last night). He'd probably be even better in center field if they'd given him the job earlier and dumped Finley.

Posted by: Adam at September 16, 2005 12:06 PM

Dave, you are totally correct. By my calculations Erstad saves the team about 1000 runs a game by playing first base. And every team needs a first baseman that hits like a catcher with a really bad chest cold.

Posted by: Ryan at September 16, 2005 01:17 PM

Checked ESPN's fielding numbers for 2005. Neither Finley nor Figgins have enough games to qualify in CF, so take the numbers with even more grains of salt than usual.

But if anything, Figgins looks better. His .983 fpct is virtually identical to Finley's .984. His range factor is significantly better at 3.26 compared to 2.67, and his zone rating is slightly better: .859 vs. .851.

Anything can happen on small samples like Figgins in CF. But he doesn't look that bad out there compared to Finley.

Compared to the qualifying CF's, his range factor is better than any of them (!), though his zone rating and fielding percentage stink.

By the way, the leader among the qualifying CF's in both range factor and zone rating is...Seattle's immortal Jeremy Reed. Andruw Jones is worse than average on both measures. Next time you want to start an argument, casually suggest that Jones smells bad as a CF compared to Reed.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 16, 2005 01:50 PM

Oh, I feel a little guilty about dumping on Reed. He does look to be a superb glove in center. Unfortunately he hasn't hit anywhere near his minor league line of .327/.390/.478.

SAFECO will do that to you. Reed has managed to put up a .340 major league OBP. So maybe there's hope for improvement, especially because he's only 24.

Heard Niehaus on Extra Innings mumble that Reed has been something of a disappointment for the Mariners. I can understand that. But if Seattle loses patience, another rebuilding team could do worse than to pick him up.

Posted by: Casey Abell at September 16, 2005 03:31 PM

The Yankees could use Reed.

Posted by: mike harris at September 16, 2005 03:45 PM

Sure will be interesting to watch the CF market this offseason...

Posted by: Jason at September 16, 2005 06:02 PM

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