October 03, 2008
Marlins Want to be the '82 Yankees
I can't believe I'm reading this:
For a sweet change, this won't be the kind of shake-up that has twice before followed Marlins success -- a fire sale to drastically cut player payroll. That is the one benefit of being last in the majors in payroll: Tough to drastically cut what barely exists.
No, this time the shake-up will be to transform the Marlins from a power-hitting team whose home runs could not disguise its flaws into one better rooted in pitching, speed and defense.
Don't these people read old Bill James Abstracts? From page 96 of the 1983 edition, in regards to the Yankees signing Dave Collins the previous off season:
In the ledger of bad ideas of historical magnitude, enter now the name of George Steinbrenner, cited for his 1981 argument that the era of the home run was over, and that the Yankees were to become a slashing, speed-based team in tune with the 1980s. The chance that this might work was roughly equal to the chance that Ronald Reagan might marry Joan Baez. ...
Besides that, however, there is another problem. You cannot win a pennant by stealing bases. Nobody ever has, nobody ever will. It cannot be done. It is an argument that cannot be won, a position that cannot be defended.
The article goes on to show the average finish of teams who led the league in certain offensive stats. Teams that led in runs scored had the highest average finish, followed by triples, Slugging Pct, home runs, doubles, batting average, walks and stolen bases.
James then looked at the average place of the teams that finished last in those categories and took the difference. The two most important stats were runs scored and slugging percentage. Last was stolen bases.
So the Marlins are going to trade power for speed? Good luck with that.
Oh God, you had to go and remind me of the '82 Yankees. And for a team that had been pretty dominant from 76 - 81, that was a real low spot.
I still haven't forgiven myself for getting rid of my Baseball Abstracts. Bad Robert.
The Marlines might improve, however, by trading power for defense and/or pitching; that is, offense for defense. There are points at which those trades make sense; if you can trade a small amount of offense (and you have offense to trade i.e. that's not the weakest point) for a bigger improvement on defense, that makes sense.
One recent example is Tampa Bay; they dramatically improved their defense (possibly the single biggest improvement on defense in MLB history!) leading to their division title. Improving the offense by that much would of course have been impossible, and even if possible would not have done the same things. If you're really, really bad at something, getting back to mediocre is likely to pay larger dividends for lower cost than trying to go from mediocre to really, really good.
"Speed" is often lumped in with pitching and defense, but that's a mistake. "Speed" doesn't equal good defense or good offense (although it can make good defense or offense better). You can't steal first, and you can't run down balls in the stands.
Hey, it could work. All they have to do is arrange to play all of their games with genuine 1911 baseballs. IIRC the 1911 New York Giants still hold the MLB record for stolen bases (347) in a season and they had a pretty good season (of course, I seem to recall they led in more than a few other categories, too).
Memo to the Marlins: do you want Juan Pierre back? I bet the Dodgers would make you a great offer for him.
I love stolen bases, but I... yes even I... cannot exactly get behind this move.