Priced To Play A Certain Spot

1. To answer the initial question here, I think the Braves made the wrong move, for the wrong reasons and executed it poorly to boot. It was a total FUBAR operation for the following reasons.

A. Practically anyone (LF or 3B) would have been better than Vinny Castilla, who is no longer able to play regularly at the major league level.

B. Schuerholz got it backwards. Moving Chipper to left because a third baseman is cheaper than a left fielder is totally untrue UNLESS you're talking about a poor third baseman, which is always cheaper than a poor left fielder. Why? A bad third baseman usually has a few defensive skills, but no offense while a bad left fielder usually has a few offensive skills, but no defense. That would make the left fielder the more valuable of the two, but the third baseman the less common as, naturally, fewer people can play third base with average skill.

The Braves should have realized that a GOOD player at third is infinately more valuable and less common (hence more valuable) than a GOOD player in left.

What Atlanta SHOULD have done was 1. Go shopping for a left fielder, but 2. move Jones if they were able to replace him with a younger, equally talented third baseman. Two names come to mind immediately that were available and had widely-publicized disputes with their clubs.

The Phillies were shopping Scott Rolen and the Dodgers were shopping Adrian Beltre. Getting either of these guys to Atlanta would have been ample reason to move Jones to left. There aren't too many other third basemen who's acquisition could really justify the move.

Chipper's a stand-up guy, to do what was best for the team, as it was explained to him. He should have asked first, however, who the Braves were going to pursue. Castilla certainly wasn't the right answer.

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To remark on something another poster asked....the best thing George Steinbrenner could do this winter in the free agent market would be to sign Jeff Kent or Edgardo Alfonso as the Yankees' new second baseman and move Soriano to left. (Letting go of Raul Mondesi, thank goodness.)

[moose]

Originally posted by BigKlu
To remark on something another poster asked....the best thing George Steinbrenner could do this winter in the free agent market would be to sign Jeff Kent or Edgardo Alfonso as the Yankees' new second baseman and move Soriano to left. (Letting go of Raul Mondesi, thank goodness.)

i like the idea in general. a few tweaks and notes:
1. Kent is a great, great player. BUT, he's also a known a-hole, which makes me think that Stein would be reluctant to sign him. I mean, he's kinda like the antithesis of Rondell White - not a team type of guy, but undoubtedly productive. If you really think about it, they try to avoid grabbing guys they think will be malcontents or not team type of guys (i mean within the yankee system, not how they've been elsewhere). Kent seems like a guy who could be crappy in the clubhouse (as opposed to, say, Mussina, who's probably just distant and standoffish).

I note, however, a "too good to pass up" exception. I'd take him.

2. Soriano to left and not center? Just wondering.

3. How about Kent AND Alfonso... 2B and 3B...

[VNV Nation]

Originally posted by moose
i like the idea in general. a few tweaks and notes:
1. Kent is a great, great player. BUT, he's also a known a-hole, which makes me think that Stein would be reluctant to sign him.

Yeah, the Boss has never liked having a-holes work for him (Martin, Jackson, Munson, Nettles, Clemens, Howard Spira, Wells, Canseco).

[moose]

Originally posted by VNV Nation
Yeah, the Boss has never liked having a-holes work for him (Martin, Jackson, Munson, Nettles, Clemens, Howard Spira, Wells, Canseco).

nah... he learned his lesson with the first 4.

wells came back contrite.
clemens was your classic a-hole who they knew would be happy making zillions as a new york darling.
Canseco the same.

[VNV Nation]

all of this talk about changing positions and stuff leads me to think of two things...

1. bad teams align their talent to maximize their offense. good teams align their talent to maximize their defense. (in general)
2. this stuff about "it's easier to find a left fielder than a third baseman" sounds nice in theory. but let's look at the facts here...

Almost every team expected to contend except for the D-Backs and Giants were in search for a left fielder.

-- The Yankees, with unlimited resources, signed bargain-priced (so I thought at the time) Rondell White, who was hurt, did not hit appreciably better than Castilla and certainly didn't provide the same defense. As a result of an injury, the Yankees were playing a kid with 83 at-bats in left field in the postseason

-- The Cardinals also thought it was easier to find a third baseman than a left fielder, and moved All-Time Rookie Team member Albert Pujols to left. When they wanted more offense, did they move Pujols back to third and get a left fielder? No.

-- The Mets went on a spending binge and came away with Roger Cedeno.

-- The Mariners signed Ruben Sierra.

-- The Cubs signed Moises Alou, who, for $6 million, drove in as many runs as Castilla.

-- The Oakland A's, led by wunderkind/genius Billy Beane, cobbled together the position with overannuated David Justice, Adam Piatt and John Mabry.

Originally posted by VNV Nation
all of this talk about changing positions and stuff leads me to think of two things...

1. bad teams align their talent to maximize their offense. good teams align their talent to maximize their defense. (in general)
2. this stuff about "it's easier to find a left fielder than a third baseman" sounds nice in theory. but let's look at the facts here...

Almost every team expected to contend except for the D-Backs and Giants were in search for a left fielder.

-- The Yankees, with unlimited resources, signed bargain-priced (so I thought at the time) Rondell White, who was hurt, did not hit appreciably better than Castilla and certainly didn't provide the same defense. As a result of an injury, the Yankees were playing a kid with 83 at-bats in left field in the postseason

-- The Cardinals also thought it was easier to find a third baseman than a left fielder, and moved All-Time Rookie Team member Albert Pujols to left. When they wanted more offense, did they move Pujols back to third and get a left fielder? No.

-- The Mets went on a spending binge and came away with Roger Cedeno.

-- The Mariners signed Ruben Sierra.

-- The Cubs signed Moises Alou, who, for $6 million, drove in as many runs as Castilla.

-- The Oakland A's, led by wunderkind/genius Billy Beane, cobbled together the position with overannuated David Justice, Adam Piatt and John Mabry.

Where's your proof that item #1 is true? Please give examples of each occurrance.

What's your contention in #2? That it's easier to find a quality third baseman than a quality left fielder? If so, your "facts" don't exactly back that up, VNV Nation.

First off the Yankees acquired both a left fielder and a third baseman last off season. So their left fielder didn't pan out and their third baseman did. This says more to the quality of the individuals - White and oft-injured underachiever, Ventura a marginal HoF candidate - than it does to the scarcity of good players at those positions. Furthermore, as you well know, "unlimited resources" doesn't mean "unlimited budget."

Tony LaRussa stated in the spring that he was moving Pujols to left to beef up the team's infield defense. Pujols was an average (at best) defensive player at third base and, apparently, LaRussa didn't bother to think that it'd be easier to add a bat in left than it would to replace Pujols' stick at third. The team's injuries to various personnel resulted in moving Pujols back to third from time to time, but LaRussa said during the season it was a temporary move. The Cards went out to snag Rolen in July and poof - Pujols is now a career left fielder as far as they're concerned. Until, of course, Rolen gets hurt in the playoffs. The Cards' move was stupid - it'd have been much better to keep Pujols at third and work with him on improving his defense; a gluttony of outfielders exist that could have been had for much less than the $90 million, 7-year contract Rolen signed. Getting Rolen, of course, made it all come out all right. Now.

The Mets signed a guy who stole 66 bases last year and plugged him in left; he's used to being used as a center (or right) fielder, but Jeromy Burnitz...well, you see where I'm going with this.

The Mariners went the cheap route and signed the washed-up, but still contributing Ruben Sierra, who was considered a good pick-up by the press this season.

And I don't see the comparison between Alou in Wrigely Field and Castilla in Turner Field. Alou is a superstar who can hit a ton, but has health problems. Castilla is a beneficiary of the Coors Illusion who can't play at all anymore - healthy or not.

The A's won in spite of their poor left fielders, as did some of these other teams.

My point is that an above average player at third base is less common than an above average player in left field. How the individual decisions of a few prominent teams in baseball this year bear on a generalization like that, I find difficult to absorb, I guess.

But if one is less common than the other, then it stands to reason that the more valuable - i.e. higher paid - star would be the third baseman. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but you know this is true.

If we looked at the average offense of a left fielder compared to the average offense of a third baseman, we'd find that good offense is less common at third base. I think that's a fair assumption to make.

If we look at what the defensive contribution of these two positions is, on average, we'd find that the third baseman contributes more to preventing runs than the left fielder does. So the third baseman is - overall - the more valuable of the two.

Why then, does it make any sense to turn good third basemen into left fielders? Doesn't it make more sense to fill the vacuum in left as that is the more easily replaced player?

You can't tell me that keeping Chipper at third, they couldn't have found any number of left fielders to outperform Castilla at the plate. What the Cardinals did paid off only because they've been able to acquire and lock-up Rolen for the long-term. Very rare indeed.

Perhaps I've misunderstood you, though, since we seem to agree on nearly everything else?

[VNV Nation]

My point is a whole bunch of teams went looking for left fielders and none of them were very good. If the Braves kept Chipper at third, they still have a defensive liability. If they were looking for a left fielder instead of a third baseman, who could they have gotten?

[poorme]

here's some bums who they could have picked up for nothing:

cordova
canseco
lofton
sierra
stairs
alcantara
H-Rod
o'leary
so taguchi
al martin
gant
reggie sanders

probably any of them would have been more productive than castilla. although, like i said before, who would have thought castilla would be that bad.

[VNV Nation]

those guys suck

[poorme]

Originally posted by VNV Nation
those guys suck

yup.

but Castilla is worse.

maybe schuerholz isn't as smart as I used to think he was.

Originally posted by digger
Boot - I don't mean to quibble, but I would imagine that first is actually the easiest of the nine to play defensively.

Maybe. Maybe not. Shortstop is listed as the most difficult position to play defensively - yet, does anyone think Cristian Guzman would be especially good at playing balls that bounce off the turf, or digging balls out of the dirt?

I think Mientkiewicz would be a better shortstop than Guzman would be a first baseman.

The point is, different positions require different skillsets. An outfielder that can get on his horse to chase down balls may not have the quick reflexes to take a short-hop. A first baseman who is good at that, may be to slow to cover reasonable ground in the outfield.