This article was submitted by baseball specialist Erik Arnold.
For years, the American League East Division has housed the nastiest collection of offensive talent in Major League Baseball. The ability of New York and Boston to stockpile offensive talent has been well documented.
What’s a GM to do?
For some time, the approach of the three “less fortunate” members of the AL East has been to load up on big bats and fight fire with fire. The Toronto Blue Jays were certainly no exception. However, things have changed. The recent acquisition of third baseman Scott Rolen officially marks a new era for the blue birds. It appears abundantly clear that JP Ricciardi has abandoned his money-ball roots. Or has he?
The money-ball approach as engineered by Billy Beane in the early 2000’s has long been a misunderstood topic. Ask the average baseball fan for his definition of money-ball and he’ll give you one answer: on-base-percentage. However, money-ball is more about value and less about individual statistics. It just so happened that in the money-ball era, the most undervalued statistic in baseball was on-base-percentage. Beane concluded that he could acquire players with an above average ability to get on base at a huge discount. Additionally, he concluded that on-base-percentage was directly correlated with scoring runs and scoring runs was directly correlated with winning games.
My oh my, how things have changed! Sabermetric statistics are no longer a fringe science and nearly every team has adopted some form of heavy sabermetric analysis. Thus, the cost of on-base-percentage has skyrocketed. More teams value these players highly and this is driving up their cost.
What does this mean for our Toronto Blue Jays in 2008? Well, it appears that JP has found another way to compete in the run-and-gun AL East and another source of value in the ultra-competitive market for MLB talent. He has stockpiled a deep stable of young arms and backed them with fantastic defensive talent to aid in their development. Pound for pound, the Toronto Blue Jays have the best overall defensive team in the American League East. In my opinion, they have 5 players with gold-glove ability on the roster: John MacDonald, Scott Rolen, Aaron Hill, Vernon Wells and Alex Rios. With 5 of the 8 positions filled with gold glove talent, the remaining two are patrolled by above average defenders in Reed Johnson and Lyle Overbay. Defensively, the catching position appears to be the only weakness on the field, but even this spot is filled by two veteran guys in Sal Fassano and Greg Zaun.
Take one look at these pitching numbers and it’s easy to see how deadly this combination of pitching and defense can be:
Groundball rate (per batter)
1. Halladay, 43.7%
2. Janssen, 40.7%
3. Litsch, 38.8%
4. Burnett, 36.4%
5. McGowan, 36.2%
6. Chacin, 29.6%
7. Marcum, 28.5%
(Props to Battersbox.ca for the stats)
What do these numbers tell us? For one, Halladay, Litsch, Burnett and McGowan (80% of our rotation) are extreme groundball pitchers, something that fits nicely with the interior defense that JP has assembled. Consider a guy like Burnett who, in addition to striking out 1/3 of batters, induces ground balls to another 1/3. This means that only the remaining 1/3 of batters make it out of the infield on an average AJ start. Consider the reliability of our newly assembled infield and the fantastic range and ability of Rios, Wells and Reed in the outfield and I like our chances.
Could it be that JP Ricciardi has found market arbitrage in the assessment of major league talent? Can we pin down the big bats of the AL east with superior pitching and defense? One thing that is undeniable: the superior defensive talent on the Toronto Blue Jays is what separates them from the other members of the AL East. Can hitting and pitching do enough to win under this system? Only time will tell.
Bong, bong, Big E. I liked the piece and think JP is right to try something different in the division. We just don’t have the resources to compete with New York and Boston 1-9 in a lineup, so if we can match them -10% 1-6 and lose out on the lower few spots, but make up for it with a better (and cheaper) pitching staff and bullpen, the defense could be a difference maker. What remains to be seen, then, is if said young and inexpensive staff and bullpen can live up to last year’s impressive production—if the staff falters, the D will be fairly inconsequential.
Oh and great tip on battersbox.ca, that’s going into my resource list.
Couldn’t have said it better myself Blake. What I was trying to point out is that JP has assembled (intentionally or maybe not) exactly the kind of pitching staff that will benefit from solid defense. Even better, it appears that he’s done it at a discount because the market isn’t valuing defense as highly as he is.
ok boys, I told him not to write it but beeg has a comment for this. Can’t wait to read it
Great article Erik. Im relatively new to baseball, and so I appreciate the explanation of some of the thought happening behind-the-scenes. One question: assuming JP has assembled a team that is going to be more defensively oriented, does this mean that he’ll likely also be modifying the offense to complement this change in style? Specifically, will the Jays be looking to steal more bases? If you look at their roster, all three of their outfielders should be able to steal more bases than they did in ’07, and Ekstein is somewhat capable as well. It seems an awful waste of talent to just use this speed on defense and virtually ignore it on offense….*cough* fire Gibbons?…*cough*…
Sam, couldn’t agree more about your distrust of Gibbons, but that’s a fight for another day. As for the stealing situation, I could see it improving somewhat but don’t get your hopes up.
JP has been crystal clear on this issue: he does not believe there is value in stealing bases. He just isn’t convinced that the reward of moving a runner up a bag is worth the risk of losing a base-runner all-together. Obviously, that kind of attitude from the GM influences how Gibbons would call the game on a day-to-day basis. It’s really too bad because I’m sure guys like Rios and Wells would benefit greatly from a green light.
Still, I think we might see a little more “small-ball” if we’re up by a couple runs late. However, that will be limited too because the Jays are still carrying too many free swingers: Hill, Wells and Rios mainly. If I’m not mistaken, the Jays had nearly the fewest sacrifices in all of baseball last year.
Like it or not, this is going to be the kind of team that waits around for the Home Run quite a bit.
With respect to base stealing, I believe the Moneyball maxim is that they are only statistically valuable if you are successful 70% of the time or more. The five biggest threats we have to run and their accompanying career success rates are:
Wells=77%
Rios=73%
Johnson=64%
Eckstein=72%
McDonald=74%
So there is definately merit in wanting to run more. The Jays were 27th in stolen bases, 29th in stolen base attempts, and 19th in stolen base success rate (without Eckstein, of course). That would definately suggest the Jays should try more, especially given their ‘NL’ look in the AL East.
The Jays were also 25th in sacrifice hits (no stats for attempts). As for selectivity at the plate, the Jays are actually middle of the pack, 19th in total strikeouts and 13th in walks.
What does all this summate to? The Jays have the personnel now to play a different style of baseball than the AL East is used to. With a good rotation, a great bullpen, and a top defense, the Jays have probably the best ability in the division when it comes to protecting a lead. Smart baseball strategy posits that you take an extra run or two where you can with a lead (not playing for the 3-run home run ala Moneyball), so there is sound logic behind the Jays implementing more small ball strategy this season, assuming Gibbons even has a signal for “steal” or “bunt.”
I adore your last line Blake…”the cleverness of you.”