Orioles had over a full WAR more than the Reds..

[mikegallo]

Well, I think that's what folks are trying to figure out. Would anyone honestly argue w/ that? I mean, the bold are precisely the points that I've made.

That said, the idea that elite defense is the only answer is probably too extreme. Which is the other point I was trying to make. And - I think - it's the very point you've made elsewhere, which is that there's generally a trade-off between offense and defense (save for elite players or anomalous single-year performance - both of which may be necessary for a team like the O's to contend) and you need to manage that trade-off well, diversifying your assets.

I agree with pretty much everything you said here but it is very clear our club has traded off to much defense for offense...And as frobby pointed out does anyone really believe Davis is really that much better than Reynolds? Honestly a Davis/Reynolds combo is most likely worse than a Reynolds/DLee combo..So it comes down to how is our D gonna be any better than last year and add to the fact we havent added any TOR starters is there gonna be a big drop in our starters ERA....not likely but we can hope...although hope isn't a sound logical way to improve our team...

P.S- Thanks everyone, we are finally having a legit indepth discussion on our D and how it relates to our record and really thats all I wanted to do through all these posts.

[Can_of_corn]

We know how bad Reynolds is, Davis hasn't played 3B enough to put up numbers sufficient to judge. On the chance that Buck and Co. moght have a clue, I'd take my chances with Davis over Reynolds, who has had 4 full seasons at 3B to demonstrate that he is very subpar there.

I am in the camp that says if folks thought Davis could play 3b at the major league level he wouldn't have been a first baseman in the minors.

[Fan4Life]

I am in the camp that says if folks thought Davis could play 3b at the major league level he wouldn't have been a first baseman in the minors.

I think Reynols is adequate at 3b. Is there a way to know how many runs actually scored from his errors versus a statistical computation?

[weams]

I assume you meant "pitching," not "hitting" in that last point.

No, I went back and clarified what I meant though. I mean we can not improve our pitching at the expense of the average hitting that we have. It needs to be value added.

[weams]

I am in the camp that says if folks thought Davis could play 3b at the major league level he wouldn't have been a first baseman in the minors.

I am in the camp that says our Third Baseman is Antonelli or Andino. So I agree.

[Frobby]

We know how bad Reynolds is, Davis hasn't played 3B enough to put up numbers sufficient to judge. On the chance that Buck and Co. moght have a clue, I'd take my chances with Davis over Reynolds, who has had 4 full seasons at 3B to demonstrate that he is very subpar there.

Davis has played 70 games (66 starts) at 3B as a major leaguer, and has put up -45 TotalZone fielding runs/year, -38 BIS defensive runs saved per year at 3B. In the minors, he was -13 Total Zone runs in 226 games. Reynolds was -23 Total Zone runs/yr, -35 BIS runs saved per year last season, -9 and -11 for his career. 296 games of Davis at 3B tells me he is not likely to be materially better than Reynolds on defense.

I'm not saying he shouldn't get a shot, but I don't see a lot of evidence that he's better.

[Can_of_corn]

I am in the camp that says our Third Baseman is Antonelli or Andino. So I agree.

I wouldn't say agree exactly. I think the O's are going to need Andino at second and I will need to see something from Antonelli offensively before I am willing to move Reynolds for him. I hope Antonelli does pan out since I am really not comfortable with giving Davis 600 at bats.

[El Gordo]

Davis has played 70 games (66 starts) at 3B as a major leaguer, and has put up -45 TotalZone fielding runs/year, -38 BIS defensive runs saved per year at 3B. In the minors, he was -13 Total Zone runs in 226 games. Reynolds was -23 Total Zone runs/yr, -35 BIS runs saved per year last season, -9 and -11 for his career. 296 games of Davis at 3B tells me he is not likely to be materially better than Reynolds on defense.

I'm not saying he shouldn't get a shot, but I don't see a lot of evidence that he's better.

That amounts to less than 600 IN. Average innings for a full season at one position is 1200. We know we need more than one season of defensive metrics to be able to form a sense of a players defensive value. He hasn't played nearly enough to form an opinion, IMO. My eyes tell me he isn't much better than Reynolds, if at all, but I am not a professional baseball guy, so I defer to their judgement.

[Frobby]

I agree with pretty much everything you said here but it is very clear our club has traded off to much defense for offense...

Why is that clear, and what "trade off" are you referencing? As I pointed out eariler, last year's offense was +95 runs compared to 2010, whereas UZR says our defense cost us 33 extra runs. I will take +95 in exchange for -33 any day.

What would be nice would be if we could find a way to improve the defense without hurting the offense. I think replacing Pie with Chavez and Tatum with Teagarden does that, but those are very minor impact moves.

[El Gordo]

Why is that clear, and what "trade off" are you referencing? As I pointed out eariler, last year's offense was +95 runs compared to 2010, whereas UZR says our defense cost us 33 extra runs. I will take +95 in exchange for -33 any day.

What would be nice would be if we could find a way to improve the defense without hurting the offense. I think replacing Pie with Chavez and Tatum with Teagarden does that, but those are very minor impact moves.

If Markakis and Jones are closer to their away splits, then we are something like 33 RS better, and that would make us average, even with Reynolds at 3B.

[Frobby]

If Markakis and Jones are closer to their away splits, then we are something like 33 RS better, and that would make us average, even with Reynolds at 3B.

Yeah, for this purpose I was taking UZR at face value, but as you know, I have serious reservations about that stat. The fact that Michael Lichtman and Bill James aren't answering our questions isn't making the evaluation any easier.

[CA-ORIOLE]

As you say, he ignores the things that the pitchers have control over and hasn't even addressed that for what I have seen.

Since his primary reference point is FIP/xFIP (as related to ERA/defense), how does he not adress them? Sure he makes some illogical and incorrect interpretations about them and the use of WAR, but the central point of the argument is cogent when you're able to look past the bloviating.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Why is that clear, and what "trade off" are you referencing? As I pointed out eariler, last year's offense was +95 runs compared to 2010, whereas UZR says our defense cost us 33 extra runs. I will take +95 in exchange for -33 any day.

It may seem that way, but as I tried to point out to Mike earlier in this thread, without much success, our offense (context neutral) is probably almost as far behind the Rays as our defense was last year.

[El Gordo]

Yeah, for this purpose I was taking UZR at face value, but as you know, I have serious reservations about that stat. The fact that Michael Lichtman and Bill James aren't answering our questions isn't making the evaluation any easier.

It's very frustrating because this is important info necessary to properly evaluate the team defense. I think the best we can do is take the fact that the league in general considers them to be plus defenders, and the O's specifically seem to regard them that way, as an indication that proprietary numbers might suggest this to be true, as well. I have to believe that most teams have access to sophisticated D metrics, and are aware of what they say.

[mikegallo]

Why is that clear, and what "trade off" are you referencing? As I pointed out eariler, last year's offense was +95 runs compared to 2010, whereas UZR says our defense cost us 33 extra runs. I will take +95 in exchange for -33 any day.

What would be nice would be if we could find a way to improve the defense without hurting the offense. I think replacing Pie with Chavez and Tatum with Teagarden does that, but those are very minor impact moves.

In general our team has made it a point to go with offense over D last year we did this at 3rd Reynolds Cf Jones Rf NM Lf Scott,Reimold 2nd Roberts (he was the plan anyway) at 5 of the eight postions we went with offense first guys so essentially we traded off Offense for Defense.

Now the debate on our outfielders D is a hot topic and hard for us to truly get a read on but going by the info we have such as UZR they each have been below average for 3 straight years.

And looking at our Babip being the highest in the league even tho we play have our games at a park that surpresses BA I would say that it is clear that our team values offense from its postion players over defense...hence the trade off.

I do like that at two of the most important D spots he had plus guys SS and C but we also had a plus guy at the least important spot too 1st...If I am building a team I would def pefer plus guys up the middle SS 2nd C and CF but I am starting to think corner infielders D is one of the most undervalued assets in the game....Many of the top D teams have plus fielders at these spots.