Buy the Gloves, Ignore the Bats

[luismatos4prez]

I wish I could be a mad scientist and set up the MLB teams how I want them to be and let it play out. Like, experiment with all the different ideologies and concepts that people believe in baseball.

One kind of team I've always been curious of is a team that cannot hit at all, but has fantastic fielders, and pitchers that pitch to contact.

A rotation of

Nolasco

T. Hudson

Porcello

Diamond

Maholm

and a defensive alignment of

C - Hanigan

1B - Loney

2B - Barney

3B - Inge

SS - Ryan

LF - Jennings

CF - Span

RF - Revere

If you don't see where I'm going with this, those guys suck at hitting. Actually, Span is pretty good, but I didn't see a better option. Those pitchers don't give up HRs or walks, they let the ball get put in play and they let the defense do the job. This is such an outstanding defense that scoring runs on them would be a very difficult task. Maybe playing extreme small ball could push a couple runs across every game for them too. And they'd be good on the basepaths.

Do you think this team could compete? I feel like they would and I'd love to see it.

[Tony-OH]

Personally, I think defense is very important, but not that important. You have to be able to score to win, and that would be one putrid offensive team. You could always but OOTP or Baseball Mogul and put your theories to test.

[Moose Milligan]

It's certainly interesting. I still think you have to score some runs though.

[Frobby]

The Mariners more or less tried this for a few years. In 2009 the had by far the best team UZR in MLB and finished 85-77, despite being outscored 692-640. But the team's hitting actually got worse from there (513, 556 and 610 runs scored the last three years) and they've been awful. Of course, they lost Beltre, which was a big blow both offensively and defensively.

By the way, check out the 1972 Orioles. 80-74 record (8 games were lost to a work stoppage) despite scoring only 519 runs (3.37 runs/game), because they allowed only 430 (2.81 runs/game).

[luismatos4prez]

The Mariners more or less tried this for a few years. In 2009 the had by far the best team UZR in MLB and finished 85-77, despite being outscored 692-640.

Thanks for pointing them out to me. Fantastic team defensively. Had Ichiro, Beltre, and a washed up Ken Griffey Jr. giving them their only offense.

Their problem was pitching though. Felix Hernandez was all they had. Everyone else was bad or got injured. The question I'm wondering is can a team that plays great defense and has great pitching compete despite any lack of offense?

[waroriole]

Thanks for pointing them out to me. Fantastic team defensively. Had Ichiro, Beltre, and a washed up Ken Griffey Jr. giving them their only offense.

Their problem was pitching though. Felix Hernandez was all they had. Everyone else was bad or got injured. The question I'm wondering is can a team that plays great defense and has great pitching compete despite any lack of offense?

Run a projected OPS for those guys and see how many runs they score.

[Spy Fox]

I always like thinking about stuff like this. And I know this isn't the point of the thread, but I imagine a team of pitch-to-contact SPs and the best defenders at each position would actually be highly successful. It's the same idea as yours, President Matos, without the provision that these slick fielders have to be poor to mediocre hitters as well. (Like I said, I realize this goes against your premise of ignoring the bats, but it's still something I wish could be done as the baseball mad scientist you mention.)

Think about...

C Yadier Molina

1b Adrian Gonzalez

2b Dustin Pedroia

3b Adrian Beltre

Ss Brendan Ryan

Lf Alex Gordon

Cf Michael Bourn

Rf Jason Heyward

Those are the UZR/150 leaders at each position over the past three years. And yeah... that team would be hard to stop. Even if Garret Atkins was their DH.

[luismatos4prez]

Run a projected OPS for those guys and see how many runs they score.

Good call. I threw in Daniel Murphy as the DH, because I've always thought he was the definition of mediocrity.

That lineup would score about 634 runs in a season according to the system I used, if those players all played every game. That's actually better than the Marlins, Cubs, Mariners, and Astros did this year. So adjusting for all the variables like injuries, fatigue and parks etc., they'd be one of the worst offenses in the league, but not by a huge margin.

[waroriole]

Good call. I threw in Daniel Murphy as the DH, because I've always thought he was the definition of mediocrity.

That lineup would score about 634 runs in a season according to the system I used, if those players all played every game. That's actually better than the Marlins, Cubs, Mariners, and Astros did this year. So adjusting for all the variables like injuries, fatigue and parks etc., they'd be one of the worst offenses in the league, but not by a huge margin.

They probably add some runs based on base running