Defense and the Three True Outcomes

[TroutBaseball]

It should be no surprise to anyone that this year in Spring Training the trend is continuing with a greater emphasis on walks, strikeouts and home runs. The three true outcomes.  These are basically defensive neutralizers.

 

  Is it a good idea for a team to value defense as highly as the Angels are when the game is trending toward plays away from fielding?

[Docwaukee]

18 minutes ago, TroutBaseball said:

It should be no surprise to anyone that this year in Spring Training the trend is continuing with a greater emphasis on walks, strikeouts and home runs. The three true outcomes.  These are basically defensive neutralizers.

 

  Is it a good idea for a team to value defense as highly as the Angels are when the game is trending toward plays away from fielding?

interesting thought but 65.6% of plate appearances ended up a fielded ball.  that's over 121,000

[TroutBaseball]

No one is saying there are no fielded balls, just fewer and fewer. Throw in all the leverage defensive shifting gives you the question remains -- Why spend on elite defensive players?

[Taylor]

The Angels should just focus on striking out 100 percent of batters. They can have all of the fielders sit in lawn chairs and sip Gatorade to prevent injury.

[AngelsLakersFan]

The Astros, Rangers, A's and Mariners are four of the worst defensive teams in the game. A better question might be, why are the Angels valuing the 'three true outcomes' as much as they are?  

[Docwaukee]

31 minutes ago, TroutBaseball said:

No one is saying there are no fielded balls, just fewer and fewer. Throw in all the leverage defensive shifting gives you the question remains -- Why spend on elite defensive players?

because even though it's fewer, it's still an overwhelming majority.  

[Docwaukee]

the other thing to think about is that the cost of defense might be undervalued based on the proprietary metrics that Eppler is using.  So even though you don't get as much bang for your buck as you used to, you are likely still getting more than what it costs for a 40hr bat.  

Take a look at the various contracts given out to elite or once elite 1bmen.  Committing current and long term dollars to those guys has been a horrible investment.  

Current metrics available to the general public take 'number of chances' into account and there is still massive discrepancies between top tier and lower tier defensive players.  

[Jeff Fletcher]

The Angels expect Ohtani to be a 3-outcome kind of hitter, by the way. 

I am guessing he ends up like 230/330/450.

[totdprods]

12 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The Angels expect Ohtani to be a 3-outcome kind of hitter, by the way. 

I am guessing he ends up like 230/330/450.

Where have I seen that slash before...
.233/.325/.440 over last ~500 games....

Dang ol' Valbueners! 

[Tank]

On 3/8/2018 at 3:26 PM, Taylor said:

The Angels should just focus on striking out 100 percent of batters. They can have all of the fielders sit in lawn chairs and sip Gatorade to prevent injury.

cool. i might finally get a major league contract if they go this route.