The Worst Defense in the AL?
Today’s Baseball Prospectus newsletter just arrived, and pointed out the following statistic:
Bottom 5 AL Team Defenses, by Defensive Efficiency
Team, DEF_EFF
Minnesota Twins, .683
Seattle Mariners, .684
Texas Rangers, .684
New York Yankees, .696
Kansas City Royals, .698
That’s defensive efficiency, and the Twins are the worst in the American League. This from an organization that has historically keyed on excellent defense.
The Rangers and Yankees have powerful offenses and are built to outscore their opponents, so their defensive woes are “part of the plan” and aren’t that big a deal to them. The Mariners and Royals are the worst two teams in the AL.
That leaves the Twins, with a worse defense than all of them, an offense that isn’t built to outscore anyone, and a pitching staff that pitches to contact rather than trying to strike people out.
It’s not a recipe for winning ballgames, and the current 6 game losing streak is testament to that.
The problem, in large part, is the new faces. The ones that didn’t come up through the Twins system, taught to value defense over all else. Delmon Young, Mike Lamb, Brendan Harris … they were brought in to upgrade the offense while admittedly sacrificing defense. I don’t disagree with the decision — the offense definitely needed to be upgraded.
The issue is that their defense is worse than expected, and their offense is worse than what we were getting from those positions last year.
Delmon Young 2008: .266/.315/.357 (OPS: 672)
Jason Tyner 2007: .281/.331/.355 (OPS: 686)Mike Lamb 2008: .228/.267/.310 (OPS: 577)
Nick Punto 2007: .210/.291/.271 (OPS: 562)Brendan Harris 2008: .245/.314/.320 (OPS: 634)
Jason Bartlett 2007: .265/.339/.361 (OPS: 700)
Each of these players is a significant downgrade defensively from their predecessor, AND a downgrade offensively. (And no, the fact that Mike Lamb’s OPS is 15 points higher than Punto2007 does NOT impress me. Note that Lamb is the biggest position player free agent signing in the history of the Minnesota Twins. He should be able to hit considerably better than the WORST PLAYER IN BASEBALL.)
More than anything else, this abysmal defensive efficiency rating — coupled with the fact that the worst transgressors also happen to be dragging down the offense more than the anemic ass bats they replaced — is a reason to be worried about this team. Without defense, offense, OR pitching, how can we be expected to compete with anyone?
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I never want to hear anyway use the phrase “doing it the Twins way” ever again. Because now that means doing nothing exceptionally well. The kid who got all C’s on his report card studied “the Twins way”.
I’m pretty sure “The Twins Way” means poking a seeing-eye grounder to opposite field for a single, a sac bunt to move the runner to second, getting picked off second base due to not paying attention (or, as Gardy would put it, “being aggressive”), followed by a strike out or a pop out.
It doesn’t lead to a lot of runs.
even in the NL we would have a tough time scoring runs. Everyone always says pitching and defense wins championships. That is assuming you have at least a league average offense. You could lead the league in most pitching and defensive categories, but if you are at the bottom in most offensive categories, you will not win many games. Balance is the key to winning championships.
Being near the league leaders in both pitching and defense is usually enough to get you into the playoffs, despite a below-average offense. (That’s how the Twins have been doing it this decade.)
But once you get there, you’re up against other teams with great pitching — and they happen to have great offenses. In order to beat them, you need an offense too.
I’d say that if you have any two of pitching/defense/offense, you’re a pretty good team with a shot at the playoffs. The Twins have had roughly two of them for years. But the defense has been getting worse every year, the pitching has been built to rely heavily on a strong defense, and the offense remains stagnant. Right now, we don’t have anything.
We’ll see if they can turn it around.