Did the sox hit all of their offseason targets

[NorthSideSox72]

Melky is a below average defensive outfielder by all defensive metrics. Def rating (Fangraphs) was -12.1 for Melky w/Steamer projection of -13.2 (2013 was -11.5 and 2012 was -5.8, 2011 -5.2, and 2010 was -15.7). That is a 5 year average of -9.2 so anyway you slice it, dude is below average in the outfield.

 

Viciedo was -17.4 in 2014 with a Steamer of -5.3 (however if you project it out over a similar # of games as Melky it is -13.4 or roughly identical to Melky's steamer of 13.2). Viciedo was -12 in 2013 and -10.2 in 2012.

 

Bottom line, Melky Cabrera is not a very good defensive player. Now these projections would make you think they are nearly equally as bad, but I don't think Melky is actually that bad. I'm not really going to get into back-up depth because at that point, impacts are minimized.

 

Re: Gillespie, he was the 4th worst 3B in baseball last year by those same defensive metrics and if you normalized his games played with the people ahead of him, he would slide up to 3rd worse with Castellanos and Chisenhall being the only players who were worse. Got to at least be nice knowing we have the 3rd worst defensive 3B but 2nd best in our division

No doubt this is not a good defensive team as constructed. Other than Alexei and Eaton, no one else is above average. I'd contend Flowers is average. 2B is up in the air, so let's exclude that until we know who is there. That leaves LF, RF and 1B as below average (and in two of those three cases, I think the team has improved a bit for reasons mentioned earlier). It is a below average defensive team, but one that is better than it was last year, IMO.

 

By the way, here is something to think about - how good are the Sox starting 5 pitchers defensively? I really don't know off hand, and the metrics may not be consistent for that position anyway. But it has an effect. Sale, Quintana, Shark, Noesi... how good are they defensively?

 

[Rowand44]

I've been worried about defense as well but we're decently strong up the middle and even with Melky possibly being below average we got rid of an embarrassment of an outfielder. Defense certainly isn't our strength but it's improved.

[Chisoxfn]

I've been worried about defense as well but we're decently strong up the middle and even with Melky possibly being below average we got rid of an embarrassment of an outfielder. Defense certainly isn't our strength but it's improved.

I will say that I think Avisail and Connor should be better defenders than their defensive metrics would indicate, and Melky shouldn't be as bad. Melky is older so any upside is less likely but with the right coaching and dedication, I think both Connor and Avisail can improve and should be at least league average at their respective positions. However, just because they could, doesn't mean they will.

 

Connor's issues, to NS's points, are very much ingrained with his footwork. I'd even go as far as saying it is the poor footwork that leads to his mechanical / throwing issues. Footwork at 3B is critical.

 

So if that happens to some extent, I could at least see us move closer to being league average (albeit still below)...which you can win with.

[Kyyle23]

I didn't see every error he made, but I did see some, and the majority of them were problems of footwork and throwing hitches.

 

a lot of the errors came after really tough stops, he would pop up and you could see his footwork get messed up and the ball would sail on him

[fathom]

a lot of the errors came after really tough stops, he would pop up and you could see his footwork get messed up and the ball would sail on him

 

Hopefully as Abreu continues to improve defensively, that will cause a decrease in Gillaspie's throwing errors.

[thxfrthmmrs]

The team has not ignored defense, that's an overstatement. Cabrera is a large defensive upgrade over Viciedo, LaRoche is a good defensive 1B who will play there some of the time, and a guy like Brantly is better than Phegley can provide (and better pitcher handling than a young Nieto). So there have been upgrades. I'd also suggest that 2B is an open question - Sanchez would be better than Beckham was I think, but Johnson would be a downgrade. So that is an unknown.

 

Also worth noting - Abreu looked a lot better as the year went on, and Gillaspie has improved a little in my view. Flowers has improved quite a lot. So even in static positions there have been some positive trends that look good.

 

The glaring defensive holes now are 3B and RF. I just don't see any other major defensive holes now. That doesn't seem that bad.

 

I don't really agree with this. To say someone is an upgrade over Viciedo defensively isn't saying anything at all. While better than Viciedo, Melky is still a huge liability rather than an asset defensively. What you are saying here is I don't want the worst, but having anything better than the worst is acceptable.

 

IMO defense takes talent more than anything, especially if we look at UZR which factors in range heavily. A player like say Conor Gillaspie could improve their fundamentals, make smarter throws in certain situations, or play the bunt better, but his range or his arm will never improve, which I think are the keys for a good defensive player. You generally don't see players with terrible UZR for most of their career suddenly becoming good defensive players over time, there could be an outlier season here and there, but that's usually not the case. FWIW, Gillaspie went from -2.9 UZR to -8.1 last year, my bet is he won't do much better this year.

 

Out all positions you mentioned, I think improvement will most likely come from catcher position, as fundamentals, knowledge, and arm plays a huge factor, and I think Tyler does have what it takes to be a good defensive catcher. 1B should be an improvement, but it won't have significant impact on overall team defense. The 35 year old LaRoche has the reputation, but he's declining every year. Avi keeps on rounding out in RF, I don't think you could expect much improvement from him in terms of range and defensive runs saved. On top of that, we all saw Alexei losing a step last season.

 

To sum it up, we have huge liabilities at LF, RF, and 3B; what is now league average defense at SS and 1B. 2B, CF, and C are the only positions we can expect good defense out of. I think collectively this is still one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

Edited December 15, 2014 by thxfrthmmrs

[NorthSideSox72]

I don't really agree with this. To say someone is an upgrade over Viciedo defensively isn't saying anything at all. While better than Viciedo, Melky is still a huge liability rather than an asset defensively. What you are saying here is I don't want the worst, but having anything better than the worst is acceptable.

 

IMO defense takes talent more than anything, especially if we look at UZR which factors in range heavily. A player like say Conor Gillaspie could improve their fundamentals, make smarter throws in certain situations, or play the bunt better, but his range or his arm will never improve, which I think are the keys for a good defensive player. You generally don't see players with terrible UZR for most of their career suddenly becoming good defensive players over time, there could be an outlier season here and there, but that's usually not the case. FWIW, Gillaspie went from -2.9 UZR to -8.1 last year, my bet is he won't do much better this year.

 

Out all positions you mentioned, I think improvement will most likely come from catcher position, as fundamentals, knowledge, and arm plays a huge factor, and I think Tyler does have what it takes to be a good defensive catcher. 1B should be an improvement, but it won't have significant impact on overall team defense. The 35 year old LaRoche has the reputation, but he's declining every year. Avi keeps on rounding out in RF, I don't think you could expect much improvement from him in terms of range and defensive runs saved. On top of that, we all saw Alexei losing a step last season.

 

To sum it up, we have huge liabilities at LF, RF, and 3B; what is now league average defense at SS and 1B. 2B, CF, and C are the only positions we can expect good defense out of. I think collectively this is still one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

First, I totally disagree about SS being now league average. Unless Alexei falls off a cliff he will again be well above average.

 

Second, think of defense as money. Going from awful to mediocre has value, just as going from mediocre to good, and good to great.

 

Third, not sure what you mean by "acceptable", as I'm not the GM. I am talking about what is possible.

 

It seems hard for me to believe a team with above average D at SS and CF, somewhere around average (give or take) at C and 1B, a ? (neutral) at 2B and below average at LF, RF and 3B can be among the worst in baseball. That simply doesn't make sense. They will be below average, they won't be at the bottom.

 

It goes without saying we all would like to see better.

 

[Chisoxfn]

First, I totally disagree about SS being now league average. Unless Alexei falls off a cliff he will again be well above average.

 

Second, think of defense as money. Going from awful to mediocre has value, just as going from mediocre to good, and good to great.

 

Third, not sure what you mean by "acceptable", as I'm not the GM. I am talking about what is possible.

 

It seems hard for me to believe a team with above average D at SS and CF, somewhere around average (give or take) at C and 1B, a ? (neutral) at 2B and below average at LF, RF and 3B can be among the worst in baseball. That simply doesn't make sense. They will be below average, they won't be at the bottom.

 

It goes without saying we all would like to see better.

In 2014, as a team, we ranked 28th out of 30 teams (Cleveland / Houston ranking below us) w/-61.7 rating. Tigers were 26th at -57.9. 25th worst team was Rangers at -24.5. It is safe to say we haven't done anything to adjust our metrics that significantly (barring substantial improvements with our existing talent pool, most of which would be very difficult to project). Bottom line...I find very little reason to believe we will suddenly be close to middle of the pack (again...unless Connor / Melky / Avisail all make substantial improvements). Just not feasible, imo.

 

Also, if you look back over the last 2 seasons, we rank 27th, so it isn't like last year was an outlier.

[NorthSideSox72]

In 2014, as a team, we ranked 28th out of 30 teams (Cleveland / Houston ranking below us) w/-61.7 rating. Tigers were 26th at -57.9. 25th worst team was Rangers at -24.5. It is safe to say we haven't done anything to adjust our metrics that significantly (barring substantial improvements with our existing talent pool, most of which would be very difficult to project). Bottom line...I find very little reason to believe we will suddenly be close to middle of the pack (again...unless Connor / Melky / Avisail all make substantial improvements). Just not feasible, imo.

 

Also, if you look back over the last 2 seasons, we rank 27th, so it isn't like last year was an outlier.

Ive already noted the areas I think they've improved, and I see very little in the way of negative offsets (again leaving out pitchers, I am not sure how to best evaluate for that). I'd bet they are more like 20th this year - below average. That's not good, but it is improvement.

 

I think you need to balance all this. The team has made marginal defensive improvements. They've made a substantial rotation upgrade with an elite prospect around the corner, they've made a couple big stabilizing bullpen acquisitions, and substantially upgraded the offense. They've improved in all areas, it just happens that the improvement on defense is the smallest.

 

[Balta1701]

In 2014, as a team, we ranked 28th out of 30 teams (Cleveland / Houston ranking below us) w/-61.7 rating. Tigers were 26th at -57.9. 25th worst team was Rangers at -24.5. It is safe to say we haven't done anything to adjust our metrics that significantly (barring substantial improvements with our existing talent pool, most of which would be very difficult to project). Bottom line...I find very little reason to believe we will suddenly be close to middle of the pack (again...unless Connor / Melky / Avisail all make substantial improvements). Just not feasible, imo.

 

Also, if you look back over the last 2 seasons, we rank 27th, so it isn't like last year was an outlier.

2 points:

 

1. Well of course adding in 2013 doesn't help, that was the sloppiest, most air headed, comically disinterested team on defense I've ever seen.

 

2. A few things that should actually improve in 2014, in addition to Melky > Viciedisaster, would include Abreu being a lot better at 1b since we hopefully won't have a couple months of him learning basic footwork and no Dunn/Konerko there.

[Chisoxfn]

Ive already noted the areas I think they've improved, and I see very little in the way of negative offsets (again leaving out pitchers, I am not sure how to best evaluate for that). I'd bet they are more like 20th this year - below average. That's not good, but it is improvement.

 

I think you need to balance all this. The team has made marginal defensive improvements. They've made a substantial rotation upgrade with an elite prospect around the corner, they've made a couple big stabilizing bullpen acquisitions, and substantially upgraded the offense. They've improved in all areas, it just happens that the improvement on defense is the smallest.

My point of the post was showing how SIGNIFICANT of a defensive improvement they would need to make to even be the 25th best defensive team. The bottom 4-5 teams in baseball defensively were literally so bad they were in a planet all by themselves. I understand what you are saying but statistically it doesn't come together. I would say you would get some benefit in CF if Eaton was healthy all year, but I don't know what track record he has to pencil that in either. Bottom line, we have quite a few guys who are amongst the worst in their profession in their respected areas. The fact that we have two guys who are above average (Ramirez / Eaton) doesn't necessarily offset that. Yes, they are above average a platinum positions but Flowers is average.

 

I will qualify this as saying Beckham was really bad last year so defensively we might be a lot better which could be a key driver (if you went from Beckham levels to even league average, that would be a nice driver..but again..nothing like the gap that existed from a year ago. I'm just stating that calling us close to a league average defensive team is pretty delusional in the face of who we have. We are significantly below average in the corner OF positions & 3B. 1B was well below average.

 

Abreu's defensive improvement, which he shouldn't be as bad as he was, was a very slight correction over the 2nd half of the season vs. 1st half. It isn't as if, he turned into a league average defender. Even that I am hesitant to talk about because you are getting into an extremely small sample size.

[Chisoxfn]

2 points:

 

1. Well of course adding in 2013 doesn't help, that was the sloppiest, most air headed, comically disinterested team on defense I've ever seen.

 

2. A few things that should actually improve in 2014, in addition to Melky > Viciedisaster, would include Abreu being a lot better at 1b since we hopefully won't have a couple months of him learning basic footwork and no Dunn/Konerko there.

I included 2013 because defensive metrics can be an issue with sample size, however, 2013 employed a chunk of the same players and you talk about 13 being a disaster, yet 14 was much worse. Dunn actually being gone will be a positive as he was the equivalent of playing a clown in the field (well statistically speaking). I also agree that Abreu should improve, but his 2nd half defensive splits (really a very small sample size so not sure you can get much meaning out of it) were only slightly better than 1st half and still in the mega negative territory.