Bad Positional Thinking

A Fangraphs article about Mark Reynolds' awful defense this year ends by asking the question of whether the Orioles should make Reynolds the DH next year, when Vladimir Guerrero is gone. The conclusion is no, because, while his defense has been worth -22 runs above average this year, his positional adjustment for a year spent mostly at third base is approximately 0 runs while his positional adjustment as a DH would be around, uh, -22 runs. In general I'm okay with the philosophy behind this positional adjustment, but I think here they've got it all wrong. This is the kind of mistake you make by viewing "replacement" in the abstract while making GM- or manager-type decisions (rather than HOF-voter decisions), when you could be viewing replacement as meaning specific replacements.

If the Orioles' options are to have Reynolds at 3B and Player X as DH, where Player X is a league-average hitter for that position, or to have Reynolds as the DH and Player Y at 3B, where Player Y is a league-average third baseman both at the plate and in the field, then the above analysis is appropriate. But presumably the Orioles know who would be their Player X, and who their Player Y. In this case the question is whether having Player X's bat in the lineup instead of Player Y's would be worth more to the team than having Player Y manning third base instead of Mark Reynolds. Or maybe we're really talking about Player Z, who will be in the lineup regardless but could either DH or play the field, either at third or filling a hole vacated by another player who shifts over to third in Reynolds' absence. If that's the case, then we're not talking about offense at all, and the only question is whether the defensive alignment with Reynolds would be better or worse than the one without him. It might be the case that, awful defense notwithstanding, Reynolds needs to be playing third base, because if you take him off the field then someone like Chin-lung Hu would have to be a starting player, but it might not. Someone's going to be DH'ing, and someone will play third base. The only question is who ultimately gets into the lineup and how well the people playing the field can play their positions.


Incidentally, if the NL adopted the DH next year, the obvious candidate as the ninth bat in the lineup for the Mets would be Daniel Murphy. He's a pretty good third baseman, but blocked by David Wright there; spotty at first base, but blocked by Ike Davis; and has a more-or-less clear shot at the second base job, but has looked pretty bad indeed there and keeps getting injured when he plays there. So add him to the lineup and let defensive wizard Ruben Tejada play second (if we sign Reyes), it's a perfect fit. Only... David Wright's defense has been pretty bad of late. And Murphy's a good defensive third baseman. So why not flip Wright to DH and Murphy to 3B, at least some of the time? Ultimately, the only question is which player makes the defense better (and after today's game, yeesh, I can see that it might not be Wright). The move to DH reduces Wright's value only by the same amount that it raises Murphy's. (Also we need to ask which player would be happier being the DH, 'cause some players don't like having so little action in a game, but that's a slightly different story.)