What is the ideal defensive alignment for the Reds?

I paid attention to Owings for some time even prior to the Dunn trade. He and Aaron Harang are fairly similar physically and their minor league peripherals have ‘em looking like twins. Not saying Owings will be as good, but if he’s healthy he can get MLB hitters out and the bat’s a major bonus (and the reason he needs to be in the rotation rather than the pen).

I think a lot of folks across the web who liked Dunn didn’t really take enough time to thoroughly evaluate Owings based on his own merit. On the other side, I’ve seen some who’ve attempted to degrade Owings’ potential simply because they wanted to degrade Dunn (i.e. the Reds got “crap” for Dunn so Dunn was "crap"). But when given a fair shake, I think there’s a lot to like and when he’s been healthy (there’s that word again), he’s been a solid league-average SP.

After all, it’s a message board rather than a chat room. And heck, I’ve been away from my computer all day so your timing is fine.

CS %: yup, you’re right. Bad Pitcher does not necessarily equal Bad at Holding Runners. That’s why I added the "YOUNG" in there, too. But I’m drawing conclusions without getting into one-by-one hurler comparisons. The bigger foul I commit— which you failed to call me on— is comparing Ramon to his predecessors’ success rates: Brook Fordyce and Javy Lopez. Not exactly the gold standard of catching defense. Nonetheless, no one should have to carry SB numbers on their Baseball Reference page from games where they catching Steve Trachsel (so slow, even the home team announcers hated him)

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I might have thought to worry about comps with guys like Fordyce and Lopez had Hernandez already not shown multiple 20-ish CS percentages. And yeah, you’re again correct that young pitchers might have more to learn about holding runners on and runner propensities in general, which could have affected Hernandez’ numbers. That being said, I’m not sure we can attribute a major portion of his CS% drop to youth considering that his history. I think you may have more of a point when it comes to Stolen Base volume and I’d certainly prefer 70-odd SB with a 20-ish CS% versus nearly 100 SB over the same number of Innings.

And the foul I’ve committed that you didn’t quite catch me on is that Stolen Bases are of marginal value versus bases acquired versus true SLG in the first place so even if Hernandez allows a few more than your average catcher over the season, it doesn’t really turn him into a huge bag of putrid. Just something that mitigates a little bit of his overall gain versus a guy like Bako if Hernandez improves to just below-average in that regard.

I’m going to poke around and get more comfortable with the better defensive numbers. I don’t wander much beyond Baseball-Reference*, so I’ll have to devote some quality time to Fan-Graphs and others to get more comfortable. I was careful to use career numbers rather than single season, but your point is taken.

Fan Graphs and The Hardball Times are pretty good sites, but even though I’m a stat monger like Slyde (and then some), we always need to remember that defensive metrics (even the best) are associated with a whole lot of arbitrary noise, especially when attempts to translate them into actual Run value and even more so at the extremes. To give you an example of the latter from Fan Graphs…

2008 UZR/150 (defensive Runs above positional average per 150 games):

RF- Brad Hawpe: -47.7 UZR/150 (negative)

It’s literally unbelievable that a RF could get and miss enough chances to translate into nearly 50 negative Runs versus positional average over the course of a season. And Hawpe didn’t get and miss that many in 2008. Per The Hardball Times, Hawpe saw 187 balls hit into his “zone” and produced Outs for 161 of them. That’s a difference of only 26 Outs, or less than 3 Outs versus the average qualified MLB RF. Hawpe caught 28 balls outside his zone versus the MLB average of 24.5 for RF. I haven’t equalized for 150 games, but the basic idea is that Fan Graphs is attempting to get us to believe that, somehow, around 30 “missed” opportunities versus positional average equals nearly 50 Runs. And we still have a ton of other considerations like defensive positioning, foul areas, and park dimensions.

Salt block needed when viewing.

Regarding JHJ, I know he’ll not likely repeat last year’s offense, any more than we’ll see Kepp put up a full season with his 2008 1st half production. But Janish is just not a realistic option to upgrade the defense unless you intend to pitch a shutout every game. Appreciably better defense without disregarding offense is possible by using JHJ in the infield to free EdE for the OF.

Sure. I fully expect Janish to have the bat knocked out of his hands on a frequent basis. I threw him in there as an example of the kind of defense (at least based on reputation) I’d need to see in order to push Phillips off Second Base. Would I want a bigger bat as well? Absolutely. You’re completely correct.

EdE’s OF defense: If we move away from "last year" as the measurement and focus on best available today your argument gains some traction. Instead of measuring EdE vs. Dickerson, though, consider an EdE/Dickerson LF/CF tandem vs. a Dickerson/Taveras tandem. Admittedly, it’s cheating from Slyde’s premise, but you’d already opened up the possibility by referencing the Upton to CF maneuver of 2008.

I can consider those comparisons, surely, and I don’t see it as “cheating” at all. However, I view Dickerson and Taveras as being pretty much equal defensively in CF so I would consider the EdE/Dickerson combination a downgrade defensively. They’d be a better pair in LF/CF offensively most likely and I’ll be happy to concede that point. However, I think we’re now in a place where we’re playing an IF/OF swap shell game for marginal returns that don’t project to work well enough to turn a bad offense/defense into truly good versions. But regardless of my position on that at least you’re thinking three-dimensionally; which is a lot more than I can give Reds management credit for.

Excellent discussion, regardless. Your first beer in Philly or Delaware is on me, Steel.

I’ll drink to that (and most everything else, of course). And if the Sixers ever get smart enough to make it back to the NBA Finals with a team good enough to actually win, I’ll have to take you up on that. Have a good one, sir and thanks again for the discussion!