Trust me, you frustrate us too. (Karl Gehring/The Denver Post)
There is a perception that the Rockies are a defensive minded team. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard members of the organization speak about how they pride themselves on playing great defense. Unfortunately, this is a misnomer. In 2007, they were a truly great defensive team, but they’ve been well below average since then. That’s including last season, when they had two players win Gold Gloves.
According to Fangraphs’ Ultimate Zone Rating, the Rockies ranked as one of the worst defensive teams in baseball last year. Obviously, they did quite well at the shortstop position, but they had a below average UZR at every other position. The ratings on right field and third base were particularly ugly.
What about Cargo you say? It’s not that Cargo is a bad outfielder, it’s just that he’s probably not a Gold Glover. When playing left, he’s very good — 11 UZR/150 in 2010. While that’s a solid figure, it ranks far below the Yankees’ Brett Gardner. In 2010, his UZR/150 was 45.7 — the gold standard for left field defense. Also, Cargo is just an average defender in center and right. Regardless, he’s not their problem. I only bring him up because he won a Gold Glove last year and his metrics indicate that he didn’t deserve it.
Without getting too deep into a debate that has been going on for years, I realize that numbers don’t tell the entire story. However, there is no disputing their worth when it comes to big picture evaluations and I’m curious if Dan O’Dowd was aware of these defensive inefficiencies this past off-season. While he locked up the team’s two best defenders for a long time, his main acquisition put the Rockies in a far worse defensive position.
(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/MCT)
Ty Wigginton is an awful defender. He plays many positions and he plays them all very poorly. His UZR is far below average at all of them. He’s probably better off as a designated hitter. Of course, other than the occasional home run, he can’t really hit, so trading him to an AL team is pretty much off the table. This is nothing new. He’s been bad in the field for a long time. So, when the Rockies signed him, they either didn’t care or they’re the most oblivious franchise in all of baseball. I can’t come up with any explanation for why they would want a guy that can’t hit or play defense. But, hey, he’s a gamer, right? Whatever that means.
Well run organizations don’t ignore opportunities to improve their team. In baseball, the differences between the best and the worst are slight. Unless you’re the Red Sox, Yankees, and maybe a few others, you have to win by searching out every little advantage you can find. Teams with limited payrolls can’t waste space with players that don’t produce. It’s called dead weight and it drags on the productivity of any business.
Right now, the Rockies are carrying a ton of dead weight. They are paying players to play for other teams. They have guys signed to multi-year deals that are performing at or below replacement level. You can point to an inconsistent offense and bullpen as reasons for their poor season, but, ultimately, it’s an overall inefficient roster that’s keeping them from realizing their full potential. This falls on the shoulders of Dan O’Dowd. The blueprint for running a successful franchise on a mid-market budget is available, but he’s seems content to build mediocre squads season after season.
The future for the Rox is anything but bleak. They have one of the best young cores in baseball, but they haven’t appropriately supplemented the rest of the roster and it’s cost them dearly the last couple of seasons. I doubt the Rockies will fire him, so I’m going to recommend a piece of reading to O’Dowd — The Extra 2% by Jonah Keri. If he read it, I’m certain that he would learn a lot.
Disagree or have something to add? As always, comments are welcome.
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7 comments
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chrischrisman
June 14, 2011 at 1:46 PM (UTC -6)
I think what “gamer” means (and why it’s important) is that Wigginton is the equivalent of duct tape: decent to get you by for a short-term fix, helpful for an unexpected emergency, but nowhere near ideal for a permanent solution. Wigginton fit that role perfectly based on O’Dowd’s reasonable expectations at the beginning of the season (NB: I say reasonable, but others may disagree). Those expectations were that Stewart would be the full-time 3B, and Helton’s back would give him 100 good games at 1B. Wigginton could get enough playing time between spelling Helton and, to a lesser degree, Stewart, and also fill in as a PH. That’s not a bad signing given last year’s free agent market and the versatility that O’Dowd needed and Wigginton provided. Stewart’s abysmal start shattered those expectations., so in comes the duct tape on a long-term basis. My point (and there is one) is that O’Dowd failed not in signing Wigginton, but in assuming Stewart could take on the full-time role at third. I don’t think that was an unfair assumption, but again, others may disagree.
CodenameDuchess
June 14, 2011 at 4:11 PM (UTC -6)
That’s a great point and O’Dowd’s assumption was fair. Stewart is a year removed from hitting 25 HRs and from a pure talent level is only surpassed by Tulo and Cargo on this team. Unfortunately for Ian, he was banged up and missed spring training and has been jerked up and down all while getting a whopping 40 random and disjointed ABs to work through it.
Luckily for all of us Tracey showed patience with Cargo back in the day and it all worked out just as it did for the Diamondbacks and Justin Upton and a number of other players.
I don’t know how everybody else feels but I’ll take a .225 BA with average D and plus power from Ian over .240 BA terrible D and average power from Wigginton.
However, all of this is pointless unless Ian at least learns to foul off that inside fastball because unlike the triple A pitching he has continued to destroy, big league pitchers will successfully hit that spot all day. Until Ian figures this out I’m on the Chris Nelson at 3rd band wagon.
Montana Steve
June 15, 2011 at 8:27 AM (UTC -6)
I’ve always thought Stewart was the classic 4-A player. Every time he gets sent down, he just tears it up and then the wheels fall off when he comes back up.
One good thing about O’Dowd is that I can’t really call him ‘Dealin Dan’ any more. He seems to have settled down as opposed to those 90s’ teams with such high turnover. I can’t really complain TOO much, but I hope he doesn’t just sit on the roster as it is. Third base is going to be a black hole for a while, duct tape doesn’t last forever.
CodenameDuchess
June 15, 2011 at 11:28 AM (UTC -6)
You’re probably right. I’m still holding on to a sliver of hope that he’ll figure it out. We just don’t have a lot of bats that have the ability to strike fear into a pitcher. Tulo/Cargo/Ianetta and that’s it. Smith and Helton have some pop but I think both are more line drive/doubles type of hitters.
Sadly, Stewart’s ceiling right now looks like Russell Branyon when it should have been Adam Dunn/Jay Bruce.
Ken
June 14, 2011 at 3:29 PM (UTC -6)
This past off-season gave me nagging doubts about the Rockies, but given O’Dowd’s past tract record, I was willing to overlook my doubts about his puzzling acquisitions: regarding the infield, he acquired two utility infielders that didn’t seem to be an upgrade over what we had last year – namely, Mora and Barmes (to be honest, Logan, I’m surprised that the UZR rating for Barmes was below average, that is, if I have inferred this correctly from your writing). As the season began, I (and many others) had questions about whether Ian Stewart would finally reach his potential, and whether Nelson or EY Jr. would step up to handle second base while adding the extra offense that Barmes lacked: i.e., improved batting average from Nelson and improved OBP for EY, plus EY’s added speed on the bases. So, essentially, in Spring Training, the Rockies came in with three Utility players: Lopez, Wigginton, and Herrera, a 3rd baseman with tons of potential but a long looping strike-prone swing: Ian Stewart, and several good largely-untested minor league infielders: Nelson and EY Jr. What the Rockies rolled out of Talking Stick with was a confusing array of potential infield configurations, but nothing nailed down. Logan, I can see what you mean by dead weight; the Rockies have had 3rd and 2nd bases manned by a platoon of AAAA players.* (*excluding, in my opinion, Herrera and Nelson.)
I guess I thought, as the season started, that O’Dowd had spotted potential in Wigginton and Lopez that every other Front Office in baseball had overlooked. After all, I had been indoctrinated with the belief that the Cargo/Street trade for Holiday had been a stroke of genius. Perhaps O’Dowd had found veteran players who could push Stewart and our unnamed second baseman into greatness. Or, on their own accord, perhaps one of the two (Wigginton or Lopez) would have a career renaissance and join Tulo, Cargo, and Ubaldo in the limelight. In hind site, my thoughts were naive. O’Dowd , while engineering a great trade that secured us Cargo, is capable of some pretty big blunders. Fortunately, he has shown that he is capable of admitting to his mistakes – as demonstrated by Jose Lopez now playing infield for the New Orleans Zephyrs. I’ll be happy with O’Down if he can keep the ratio of Cargo/Street trades to busts at a 1:3 ratio. Is there a statistic for this on Baseball Reference?
Logan Burdine
June 14, 2011 at 3:34 PM (UTC -6)
Ken, Barmes had a really bad year — well below his normal defensive production at second. It’s a good point though. Usually, he’s very good.
Anna
June 14, 2011 at 4:00 PM (UTC -6)
The duct tape analogy makes a great deal of sense, sad to say. What the team seems to lack is true structure on which to place the tape. As much as I like duct tape, if it is removed and reapplied repeatedly, it loses its original usefulness. We have some solid players but the constant juggling weakens the third leg of the stool. So we keep falling over when the tape comes loose.
>SweetSpot Roundup 6/15 | The Platoon Advantage
July 28, 2011 at 10:37 AM (UTC -6)
[...] Street Bulletin (Rockies): Dead WeightLogan debunks the idea that the Rockies are a strong defensive [...]