Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Individual teams in small markets should try this, the Royals among them.
Move the fences back out. Build your team around speed, pitching, and defense. Have a significant home park advantage, while providing an entertaining product that's fun to watch and reliant on a less sought-after type of player.
You'll take lumps on the road, of course, if you have a team really keyed and geared this way. But athletic players who hit line drives can adapt a lot better to playing in smaller parks than unathletic teams who rely on HR can adapt to playing in a cavernous field.
I think the extreme overshifting is also an issue. It further decreases the value of the speedy contact hitter because teams can position their entire IF to minimize the value of that hitter unless they have superb bat control. I don't like the idea of taking away the shift, but placing some sort of limit on it would make the game more exciting and strategic, too.
If I have a limited number of shifts to call, I'm probably not going to use one of them to cover the 5-hole on a RH contact hitter, or cover the 3.5 hold on every LH hitter.
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The problem is that I'm a guy who models this team after the 85-87, which were the apex of this approach.
Excellent defense, fast runners....and Jack Clark.
You
needed Jack Clark for that team to work (and that's why it didn't anymore after they foolishly let him walk).
You've got Ozzie, Pendleton, Coleman and Herr getting on base at around a .370 combined clip around him and you have him in the middle providing a credible power threat to put up the occasional crooked number you need.
Now in a 'lopsided' environment where teams aren't working with similar fields, you're going to struggle a LOT to get that big bat to play with you. So you can keep trying to draft them, but power hitters are probably the biggest boom/bust propositions that exist in the draft apart from HS pitchers.
It's gonna be pretty tough to maintain a viable pipeline of legitimate 4 hitters in the system.
Tommy Herr driving in 110 runs w/ single digit homers just doesn't happen often so you need someone that will occasionally make that 3 run swing happen with one swing and without that, you're gonna lose a lot of game 4-2.
But it's definitely what won the Royals a 'ship. I'm really not sure why more teams aren't trying to zag a bit. Wouldn't speed/defense be the new market inefficiency? Doesn't seem Beane is working those margins much so maybe I'm overstating it's potential.
But again, for me it's not about trying to locate the most efficient path to wins. I recognize that it probably isn't. For me it's more about MLB mandating that teams will try to find the most efficient ways to win within the context of a now entertaining game. That's why I've pushed the 'league mandate'. Keep everyone on the same playing field.