Stephen Guilbert- Why Infield Defense Matters

This is an article on infield defense but this is important and loosely related and relative so check it: Despite two stints on the DL and having played in only two-thirds of the games of his counterparts, Juan Lagares now officially ranks as the best statistical defensive center fielder in baseball, passing the Reds' Billy Hamilton this week. 

I am interrupting my series on "shortstoptions" to point out why having a defensively sound infield is paramount to the success of both the current Met ball club and the squad that will finish out the decade.

The reason this is so relevant now is this: The Mets would not have won yesterday's game with a poor defensive infield. Include Juan Lagares and the importance of up-the-middle defense and it would not really have been close either. David Wright, Ruben Tejada, and Juan Lagares saved, by my count, either two or three runs in one game alone, depending on the variations of how the innings would have ended. Even Daniel Murphy, who had a poor game on both sides of the ball also turned a couple key double plays, one of which ended the game.

If you read back on my series about which shortstops the Mets should pursue or avoid, notice that I always talk about defense. I spend more than half the articles doing so. It is the main component I look for in a shortstop. If we had a bunch of starting pitchers who are league average guys with fly ball tendencies and we were building a murderer's row in the batting order, I would not care so much. Heck, probably not at all.

That is not what this team is doing. In fact, Sandy Alderson and his crew of bright baseball minds have constructed a team of should-be dominant starters who induce weak contact. Weak contact typically means ground balls. The assumption is that those ground balls will turn into outs.

Ground balls have the lowest run correlation of any batted ball. The Mets have a lot of ground ball pitchers. Here are 2014's numbers, before play started on Tuesday (keep in mind, league average is typically about 44-45%):

Dillon Gee is right near that league average mark so anyone above that has ground ball tendencies.

Look at Zack Wheeler, Familia, Niese, Black, Mejia. All are between "ground ball pitchers" and "extreme ground ball pitchers". In fact, over his career, Mejia has one of the highest ground ball rates of any active pitcher.

Jacob deGrom's sample size is still small and he had a ground ball rate of 44.4% in the minors, so even his number is a bit low. With the sinking action on his cutter, he is a ground ball pitcher in my book as well. At minimum he is league average. Dillon Gee is league average as well. Niese and Wheeler are extreme ground ball pitchers. Colon and Dice-K have no future with the Mets past 2015 (and most likely much sooner). Their replacements?

Noah Syndergaard- 47.6%
Matt Harvey- 44.4% (and even higher in the minors)

So, come 2015, the most likely starting rotation of Matt Harvey, Jon Niese, Zack Wheeler, Dillon Gee, and Noah Syndergaard (or Jacob deGrom) includes 3-4 league average and 2 extreme ground ball pitchers. Your 8th inning reliever is an extreme ground ball pitcher. Your closer is as ground ball happy as you can get. Your 7th inning guy is a ground ball pitcher. Your long man is a ground ball pitcher. All of your lefties have ground ball tendencies. Some are extreme.

Fly balls have a run-per-out value or 0.13. Ground balls have a run-per-out value of .05. A lot of elite pitchers get their outs on the ground and the Mets have assembled a staff made up of these pitchers. All of them. Some more than others, but all of them get somewhere around half of their outs on the ground.

Per FanGraphs and the same method used to evaluate Juan Lagares in the caption under his photo above, Ruben Tejada has been the 10th most valuable defensive shortstop in baseball this year and 6th in the NL, despite, like Lagares, playing fewer innings than his colleagues. 

It is insane--let me be clear: Not just illogical, not something to consider, not merely a "bad idea"--it is insane to build a team around ground ball pitchers and play poor defenders behind them in the infield. Absolutely insane. That is why Nick Franklin, Starlin Castro, Javier Baez, Wilmer Flores, and Asdrubal Cabrera are terrible options for the Mets at shortstop. If you replace Ruben Tejada, a very strong defender, you better damn well do it with one who will make as many putouts per attempt as he does.

Required reading: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/batted-ball/

Sandy Alderson and company have built this team around pitching and defense. They have a gem of a center fielder in Lagares. They have a catcher who looks a tad raw but has enormous defensive potential behind the plate. They have a very strong defensive shortstop. They have a terrible defensive second baseman. Most of the up-the-middle construction is there. If you have to play Murphy for his bat, which is reasoning I can understand, you absolutely cannot have anything other than well above average defenders at the other up-the-middle positions to compensate.

This is a bit of a spoiler, but my research on "Shortstoptions" is complete and Ruben Tejada is the shortstop I most want on this team for the next contending Met squad and, despite my affinity for his awesome walk rate and OBP, it's mainly because of how good his glove is.

Yesterday's game was the best time to say all of this because with anything less than what we have, defensively, the Mets lose their 4th straight. Pitching and defense. All day every day. That's how the Mets will win.

Stop with the nonsense of bringing bad defenders to this team. Especially at shortstop.

--SG