Reese Kaplan -- In Baseball, Does Defense Win Championships?

In football the conventional wisdom is defense wins championships.  Many of the great teams of the past like the Pittsburgh Steel Curtain, the LT years of the New York Giants and even the lowly Jets’ Sack Exchange all intimidated the opposition.  By preventing points from scoring it made it that much easier on the offense to win even if they were not quarterbacked by a Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers. 

In this swing-for-the-fences era of launch-angle baseball, the concept of defense has seem to have taken a back seat to the long ball and the Earl Weaver church of the three-run homer.  Over the past several years even the often offensively challenged Mets have employed the long ball skills of folks like Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Jay Bruce, David Wright and others but didn’t get much for this approach. 

This season the Mets have many capable of the long ball (besides Pete Alonso).  Michael Conforto, Robinson Cano, Wilson Ramos and (ugh) Todd Frazier should all have 20+ HR capability.  Amed Rosario and Brandon Nimmo possibly could approach that level as well.

Yet through it all, who is the player you’d most like at the plate in a crucial situation…why it’s none other than .360 hitting Jeff McNeil.  So swinging for the fences is not necessarily the only way to win ballgames.

When rumors of Pete Alonso’s promotion to the big leagues began to surface, the public story being fed by the service-time obsessed Alderson et al front office was that his defense was so bad that he was not ready to ascend to the majors.  I don’t know about you, but any guy who won minor league defensive player of the month honors can’t be all that bad and the eyeball test certainly bears out that he’s at least average around first base.  Not everyone is Keith Hernandez out there, but then not everyone is Pete Alonso at the plate either.

Defense was a primary concern with the acquisition of Robinson Cano, Jed Lowrie and the return of Todd Frazier (kind of sounds like a horror movie sequel, no?)  Everyone wondered what would become of solid rookie sensation Jeff McNeil.  He was told to grab an outfielder’s glove and everyone shuddered.  Surprisingly, not only has he proven to be adept out there, he’s even made a few highlight reel type of catches. 

Brandon Nimmo we were told was incapable of playing CF but has been forced there with the newly minted left fielder McNeil and All Star Michael Conforto in right.  While he’s not necessarily going to win a gold glove, he’s been more than capable there, and in the recently concluded series in San Diego making one of the great catches by anyone in all of baseball this 2019 season. 

Picture by Ed Delaney

This time the elephant in the room is none other than the guy with the slick fielding reputation coming up through the system, Amed Rosario.  Here you have to ask yourself is his .280 AVG, baserunning and run production a worthy tradeoff to the suddenly error-prone shortstop?  There was chatter during the radio broadcast against the Padres about how he’s got the fielder’s equivalent of a hitch in his setup which is preventing him from getting good jumps on the ball.  Infielder coach Gary Di Sarcina has been working to correct that issue, but then we saw him run with his back to the infield and miss a seemingly easy pop-up to give Franmil Reyes a lucky hit. 

The surprise promotion of gloveman extraordinaire Adeiny Hechavarria has many pining for him to get the starting gig, but the drop-off in speed, power, RBIs and batting average is a mighty tough pill to swallow. 

That position is not the only one where they’ve decided defense carries more value than offense.  Despite his recent surprising two-hit game against the Padres, Tomas Nido is known far more for what he does behind the plate than what he does with a bat in his hands. 

The team is blessed/cursed to have redundant backup centerfielders in Juan Lagares and Keon Broxton who are as good defensively as anyone in baseball.  The problem is that neither of them can hit a lick and if Broxton’s primary value is his defense, that makes his recent flub in RF doubly difficult to accept. 

During the club’s history the team has had many great defensive players like Bud Harrelson, Edgardo Alfonso, Keith Hernandez, Doug Flynn and others.  The question is whether defense is as important in the scheme of things in baseball as it is in football?  Should the club sacrifice its meager offense to bring in players better supporting their starting pitcher when he’s on the mound?  Or should defense be damned and play whomever is going to help drive in the most runs? 

What’s your take?