*Side note: if you don't believe that offense sells, check out the home and road attendance spikes when guys like Barry Bonds/Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa were hitting 60+ home runs out of the park. If you think the owners didn't have a financial interest in their players juicing, you are sorely mistaken (and this news from today "@BreakingNews: Mark McGwire admits using steroids when he broke baseball's home run record in 1998" confirms that). As the Greg Maddux/Tom Glavine Nike commercial said: "Chicks Dig The Longball". People will go to the ballpark to see very few pitchers. In my generation, I can only think of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and David Cone (in his Yankee heyday) who would draw fans to the ballpark. And the only reason Coney drew fans were because they wanted to wear that stupid Conehead hat. Maybe Kerry Wood and Mark Prior in their first years in Chicago. Probably Pedro Martinez in his Red Sox glory days. Maybe King Felix in Seattle. But Albert Pujols will outdraw Tim Lincecum any day.
The Red Sox are not the first team to do this. The Tampa Bay Rays exploited this in 2008 and surprised everyone by going past the Yankees and Red Sox and straight to the World Series. The Seattle Mariners improved their record greatly by focusing on defense last year* and are doing the same this off-season as well. The price for offense is so high and past Moneyball qualities of OBP are now valued by each team equally, creating too pricey of a market for the best hitting available. Now teams are focusing on defense and new defensive metrics which is a much cheaper commodity.
*Side Note: The Mariners also took full advantage of this last year when they took Jarrod Washburn who under normal circumstances is a mediocre-at-best pitcher and got a good return for him by not only putting him in a pitcher's park, but by putting an excellent defense behind him. The new warning is not only beware of acquiring National League pitchers, but also beware of Seattle pitchers.
This should result in wins. A players Wins Over Replacement (WAR) is calculated through both a player's offensive and their defensive values. The key is to get the most WAR from your players so if you can't get it from the hitting side (what you can get from your half of the inning at bat), you might as well keep it away from the other team's half inning. The Red Sox seemingly have found a way to do that. They replace Jacoby Ellsbury in CF where (according to UZR) he was subpar with superior defender, Mike Cameron*. They replace Jason Bay in LF (who seemed to fail every defensive metric while with the Red Sox--and he replaced Manny Ramirez) with Jacoby Ellsbury. They replace years of the Edgar Renteria's and Julio Lugo's of the world who couldn't field short with Marco Scutaro who has shown to be quite adept at doing so. And they replaced a gimpy Mike Lowell at 3B who was one of the worst (if not THE worst) defensive third basemen in the majors last year with Adrian Beltre who may be one of the best of the last decade.
*Side note: If the Yankees do not sign Johnny Damon to play LF (and I'm not a big fan in them doing so for the aforementioned defense dis-value of having Damon patrolling the field) and they determine that Brett Gardner is better in CF than Curtis Granderson (and although it seems that way based on 2009 numbers, a good argument was made that year-to-year UZR may not be sufficient to determine defensive prowess), they should announce right now that they are moving Granderson to left and putting Brett Gardner in CF. The difference may only be a few runs for the entire year, but I think those few runs are worth making the switch. Look what the Red Sox did with Ellsbury and Cameron. No need to leave any stone unturned. In this hyper-competitive division, every little run counts. (I apologize for all these side notes, I know it chops up the post, but they are important.)
The Red Sox pitching is really good and deep, too. Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey make a very tough top 3 and the combination of Clay Buchholz, Tim Wakefield, and Dice-K (who may have been injured last year leading to his poor pitching) is very good and very deep. That list doesn't even include prospects such as Bowden and Tazawa who may be valuable pieces to the bullpen or trade chips if not used in the rotation.
There are flaws to the Red Sox plan. They need Mike Cameron to not decline too much offensively as he approaches 40, Marco Scutaro to continue to build on his career offensive year from last year, and free-swinging Adrian Beltre to bounce-back offensively (which they hope will happen if he's healthy in 2010 and takes to hitting in Fenway as opposed to the spacious Safeco previously mentioned as Jarrod Washburn's best friend in 2009). They need big years in 2010 from Dustin Pedroia (who was not as good as his 2008 MVP season...although pretty damn good still), Big Papi (who needs to get off to a big start or hear more whispers), and Victor Martinez (the forgotten man on this team who could be they key offensive piece). They need health risks J.D. Drew, Dice-K, and Beltre to stay healthy. And although strikeouts are not as hurtful as many make them out to be, they need to make sure that the high-K tendencies of Cameron and Beltre don't hurt the makeup of what's been a very patient offensive team. Also, while they save some money from not signing Bay or Matt Holliday, they still may be in the luxury tax level in 2010.
It's also good for the Red Sox that they don't have trouble selling out their small park because this type of baseball doesn't always attract the fans (see earlier note about winning). Chicks dig the long ball and although this team should still hit them out of the park, losing Bay's and Lowell's (who they may have been able to get away with just playing at 1B and moving Youkilis to 3B) bats may not be as easy to recover from. I've heard from more than one Red Sox fan who is upset about these signings. One even said he doesn't think he'll go to any games because "his team won't be fun to watch". Point taken. But if the team wins--which I think they will--I think they'll fans will be plenty happy, even if it means rooting for defense*.
*Side note: While I have questions about the Red Sox offense, I have serious doubts about the Seattle offense. I think that fans who go to those games should bring D-fence signs like in baseball or football stadiums and start "D-FENCE" chants all game long.
Winning is winning, and above all, I believe people want to see winning baseball. I could be wrong though--those same Tampa Bay Rays who won all those games in 2008 with great defense didn't draw as many fans as one would suspect from such an improved team. And there is evidence that home runs really do bring fannies into the seat. But I don't think the issue for the Rays was an adversity to seeing good defense and the Red Sox will not face the same issue in 2010. They just may not be as exciting*. And those Yankees/Red Sox match-ups will be the ultimate battle of offense vs. defense.
*Side Note: The one thing I worry here is a downturn in the sport. When Pat Reilly's basketball teams were dominating the NBA or the Devils' "Neutral Zone Trap" took over the NHL, the sport began to suffer. Each one suffered to the point where rules changes were made to combat those defenses. I can't see the same thing happening in Major League Baseball...but then again, anything is possible. This is the sport, I should point out, that was charged last week with statistical abuse. Sports is supposed to be entertainment and sometimes exploitation of defense to win games doesn't qualify as entertaining. I'll take a boring team that wins, though, over an exciting team that loses 7 out of 7 days of the week and twice on Sundays.
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