Who is responsible for our defense?

[twobrewers]

I wanted to name the thread "Jack Z & the D" as that would be a great band name, but alas - I went with something more productive.

Our defense is bad. Really bad.

We are below average defensively at the following positions....(in some case WELL below average)
Catcher
First Base
2nd Base
3rd Base
Center Field

It is easy to look at the ungodly numbers our young players are putting up and think the Brewers have underachieved this year. Prince and Braun have been amazing. Hardy has been great. Weeks has really come on as of late. And Hart has been fantastic. We all heap praise on Jack Z, for uncovering such "gems" but at what point does he need to be held accountable for drafting only "hitters" and not filling any defensive gaps?

We knew Prince projected poorly defensively as a first baseman. We knew Rickie has a lot of learning to do. We knew Braun was a poor 3rd baseman - we actually discussed his need to move to the outfield before he was ever in the bigs. We moved Hall to the outfield even though we expected him to struggle. As as a further example we drafted LaPorta this year to roam left field in the future. LaPorta is a first baseman who has never shown the ability to play the outfield. We completely drafted him for his bat - regardless of where we need to put him.

So we accept the fact that almost all of our draft picks have been drafted because they can hit the ball - and then complain when they aren't quality fielders. Does at least some of that fall on Jack Z?

We look at HR, Average, RBI, Runs, OPS, ERA, and WHIP because they are such easy numbers to play with. But because defense is hard to quantify it seems as though it is thrown to the wayside. Arizona continues to succeed in a large part because of fantastic defense. When you look at their batting numbers you assume they are overachieving, because you are only looking at part of the equation.

Maybe the Brewers aren't underachieving. Maybe our defense is just bad enough to counter our productive bats. Maybe our defense has caused overuse of our pitchers resulting in a largely worn out bullpen and 2nd half collapse. I think if we had a quality defense - we would have 90 wins.

[dadofandrew]

I think Hall is pretty darn capable right now, and might be above average as soon as next year. He was awful the first month or two, but it's been forever, since he has got turned around or even looked awkward. He's made several nice plays look routine, while just the other day, Andruw Jones took a roundabout route to a ball that bounced on the warning track, seemingly catchable.

 

As for the others, I think you'll see continued growth and improvement. The way they hit, it's not like they're going anywhere.

[Thurston Fluff]

Melvin has to be considered the major culprit here. If it was jus the rookies or just this particualr group maybe Jack Z or even the coaches along the way could shoulder a large prtion of the blame. But Melvin's trades have been for defensive liabilities. Lee, Estrada, Mench all are subpar. Of the few free agents he signed they seem to be liabilities as well. Scott Podsednick and Matt Stairs come to mind right off the bat. He has brought in decent defenders like Counsell and Koskie (though Koskie pretty much fell in his lap) but for the most part he seems to favor offense to a great degree vs defense. IIRC the Rangers were not a great defensive team either. I'd rather good offense as well but maybe a little more emphasis on D would be in order now that we have a core to work with.

[TooLiveBrew]

agreed with that last line, Buc. I really would love to see it concentrated at the position where defense is valued the highest (and coincidentally where our D has been horrid), namely - catcher. I'm pretty sure we can find - at worst - a lateral move (when weighing defense into value) at this position in the offseason, and I hope an upgrade is made. I just hope there's value left in Estrada, whether it be playing for us or landing us something in a trade.

[Thurston Fluff]

I really would love to see it concentrated at the position where defense is valued the highest (and coincidentally where our D has been horrid), namely - catcher.

 

Amen to that. Isn't it ironic that Melvin was the guy who found one of the greatest catchers of all time both defensivly and offensively?