Pretty good football game last night, eh? I mean, when Jake, the Chihuahua/Pug mix, started dashing all over the field like he owned the place, I couldn't help but miss the voice of Harry Kalas. He would have made that a very special moment.

Seriously, though, I ended up enjoying the Super Bowl pretty well. It lagged for quite a bit in the middle there, but once Drew Brees started making those quick passes, the game took on a life of it's own. It was an exciting end. Congrats to all the Saints fans out there!

Now on to more important things: the baseball season!

There's been a lot of talk this offseason about the way the Red Sox have re-built their team since the season ended. With the departure of Jason Bay via free agency, and with the arrival of Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre, among others, the talk has centered around how the Red Sox are trying to improve themselves defensively, at the expense of their offense. As you might guess, this has not gone over well with some of the more "traditional" voices. In fact, if you were to listen to the more extreme opinions, you might wonder how the Red Sox are going to score any runs whatsoever this year, or think that they'll be lucky to even compete with the Royals, let alone the Yankees or Rays.

I don't know if these people truly believe their complaints, or if it's just some weird mixture of disappointment at not re-signing Bay, a lack of understanding of defense in baseball, and a 24-hour newscycle that must be fed, but I find myself getting frustrated at the complaints. It's not like Jason Bay was ever an offensive juggernaut, or that Mike Cameron is an offensive black-hole, no matter how loudly people complain. The truth of the matter is, the 2010 Red Sox are going to be a fine team that will easily compete for the post-season all year. They're not going to hit 215 home runs, but they aren't going to hit 70 either. I honestly don't think fans will have much to complain about with that team on the field every night.

The complaints did get me thinking, though: what would a team that was built exclusively around defense look like? Not the Mike Schmidt and Albert Pujols school of defense, either, where it's balanced out by a great bat. The team I'm thinking of would consist entirely of all-glove/no-bat players - the more extreme the better. This seems to be what all the Boston opinion-makers are envisioning anyway. How would that team look in real life?

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Using the Rally WAR database, I totaled up the offensive and defensive runs earned by every player in their career and found the difference between the two. From there, I looked at the players with the biggest differences and made some judgement calls on who might be considered the more extreme all-glove/no-bat player at each position (is Aurelio Rodriguez, with 83 defensive runs and -252 offensive runs, a better example than Clete Boyer, with 149 defensive runs and -94 offensive runs? what about Brooks Robinson, with his 259 defensive runs and -17 offensive runs?) and included them on the team below.

This is the team I came up with, including some possible alternatives:

C: Brad Ausmus, 92 Def. Runs, -246 Off. Runs (Jim Sundberg, 107 DR, -100 OR; Bob Boone, 91 DR, -218 OR)
1B: George Stovall, 43 DR, -76 OR (Travis Lee, 28 DR, -48 OR; Phil Todt, 34 DR, -128 OR)
2B: Bill Mazeroski, 144 DR, -199 OR (Hughie Critz, 130 DR, -200 OR; Frank White, 122 DR, -172 OR)
SS: Mark Belanger, 256 DR, -213 OR (Omar Vizquel, 141 DR, -196 OR; Ozzie Guillen, 128 DR, -287 OR)
3B: Clete Boyer, 149 DR< -94 OR (Gary Gaetti, 119 DR, -64 OR; Terry Pendleton, 102 DR, -65 OR)
LF: Warren Cromartie, 67 DR, -30 OR (Mike Lum, 35 DR, -50 OR)
CF: Jim Piersall, 151 DR, -80 OR (Paul Blair, 175 DR, -52 OR; Darin Erstad, 119 DR, -27 OR)
RF: Glenn Wilson, 58 DR, -60 OR  (Cliff Heathcote, 52 DR, -37 OR)

The biggest observation here is just how hard it was to find good examples of all-glove-no-hit players at the most offensive-minded positions, LF, RF and 1B. I guess it goes to show just how highly clubs value offense at those positions. Conversely, it was incredibly easy to find examples at SS, 2B, and CF. I should also note just how crazy those numbers for Mazeroski and Belanger look. There have never been two players in the history of baseball whose value was so heavily skewed towards their defense as Maz and Belanger. Ozzie Smith, for example, has more defensive value than Belanger (266 defensive runs vs. 256), but his offensive value was much closer to average (-47 offensive runs vs. -213). It really is amazing what those two did with the glove in their day.

I'll leave it up to the theory and simulation experts to tell me just what a team like this would do in a 162-game season (to make things interesting, vary the pitching staffs for the squad, from 2009 Brewers to 2009 Giants, to see how they'd change). It should be pretty clear, though, that the 2010 Red Sox lineup is nothing like the one I've shown here. There are plenty of bats in the lineup, whether they're balanced out by defense or not. The "defense first" mantra that Theo Epstein is supposedly following this winter might be a real thing, but it's far from the drastic change that some are making it out to be.

It might be fun to see a team so extraordinary, defensively, that it looks like they're playing with a 10th player on the field, but even Theo knows that that won't work today. Instead, I just hope that Red Sox writers and fans can take a deep breath and trust the moves of a GM who has given them two World Series victories this decade. Pitchers and catchers reporting can't get here quick enough.

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Cletus Boyer
written by John Pound, February 08, 2010

Clete Boyer was the finest fielding 3rd baseman I have ever seen.Sorry Brooks,you were really great,but Boyer was truly exceptional.

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Interesting to compare 1960-64 Yanks with current edition
written by Richard Deegan, February 10, 2010

Speaking of defense, it is interesting to compare the current Yankee set-up with the 1960-64 Yankees. With ARod, Derek, Robbie and Tex (and Jorge), Yanks now have one of the premier hitting infields of all time. Bloggers' concerns focus mainly on the OF as being fine defensively, but somehow lacking in punch at bat.
The Yanks' 1960-64 infield (Cletis, Kubek, Bobby Richardson and Skowron, with Ellie) was noted more for its sterling defense, even though the hitting was not way below average. But there sure was a lot of punch in the OF: Mickey, Roger Maris and a combination of Yogi/ Hector Lopez in left. While Roger was fine defensively, Mick's knees were going and the circus in Left (especially at YS I) turned everything hit that way into a pure Hitchcockian adventure -you never knew what would turn out. (please, Yogi is one of my favorite players and persons of all time, but you had to see the Yanks' LF during this period to believe it).

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