Every year, we see teams hunting for every possible hidden
advantage they can find. The Red Sox often look for right-handed power to take
advantage of their wonky park dimensions. The Yankees do the same from the
other side of the plate to maximize their Little League right field. Teams in
homerun-suppressing stadiums can load their rotation with extreme fly-ball
pitchers, and teams with smaller outfields can afford outfielders with less
range.
While the Skydome hasn’t had an extreme effect on offense
one way or the other in recent seasons, the Jays new, slower infield turf has
provided the team a bit of a hidden advantage of their own, and it’s one that
the players on the roster are perfectly suited to take advantage of again this
year.
The Jays 2B, 3B, and SS defense is outstanding. Averaging
out teams’ 2016 UZR and DRS at those positions, the Jays rank fifth overall and
are the only team to rank in the top ten at all three positions.
Of course, the best way to take advantage of a trio of
outstanding defenders is to give them every possible opportunity to shine.
Enter Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez.
Among the 163 active starters with at least 200 career
innings, Stroman and Sanchez are second and seventh in groundball rate. Last
year alone, they were first and fifth at 60.1% and 54.4% respectively. These
guys aren’t just good at generating ground balls; they’re the elite of the
elite. (It’s also worth noting that Francisco Liriano finished just outside the
top ten last year at 52%.)
So the team has turf that slows the ball down (source: Buck
Showalter), a trio of outstanding defenders on the infield, and a trio of
outstanding ground-ball generators in the rotation. Each of those attributes on
their own provide a lot of value, but the combination just might make the Jays an
elite run-prevention team. On average, pitchers around the league allow a .236
batting average on ground balls (and most of those, understandably, are
singles, leading to a paltry .491 OPS). Keeping the ball on the ground is an
effective way of limiting damage, and it’s made all the more valuable by doing
so with an elite group of defenders behind you.
This brings us to Justin Smoak.
Justin Smoak is not elite at anything. Thus far in his
career, Smoak has been pretty mediocre. He strikes out a lot, walks a lot, and
hits for a lot of power, and he’s settled in as a slightly-below-average
offensive player the last couple years. As a first baseman, that’s not good
enough for a player to be more than a backup and, ideally that’s exactly what
he’ll be this year.
Keep practicing, Smoaky. |
But what if he contributes to that defensive synergy? What
if his ability to scoop the ball and reach potentially errant throws plays up
by giving him a ton of opportunities? First base defense has never been valued
particularly highly (and Smoak’s advanced stats don’t quite match his
reputation as an excellent defender at the position) but what if you’ve
assembled a team that’s perfectly suited to make sure the guy playing the
position gets the ball far more often than you would normally expect?
We see discussions about synergy in other aspects of roster
construction all the time. We see it in our desire for someone with a high OBP
to bat in front of the mid-lineup sluggers. We see it when teams alternate
righties and lefties in their lineup to neutralize the opponent’s bullpen
specialist. We see it every time Kevin Pillar masks someone else’s defensive
deficiencies. We’ve watched it play out the last few years with fireballers
coming into the game after an R.A. Dickey start. Sometimes, finding hidden
value is about putting players in a situation that highlights their strengths
and give them every opportunity to put them to use.