The Mariners Will Get Better Dee At Second Base
Sunday, May 20, 2018
An Improvement on Defense
Seattleites, just like the home fan base of every team in the major leagues, suffer through the incessant over-hyping of the prowess of their team’s players abilities from the local broadcasting crew. And despite the insistence of the ROOT Sports team, Robinson Cano has been about league average at 2B for most of his tenure with the Mariners. In his four-plus seasons with on the infield at Safeco and on the road as a Mariner, Cano has recorded DRS (defensive runs saved) of 0, -9 (minus isn’t good), 11 (worth about a win – good), 0, and 2 so far this season, for a total of about 4 DRS. He is solid, steady, and reliable. He is not, by any means, a gold glove 2B at this stage of his career.
The other sabermetric measure of defense reported by Fangraphs, UZR (ultimate zone rating) and its extrapolated companion UZR/150 (for a look at 150 games or roughly a full season – useful in smaller sample sizes), is even less kind to Cano. In 2016, the year DRS rated Cano at 11, UZR placed him at 3.9. The positive trend is the same, but the overall impact of maybe less than half a win versus a full win can be important, as Mariners fans who have seen their team fall a single victory short of the playoffs in recent memory. To be fair, the UZR of -1.7 in 2015 does look better than the DRS -9 of the same year.
By contrast, Dee Gordon, once the Los Angeles Dodgers moved him off of SS, has been pretty darned good at 2B. in 4,462.2 innings at 2B, Gordon has 13 DRS and 14.9 UZR. Cano’s overall cumulative DRS and UZR are greater than Gordon’s (30 and 24.5 respectively), but he has played 17,372 innings at the position, nearly four times as much.
In the outfield this season, Gordon has been less than spectacular. While metrics like DRS and UZR are admittedly not intended for small sample sizes like the fourth of a season that’s been played so far, Gordon currently has -9 DRS in just 341.0 innings and a corresponding UZR of -1.7. By improving the glove in both CF, with say Guillermo Heredia, and by the move of Gordon to 2B in Cano’s absence, the loss of Cano’s bat could, theoretically, be off-set in WAR.
The Present and the Future
The relatively younger Gordon (30), should offer a defensive upgrade over the thirty-five-year old Cano in the short term of half a season. It’s worth noting that Nelson Cruz, the Mariners regular DH, is in the last year of his contract. Cano, signed through his age forty season could easily slot over at DH, with Gordon remaining at second. And as for this season, pitching and defense have been the problem in a still so-far successful season, not the hitting. With Dee Gordon at 2B, one of the team’s deficits should get addressed.
Related Articles
- The Seattle Mariners Right Field Platoon: Both Productive and Economical
- The Seattle Mariners Will Be Better Than You Think in 2016
- The Seattle Mariners and Good Problems to Have
- The 2017 Ex-Seattle Mariners All-Playoff Team
- Seattle Mariners Games are Quick for a Reason
- Seattle Mariners That Should Be In The Baseball Hall Of Fame After Ken Griffey Jr.
- Seattle Mariners – Marco Gonzales And The Roller Coaster Of Emotion
- The State of the Farm System: The Seattle Mariners Organizational Depth
- The State Of The Seattle Mariners’ Farm System
- Where Did the Seattle Mariners Go Wrong?
- Will the Second Half Be Any Different for the Seattle Mariners?
- What Might a 2016 Seattle Mariners Roster Look Like?
- What is the Price of One More Win for the Seattle Mariners?
- The Status Quo Is No Mo’: Seattle Mariners Offseason Update, Part One
- The Two 2015 Free Agents That Can Turn The Mariners (Back?) Into A Contender
- What Happened in June to the Seattle Mariners?
- Runs, Win Expectancy, and the 2016 Seattle Mariners
- Why All Oregonians Should Get Behind the Seattle Mariners!
- Preview Of The 2018 Seattle Mariners – The Starting Rotation
- Could Jesus Montero be a Sleeper Contributor for the Seattle Mariners in 2015?
- Dealing with Grief & the 2015 Seattle Mariners
- Designating A Spot in Cooperstown for Mariners’ Edgar Martinez
- Ci-Shek, Please! – Seattle Mariners Offseason Update, Part Four
- 2016 Seattle Mariners Spring Preview: The Rotation
- 2016 Seattle Mariners Spring Preview: The Catchers
- 2016 Seattle Mariners Spring Preview: The Infield
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It