The WGOM

Kind of a weird topic for a Twins beat writer to bring up these days, but what the hay, I'll run with it anyway.

Here's my take on the Rangers:

They're essentially a .500 team that's gotten a little lucky so they're standing 37-30. Is it unreasonable to suggest that 3-4 extra wins over 67 games could be due to luck? Having seen a lot of crazy things happen on baseball diamonds across the country, I'm going to say no. Their runs scored and runs allowed are pretty much identical to the Twins' RS/RA right now.

The Rangers' defense has been massively improved. At -52 runs, their defense rated dead last in the AL last year as measured by UZR. So far this year, the Rangers are at +18 runs, 6th in MLB. That is a huge, huge, huge difference.

To his credit, Christensen mentions Michael Young's move from SS to 3B as an improvement to the team, but I think he really downplays this far too much. For one, he hints at one point that Andrus needs to worry about the defense, which I find pretty ridiculous. Andrus so far has a +17.5 UZR/150G and he was specifically brought up for his defense. Michael Young, despite his fraudulent Gold Glove, has been a bad, bad shortstop in his career. Why should this not be a surprise? In the minors, Michael Young played 90 games at 2B and 2 games at SS. Teams almost always start minor league players at the position where they have the most defensive value, and top-tier defensive shortstops don't play second base in the minors.

Fielding stats are ragged on for what I feel are a lot of stupid reasons, but there is one thing that I feel is pretty legitimate and not mentioned that much. No one has yet done an especially good job of disentangling SS performance from 2B performance. When Alfonso Soriano left New York, Derek Jeter's fielding numbers magically got better. A lot better, actually, and at an age where no one had any reason to believe Jeter was one iota better at fielding his position. Similarly, when Alfonso Soriano left the Rangers, Michael Young's fielding numbers magically got better. They were still bad, of course, but they weren't apocalyptically bad.

Well, with Young as his partner at the keystone, Ian Kinsler's UZR/150G was generally around -10 R/150G--pretty awful. But so far this year--in an admittedly small sample--Kinsler's UZR/150G is up to 10.7. I think it stands to reason that having a good fielder next door could boost your fielding numbers, and I think we're seeing the upgrade from Young to Andrus having a ripple effect on the Rangers' middle infield.

I think a lot of people would jump to say that this means defensive statistics for middle infielders are highly flawed, but I kindly suggest you consider the following: it is possible that the fielding metrics may be accurate here and what they actually suggest is that having one really bad middle infielder has a kind of sum-greater-than-the-whole-of-the-parts effect on the middle infield, and that one really bad middle infielder puts a dent in the other middle infielder's numbers sort of in the way that conventional wisdom would have us believe that lineup "protection" means that a #4 hitter can affect a #3 hitter's numbers.

Continuing on the defense-first theme, it became trendy over the offseason to anoint the Kansas City Royals as "the new Tampa Bay Rays" because, the argument went, they have a lot of young players, and hey look--so did Tampa Bay! What this ignores is that what really put Tampa Bay over the top was a massive, massive upgrade to their defense, which was at least partly keyed by taking a butcher out of SS and putting an above average defender there*. In 2008, the Rays had the best UZR in all of baseball at +74.2 runs, and in 2007, the Devil Rays had the worst UZR in all of baseball at -57.7 runs. It was common to see dead-tree media claiming that the Rays had hugely improved pitching--just as Christensen claims that the Rangers have hugely improved pitching this year--which was true, but their improvement in pitching was about 78 runs according to FIP as compared to their 132-run improvement on defense as measured by UZR. That doesn't quite account for their full improvement on run prevention, but it's clear that an improved defense was essential to the Rays' worst-to-first transition, and perhaps the biggest factor in that transition.

*And now that I'm thinking about Bartlett and potential inadequacies of middle infield defensive stats, I wonder if Iwamura--who came over as a third baseman--is bringing his numbers down a little bit. Overall, the two of them grade out as an average middle infield, but Bartlett's numbers are certainly down from his time in MN. Part of that decline could certainly be age.

All of this leads me to my biggest point, which I shall beat over your head with big, bold letters: The Rangers' pitching is essentially as crappy as it was last year. Last year they had a 4.83 staff FIP and this year they have a 4.99 staff FIP. But a 4.99 FIP with very good defense looks a lot better than a 4.83 FIP with miserable defense. Part of the perception issue here is that the Rangers' pitching was never that bad to begin with, and their awful defense was never given enough blame for their problems in the run prevention department. Now they've taken defense seriously and magically the pitching looks great. A 74% LOB% (best in the league) which is way out of line from their FIP also hasn't hurt. Their defense only accounts for about a 0.27 drop from their FIP to their ERA, so I'd project that from here on out, the Rangers' pitchers will have an ERA closer to 4.75 than their current 4.46.

The Rangers' OPS indicates that maybe they'll step up a bit in the run-scoring department, but not as much as it looks like they're going to drop off in pitching/defense.

After a closer examination, I guess I've come to the conclusion that the Rangers look pretty likely to be a slightly sub-.500 team over the rest of the season not because of the Texas heat or anything like that, but because it looks like their overall results are not very well supported by their underlying performance. That doesn't preclude the possibility that they'll go on a bit of a run, but that's not where I think the smart money is.