Offense is easy to appreciate. Offense leads to runs, runs lead to winning. You need to outscore the other team to win and the easiest way to do that is to score a lot of runs. Defense is a different story. You can’t outscore the other team with defense. It’s also not always visible. The best defenders make plays look easy. The worst defenders can make easy plays look hard. It is often hard to discern, on a game-by-game basis, the difference between an above average but not spectacular fielder from a below average but not terrible fielder. Your brain, without stats, would think they’re the same.
Here’s how I’d sum up the difference between fans’ responses towards offense and defense. If the offense shows up in a loss, it’s still appreciated. If the defense shows up in a loss, it’s mostly not appreciated. The exception is probably a pitcher’s duel with a couple highlight plays, but that is not the norm. And if you don’t believe defense isn’t appreciated in loss, can you explain why the majority of fans think the defense-first player needs to sit when a team is scuffling?
Happens every time without fail. The logic goes that we need offense, and we can’t afford to have their bat in the lineup. The unintended implication is that defense doesn’t really matter that much. Or at least a belief that defense doesn’t win games. But it does, it’s just not as obvious. It certainly implies any offense is more valuable than someone just providing value on defense.
I honestly have never understood this logic. I’d think it’d be the opposite. You know the saying defense never slumps? It’s not exactly true, but a great defender is significantly less likely to have a bad game defensively than a great hitter is to go 0-4. When nobody is hitting – and let’s face it the offensive-oriented guys are failing at their job in this scenario – why not actually play the players who still contribute on the field?
Anyway, this came up because I’m a Pedro Pages defender, which presents me with a whole lot of other difficulties, because he also plays catcher. And catcher is a notoriously hard position to judge defensively. Other positions at least have a rough eye test you can use, unless you have actually caught at a high level and understand the nuances, you aren’t going to recognize a catcher unless they throw out runners.
I was also asked to explain my reasoning for my defense of Pages. First, it must be said that his defense is actually good. He’s a good framer, he’s good at controlling the run game, pitchers seem to pitch better when he’s catching, and he is having a below average year blocking, but he was positive last year, so I’m not actually convinced he’s bad at blocking pitches either. That’s everything that we do know about him defensively.
Of course, we don’t know everything about catcher defense. There is a mystery element of it that we’ll probably never solve. The way teams willingly sacrifice offense for defense at catcher tells me there’s something added not reflected in the numbers. My go-to-example is the Houston Astros and employed terrible terrible hitter Martin Maldanado from 2020 to 2023. He had a good 2020, but neither of the next three years looked like a catcher who should be starting. And yet he got the majority of starts. I don’t think the Astros were dumb. We’re missing something here. I believe Pages likely has a similar thing given his defensive reputation, his minor league history and really the Cardinals’ actions.
Also I don’t actually think his offense is this bad. The thing about a 70-75 wRC+ hitter is that when they slump, they’re not going to look like a 70-75 wRC+ hitter. They’re going to look like Pedro Pages. Baseball Prospectus suggests he’s getting unlikely, as his deserved runs created+ (DRC+) is 69. Which doesn’t include yesterday’s game, which I unfortunately missed, but I’d be impressed if a 2-hit game was that lucky that his DRC+ goes down.
What’s the difference between a 60 wRC+ hitter and a 72 wRC+ hitter, which I must add is his ZiPS projection? If my math is correct, it’d boost his fWAR about 0.7. He’d be at about 1.1 fWAR instead of 0.3 (it might be 0.4 by tomorrow actually). A 1.1 fWAR player through 285 PAs is a borderline starter. Then you throw in the intangible stuff, the stuff that’s probably happening that we can’t see and it’s really not a big leap to add just a little more. And yes, I’m aware he hasn’t actually hit like that. I get it. But you can see where I talk myself into him.
And people will argue he’s not part of the runway season, but he absolutely is. What if he goes on a bit of a heater and gets closer to his 83 wRC+ that he managed last season? If you think that’s implausible, his wRC+ has risen 6 points in his last three games. There is one rather big benefit to having such a poor hitting line in this instance and that’s that it’s not nearly as hard to rise it up quickly. I think these are important things to figure out. What if Pages defense looks even better by the end of the season and he also gets his hitting line to a more respectable level? I’m not asking for Nolan Gorman to be a contact hitter here. These are extremely plausible outcomes.
That’s really why I defend him. I can see a version of Pages that is a part of the future. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I’m saying I would like to find out. There’s varying levels of bad offense and he might still get it to an acceptable level of bad. Also, you guys should look around the league more. You’d be shocked at how bad the offense can get at catcher. Pages is not the floor. There are 11 catchers who have a worse wRC+ than him who’ve gotten at least 70 PAs. Four of them have gotten over 150 PAs. Why do you think Austin Hedges still has a job?
Anyway, it extends beyond Pages. Scott is getting a little bit of this too. Scott’s season is almost paralleling two past Cardinals seasons by different centerfielders. Both centerfielders had similar seasons to the bat as Scott, both provided good value through their defense and baserunning, and both produced a good amount of backlash, at least for that particular season in one of the players’ cases. Those players are Peter Bourjos and Harrison Bader.
This will probably get lost to time, but I remember the fan backlash to Harrison Bader during the 2019 season. He had an 82 wRC+ and 1.5 fWAR in 406 PAs. Perhaps most importantly, he was not very good against RHP. Nonetheless, about an average player. And obviously, he had more potential with the bat. As it turned out, he wasn’t as bad against RHP as it seemed then, or maybe more repetition made him a better hitter over time. Either way, the backlash disappeared when he was above average the next two seasons.
Bourjos is a different story. In his first season, he was an 81 wRC+ and 1.2 fWAR player in 294 PAs. That’s above average. But he was up against a more offensive-oriented alternative option, Jon Jay. He had 1.7 fWAR in 468 PAs. There were very big debates about this on VEB at the time and honestly, you can see in the stats why. Unlike Bader though, Bourjos appears to have gotten worse defensively, and honestly his bat was always kind of the same, it just depended on what his BABIP was. Unfortunately for him, his BABIP could get quite low.
Just kind of weird how much the Scott situation reminds me of that. Having a low 80 wRC+ but because of how good defensively he is and with his baserunning, he’s still at least an average player – and in Scott’s case, above average. But fans don’t like to watch bad hitters and I feel like people are still going to want to find a new centerfielder for the future.
Which is funny because I always hear about Whiteyball and Scott is the most Whiteyball player the Cardinals have had in a long time. Look at some of the offensive seasons Willie McGee and Vince Coleman had. They had multiple below average offensive seasons! McGee had a 79 wRC+ over a full season and Coleman was as low as 66 wRC+ one year! I honestly don’t know if they’d be fan favorites if they played today.
So here’s to the defense-first players. Remember when the Cardinals seemed like a good team? It was because of the defense. Why do they now look mediocre? Because the defense fell off (and changed – it’s actually funny how much it lines up with how much Alec Burleson plays outfield). They should play even when the offense is struggling – especially when the offense is struggling – because if nobody else is hitting, at least they’re giving you something.