> The Giants with their HR park, really
> don't need to worry about IF defense
> all that much
If you have a GB pitcher with so-so stuff, I'd hate to see balls going between the fielders before the next guy takes it deep. I think I'd rather give up dingers of the 1 run variety than the 3 run type.
They also have to go on the road for half their games, and win there. Here's 1950:
Home
45-32 Cards
42-35 Giants
Road
47-30 Cards
37-40 Giants
The Giants gave up 10 games on the road to the Cards, which is pretty amazing in an 77 game sample.
Lastly, this is coming from someone who's old park ratings where those of a very good HR from both sides (110 and 110), and always like to keep *great* IF like Pokey, Stuart and Alexander around.
The Polo Ground are extreme in one direction (156 for RHB and 101 for LHB). Of course most of the batters in the league are right handed, but still... if it was thought to be very important to have strong glove men in an old HR park when building championship teams (and I'm recalling an "Defense wins Championships" comment in these threads), then one would think there's value for the Giants.
There options at 2B were:
* the terrific fielding but brutal hitting Fabbricatore.
* Mugford's horrid 1/10 defense and empty "good BA" offense.
* put Mugford's 5/10 3B glove across the diamond, and move Pursell's 4/10 2B glove to the pivot.
Not a lot of great internal options there.
Which meant looking around for an upgrade at:
(a) 3B and moving Pursell to a position he was weaker in
(b) 2B and kicking Mugford's brutal glove and overrated bat to the bench
(c) finding a SS that would allow them to move Howard to a position where he was +2 in range.
Perhaps if there was a bat available like Res Seelinger of the White Sox you would aruge that it would be okay for the Giants to roll his 2/5 .945 SS glove or 3/5 .975 2B glove out to one of those positions. Maybe... though we've yet to see you roll out such a defender for a full season (or several seasons) with such a brutal glove. I recall you complaining about Perly's 5/5 .970 SS glove after a month on a team you were trying to win a championship with.
I'm not sure if a strong bat/no glove player like Seelinger was on the market. We could ask Tom. One gets the feeling that Mike Fellner wasn't out on the market, so the great bat/passable glove types probably weren't as well.
Roth does appear to bring at least one positive to the table - an improvement of the defense at both positions up the middle over last year's team:
2B 1/10 .969 to 7/7 .968
SS 5/7 .971 to 7/8 .973
I suspect if he had Bado to play 2B, he probably would keep Howard at SS and eat 5/4 .977 defense at 2B and a 5/7 .971 glove at SS in return for Bardo's 30+ HR. But does anyone think Bardo's GM would part with him in the type of package that brought the Giants Roth, Blisit and Stahl?
John