EFL owners covet the Wolverines’ super-utility players. I know this because one of you has already asked me if I would trade one, and the rest of you are restraining yourselves only because you’re all so shy.
The Wolverines can’t win any real championships, at least not lately, but there is this: there are 10 players in the EFL who have defensive ratings at 4 or more positions.
Cottage: The good Matt Duffy
DC: Phil Gosselin
Kaline: Kris Bryant
Kaline: Chris Coghlan
Kaline: Brad Miller
Old Detroit: Brandon Drury
Old Detroit: Jurickson Profar
Old Detroit: Mark Reynolds, of the proposed Mark Reynolds Rule
Old Detroit: Sean Rodriguez
Peshastin: Javier Baez
Only 4 of those players are rated at 5 positions (all at 1b 2b 3b, SS, OF):
Kaline: Brad Miller
Old Detroit: Brandon Drury
Old Detroit: Jurickson Profar
Old Detroit: Sean Rodriguez
If we adopt the Mark Reynolds Rule, we’ll be down to just 2 players rated at 5 positions:
Old Detroit: Jurickson Profar
Old Detroit: Sean Rodriguez
I hadn’t noticed all this until this morning when I stumbled across a fun little article on Baseball Prospectus by Bryan Grosnick. He has invented a metric he calls the McEwing Score, named after Joe McEwing and abbreviated as McE. Players earn McE points by appearing at least twice in a season at various defensive positions:
|
McE |
Points |
|
C |
+19 |
|
SS |
+17 |
|
2B |
+15 |
|
3B |
+15 |
|
CF |
+15 |
|
RF/LF |
+11 |
|
1B |
+9 |
They have to appear twice to eliminate emergency flukish positioning. Pitching is eliminated as a blanket rule because a) it very rarely happens more than once a season for a position player, and b) it’s almost always done just because the team is completely bereft of usable pitchers.
The top score possible for a McE Score is 101. Last season the top score anyone earned was 82 (Sean Rodriguez and two inconsequential non-EFLers). The next highest EFL scorers were Javier Baez and Jurickson Profar at 67 McE.
Grosnick bemoans his inability to factor in how WELL players performed at their various positions. He suffers needlessly. We have defensive ratings the equal of any in the world. So I decided to end Grosnick’s misery by coming up with a variation on his index, which of course we’ll call the MockEw.
MockEw is simple: add up each player’s defensive ratings at their various positions.
Let’s start with the guy who creates all the trouble for us: Mark Reynolds. Reynolds is rated as 3.2 at 1b, 6.0 at 2b, 3.2 at 3b, and 1.3 in the OF for a total MockEw score of 13.7.
Here are the top 15 EFL players according to MockEw, under current rules (and after the rule change, if adopted):
Javier Baez, PP 23.1 (23.1)
Jurickson Profar, OD: 22.1 (22.1)
Sean Rodriguez, OD: 21.1 (21.1)
Matt Duffy, CC: 21.1 (19.1)
Brad Miller, KD: 19.0 (16.4)
Brandon Drury, OD: 18.8 (9.7)
Kris Bryant, KD: 17.6 (10.6)
Trea Turner, PP: 16.5 (16.5)
Chris Owings, KD: 16.2 (16.2)
Austin Barnes, CK: 15.7 (12.6)
Jorge Polanco, CC: 15.5 (15.5)
Phil Gosselin, DC: 14.0 (14.0)
Mark Reynolds, OD: 13.7 (7.7)
Manny Machado, OD: 13.4 (13.4)
Daniel Murphy, FH: 13.4 (13.4)
So Javier Baez’ amazing postseason defensive magic is a real thing.
Here’s how our teams rate in total MockEw:
Old Detroit: 130.0
Cottage: 110.8
Peshastin: 103.8
Kaline: 87.2
Canberra: 74.6
Flint Hill: 65.5
DC: 58.1
Portland: 42.7
Pittsburgh: 36.9
Haviland: 36.6
Some of those team scores are driven by high (or low) numbers of defensive players on the rosters. So here is how the teams rate in MockEw per defensive player:
Old Detroit 10.00
Kaline 7.93
Peshastin 7.41
Cottage 7.39
Canberra 6.78
Haviland 6.10
Flint Hill 5.04
DC 4.84
Portland 4.74
Pittsburgh 3.69
So the Wolverines are wasting their defensive prowess. If we could tap all the Wolverines’ defensive versatility like it was maple syrup and then spread it on each Wolverine equally, but applied only to their main defensive position, we could have a 10 rating at every position, and a team defense of 80. Wouldn’t that be sweet?
I confess, I *do* covet one or more Wolverines. But not for defensive prowess (although it is there, I consider it a byproduct). I have yet to summon the courage to propose a trade, due to recurring nightmares, caused by previous deals, from which I have yet to recover.
–Shy in Salem