Okay, humor me. Let's take a hypothetical offense here. For now, we'll call it MyFavoriteTeam.
This is the what MyFavoriteTeam has to offer offensively:
That .250/.317/.409 offensive performance might be "good" (or merely good enough) if it was paired with the 1985 Royals pitching staff or the 2001 D'Backs hurlers. But how does this offense survive in a hitters park in 2008? Well, that's a mere hypothetical at this point.Code:POS AVG OBP SLG P 0.123 0.155 0.153 C 0.246 0.307 0.358 1B 0.274 0.363 0.413 2B 0.262 0.306 0.419 3B 0.278 0.348 0.450 SS 0.270 0.318 0.403 LF 0.248 0.381 0.519 CF 0.258 0.298 0.414 RF 0.290 0.374 0.553 Avg 0.250 0.317 0.409
Now, let's say that the stud RFer shown above is a serious injury risk. And the 1B is old and is an implosion risk. The 3B has upside, but he's the sole major contributor with serious upside.
If I was rooting for MyFavoriteTeam, I most assuredly would be frightened by the "offense" from these middle defenders. The collective OBPs from these middle defenders look atrocious: .307, .306, .318, and .298. Nevermind the pitcher. How can you build an offense when no one is on base?? Collectively, this view of the team's OBP is 0.020 below league average.
On the other hand, there appears to be some pop, and it's nicely distributed across the lineup. There's no way the pop makes up for the serious deficiency in OBP--instead, it looks like a team that will be heavily dependent on the solo HR for its runs. Essentially, I would say MyFavoriteTeam is a rather poor offensive team, and it will be starved for runs in a HR-friendly park in 2008.
Perhaps life would be made easier by rooting for the 2008 Red Sox instead.