Nyjer Morgan: How Valuable Is Defense (Part One)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make an assumption. I'll assume for a moment that the majority of our readers have either read or at least understand the premise of the book Moneyball.However, what a good deal of people don't know is that Billy Beane himself shifted focus shortly after Moneyball was released.See, the underlying point of that book isn't about stats. It's about a small-market team—in this case the Oakland Athletics—finding a niche that hasn't been exploited by teams with more money yet. In this way, they gain a competitive advantage.At this point, if all the fans know about the revolution of sabermetrics, you can bet that every front office knows about them, too. Bill James works for the Red Sox now. The Yankees cite OBP in articles on MLB.com. The competitive edge gained has leveled out.So what did Beane do?Simple. He exploited something else that many large-market teams ignored. With the offensive revolution going on, Bean...