If the reports are correct, Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik has once again proven why he's smarter than just about everybody; pending a physical sometime today, the M's will announce that they've locked Chone Figgins down to a four-year, $36 million contract.

As I've mentioned once or twice here before, Seattle and I have a history, and the Mariners are (a distant) second in the battle for my baseball affections. So as a Mariners sort-of fan, I'm pretty excited about this. According to FanGraphs, Figgins has been worth at least $9 million in every single season since becoming a regular save a bizarre, unlucky year in 2006, and considerably more than that since ditching his supersub role for the role of regular third baseman in 2007, and he's a good bet to give the M's much better than fair value for the next four years. Great defense, very good on-base skills, and incredible baserunning (aside from, and actually almost despite, his prolific but only moderately successful basestealing). He's a great fit for this team, and at a great price.

But here's what I want to talk about today: a big part of the reason he's worth this contract is that he'll play 3B (or 2B if Adrian Beltre accepts arbitration). If, as had been rumored for a while, the Yankees had signed Figgins to play left field, they'd be almost guaranteed to overpay for him.

On Friday, in a comment, reader and FOTB Ron wrote this:
(click here to read more)

I don't get why everyone is caught up in 'numbers for position'? This is the argument that they are using in Kansas City. They don't want Callaspo to move to LF, because he doesn't put up LF numbers.
[...]
Considering Manny, Holliday, Bay, and Lee are all LF'ers, it seems to me that it would be hard for just anyone to put up LF numbers. Unless Scott Podsenik is the standard for LF'ers, and Chone Figgins is the standard for 3B.
Get the 8 best players you have (offensively and defensively), and slot them into the lineup where they all fit the best. Unless you have a complete butcher that you have to hide in LF or at 1B. If a guy can play the position defensively, it shouldn't matter what numbers any other player in the game put up. Defensive positioning has nothing to do with offensive positioning. Which is why Piazza should have been playing 1st, and Mauer will end up in LF.

Well, first thing's first: if Mauer ends up in LF, and he's still a Twin, I'm done as a Twins fan. But anyway.

Defensive positioning has tons to do with "offensive positioning" (whatever that means), and this is something that I have to believe that every baseball fan in the world (Ron certainly included) knows almost intuitively, but sometimes it's just hard to think about it the right way. Well, here are a couple different ways of thinking about it:

• Would Ozzie Smith (2460 hits, 87 OPS+) be a Hall of Famer if he were merely the best defensive left fielder who ever lived, rather than the best defensive shortstop? What if Luke Appling (2749 & 112) were a first baseman? Mickey Cochrane (1652 & 128) as a right fielder?
  
  
• Do you really mean you just get your best 8 players and put them out there? Really? If your best eight players are Derek Jeter, Elvis Andrus, Erick Aybar, Adam Everett, Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, Yunel Escobar and Yuniesky Betancourt, will you ever score enough runs to win a game? If your best eight players are Adam Dunn, Jack Cust, Jermaine Dye, Jason Kubel, Pat Burrell, Jason Giambi, Jim Thome and Billy Butler, will you ever get enough outs to get out of an inning?
  

I think the main thing to understand is this: the athletic skills involved in hitting a baseball on one hand and being a good defender on the other are totally different. If you're a good hitter, there's no increased likelihood that you'll also have the talents necessary to be a good fielder. So, there's a reason that Manny, Holliday, Bay and Lee are all left fielders. It's one of the easiest positions to play. And it's always been that way, and people have always understood that. Other than the flip in perceptions of third base and second base that occurred around the middle of the last century (which Ron discusses later in his comment), there has been basically zero change in our perceptions of the different positions for the last ninety years. Catcher and shortstop are really, really hard. Second and third base and center field are pretty hard. Right and left field are pretty easy. First base is really easy.

So what you see is the best hitters grouped together in sort of the opposite order -- lots of first basemen and left fielders, quite a few right fielders, a few CFs, 3Bs and 2Bs, and almost no catchers or shortstops. If you've got a guy who's a great hitter, the odds are very, very low that he can also handle a really challenging defensive position.

Thus, the hitters you can find who can capably fill SS or 2B are going to be much less talented hitters, on the whole, than the ones you can find to handle LF. So the reason Callaspo's or Figgins' numbers might not stack up in left field isn't because of Manny, Holliday, Bay and Lee, but because of the systemic reality those guys represent: it's a lot easier to find good hitters who can play LF than it is to find good hitters who can play 2B or 3B. Callaspo's offense is a pretty nice asset at 2B, and Figgins' is an invaluable one at 2B or 3B. Both would be relatively easy -- and cheap -- to replace if they could play LF and nothing else.

So that's the basic idea: if you've got a guy who can play an easy position well and a harder position well, he should play the harder position. If he's not, you're completely wasting a huge portion of his value.

Of course there are situations where you've got two guys who can play a good shortstop, and you play them both (like when the Yankees acquired A-Rod, though they moved the wrong guy). And if it turns out the guy can't handle the harder position -- as, from what Clark at Royals Authority says, it seems likely that Callaspo can't -- and you can't trade him, then you've got to look at some sort of position move. But if you look at it the way Ron suggests -- pick eight guys and just put 'em wherever they "fit" -- then you might as well just be giving away free money.

If the Yankees signed Figgins to play LF, they'd be paying for a great 3B and getting a just-decent LF. (Of course, the Yankees payroll can tolerate an almost endless number of mistakes just like that, but it would be a mistake nonetheless.) Good for Zduriencik and his team for recognizing a termendously valuable palyer at a position of need, getting him for a reasonable price, and taking him away from their top division rival. It would be a terrible waste to see a guy like that being stuck at a position that even Manny Ramirez can (almost) play.