Why do we always have conversations about just one way on the offensive side? When Big Papi was a Twin, why couldn’t we have let him be a slugger while other scrappy players could do what they do best? Put a high OBP player with speed in front of your best slugger.
If you try to mold all the players in one way, your offense becomes very feast or famine. If you have a whole team of Austin Martin types and you make it to the playoffs playing in NY or BOS, games seem to end up a contest of who can outslug the other. If you have a whole team of high HR, but high K types, and you go up against a pitching staff that induces a lot of ground balls, you’re going to be in trouble.
Balanced offense seems to make more sense to me.
