Via U.S.S. Mariner, Seattle made the decision to play Jose Lopez at third and Chone Figgins at second.
For his career, Figgins is positive defensively only at third base. Lopez isn’t great at second, but he hasn’t played enough third base to really get a feel for what he’ll do there. My guess is they would be a net positive with Figgins at third. Seattle sees something different there, and I would not bet against them. However, I would guess there’s a decent chance of both fielder turning negative at the new positions. If that’s true, I wonder how long the Mariners stick with the alignment before switching them back.
Playing a new position can also affect one offensively. All this to keep a guy with a 310 OBP in the lineup. They could have grabbed a decent defensive 2nd baseman and left Figgins at 3B. So compared to 2009, the Mariners will be about 25 runs worse defensively as a result of this move.
And they didn’t go after Bay, some say due to concerns about his defense. There is a reason some teams lose. Figgins and Ichiro might lead the league in being LOB (if anyone keeps such a stat) while being among the leaders in OBP (if Figgins does not slump offensively due to the added wear and tear of playing 2B).