There is no denying that the trend in baseball has been to favor the pitchers and defense at the expense of offense. Defense is more highly valued now than perhaps ever before, with defensive shifts all the rage and defensive sabermetric stats all aiming to give teams a better understanding of just how important run prevention is.
Teams are less reluctant than ever to put a below-average defender in the field, unless he is so valuable offensively that there is just no way to keep him off of it.
Which brings us to the interesting case of Oakland A's shortstop Marcus Semien.