| Dude | TZ | DRS | UZR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mauer (C) | -2 | -1 | N/A |
| Doumit (C) | 1 | -1 | N/A |
| Parmelee (1B) | 1 | -1 | 0 |
| Mauer (1B) | -1 | 1 | 0 |
| Morneau (1B) | -1 | 0 | -1 |
| Casilla | 1 | 6 | 3 |
| Valencia | 3 | -2 | 0 |
| Carroll | -1 | 3 | 2 |
| Willingham | 2 | -3 | -5 |
| Span | 0 | 7 | 2 |
| Plouffe | -1 | 2 | 0 |
| Doumit (RF) | -2 | -1 | -1 |
| Total | 0 | 10 | 0 |
Overall, I would say most have been roughly average. Casilla, Carroll, and Span have all been good at their respective positions. Willingham has been not so good in left and Doumit questionable in right. This is all what we expected though.
Valencia I think needs more time before we determine if last year's -18/-13/-6 is his talent level or if it was an off year. All three liked him in 2010 (+3/+5/+6), so there's some hope there.
Mauer's numbers at catcher are almost entirely because of stolen bases. If one or two runners were instead thrown out, I think he would be rated as average.
Finally, I think it bears mentioning that all three divorce position from how good the player is at the position. Mostly, this is okay. However, it is an issue with B-R's 'dWAR' rating, which I do not like. It makes it easy to forget that a -10 shortstop (say, Plouffe) is equivalent to a +5 corner outfielder. Not exactly equal, but pretty close in fielding value.
Ok, help a guy out. How is a -10 at one position "worth" a +5 at another? Aren't these things scaled against the position mean or some other position-based standard (e.g., "replacement" level)?
So, I will buy that replacing a -15 shortstop with a -10 shortstop should be equivalent to replacing a 0 corner OFer with a +5 corner OFer. But I need better context to understand your statement, given my ignorance of these indicators.
Position adjustment. All else being equal, then the two players would be equal. I just wanted to highlight that in terms of fielding, there's value in being a shortstop beyond ability to field the position. Now, I should point out that just moving an infielder to the outfield won't magically make them great outfielders. The skills the outfield and infield require are different, so adjustment time is necessary. Ideally, you would find a shortstop that was good at the outfield things (flyballs) but poor at the infield things (grounders, turning the double play). I don't know if Plouffe is like that or is just bad in general.
I think a better post title would have been "sean For The Defense"
So I might be a bit defensive about it!
So Mauer gets dinged by UZR just because Pavano can't hold runners on first base for crap? Seems like a flaw in the formula, doesn't it?
Statistically evaluating catcher defense is definitely not yet an exact science.
Quote from John Dewan - "On offense, I believe we're measuring 80-90 percent of the true ability of players. On defense, we're at about the 60 percent level."
I am not saying that defensive statistics don't matter (other than fielding percentage) but they matter less than offensive statistics. If a one month batting average number means little, a one month defensive statistic means even less.
I think my biggest problem with defensive statistics is the amount of variability from year-to-year. It seems to be a lot more variable than offensive statistics.
How old is that quote?
I think it needs to be pointed out that a big reason why defense varies so much, is because of the lack of chances. Barry Bonds averaged 684 PAs a year. He averaged 268 defensive chances a year and at most had 386 chances. Mike Cameron topped out at 492 chances, but averaged 653 PAs a year. I think only decent shortstops have more defensive chances than PAs.
2009
I agree that chances play a big part in it. That's why I think looking at 25 games of defense is similar to looking at 10 games of offense.
I will admit that I am weak on how the different defensive measures are calculated. Why is there such a big variation across systems for some players? One of them actually has Willing ham above average.
Because the data aren't very precise. Especially TotalZone, which uses the Gameday data. For the Gameday data, only outs are marked as expected; hits are marked where fielded, not in the line they were hit. As I mentioned in the CoC, the BIS data for this year are much improved. I think the ratings for DRS and UZR will agree more given additional time (like, oh, a season).
I feel like one of the harder things to come to grips with on defensive statistics is that a guy can be a good defender but have a bad year, just like a hitter can be a good hitter but have a bad year. Logically, I feel like this has to be the case, but because we have no firm defensive statistics, I think baseball fans (myself included) have become accustomed to believing that good defensive players are always good defensively, and bad defensive players are always bad defensively.
With that mindset, when a defensive stat comes in saying a good defender had a bad year, it looks bad for the stat, but we really don't have a good idea how often good defenders have average or below average seasons. And there's no good way anecdotally to figure out whether or not a guy had a below average defensive season, just like there's no way you could know a guy's average by watching a bunch of games each year.
I think we could overcome this mental barrier somewhat if the defensive stats were displayed to us during the games and updated in real time. But that's not such an easy task. Alternatively, it would be awesome to have a database that could pull up every instance of a batted ball that had a similary trajectory and speed. Then you could show viewers side-by-side examples of how Adam Everett was able to gobble up a chance that past-a-diving-Jeter couldn't reach. Or you could even compare a player to himself, showing how that's a 50-50 play for a certain SS--sometimes he makes it and other times he doesn't.
Broadcasts could also give us all kinds of other fun information like, given the trajectory and speed of a batted ball hit to a shortstop with a runner on first base and one out, how long does it usually take for the ball to go 6-4-3? And even more to the point, how long does it take to go 6-4 and how long does it take to go 4-3?
I think the problem I have is that I think defense should be less variable but due to the sample size issue, the fielding statistics are more variable. I am alright with using 2 or 3 years of fielding data but a partial season seems to offer as much information about fielding as RBI does for hitting.