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The Fielding Bible Meets the Mets

Rotblatt Apr 21 2006 06:31 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 21 2006 07:19 PM

This is a very cool, deceptively dense book. I highly recommend anyone interested in trying to figure out what defense is worth buying it. I haven't really read through the whole thing yet--just enough to get a sense as to what it's about and, of course, how our boys look. I'm just going to post some basic stats here to start with. They seem relatively self-explanatory, with the exception of the "enhanced" metric for CI & OF. Essentially, this metric tries to differentiate between # of bases saved--did Beltran save a HR (+4), a 2B (+2) or merely a single (+1)? On edit: I threw a few explanatory asides in to help decipher the meaning of the stats. Feel free to ask questions--I can always look them up! For background, try Hardball Times: [url=http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-crucible-of-competition/]The Crucible of Competition[/url] [url=http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/printarticle/tht-interview-john-dewan/]Interview with John Dewan[/url] 1B, Delgado 3-year +/- ranking: 31st [ranking of total number of plays made above the average player] 2005 Bunts: C- [Tallied through point system which awards for different outcomes: +2 on DP, +1 with out, no advance, +.6 if sac with out, .25 for base hit, no out recorded, 0 if error on play] Plus/Minus To His Right: -5 [ground balls to fielders right] Straight On: 0 [in front of fielder] To His Left: -13 [to fielder's left] Air: -1 [all balls in air] Total: -19 [raw tally of plays made/missed] Enhanced: -23 [adjusted for number of bases gained/lost] Rank: 34th [versus all other "regular" fielders] 2B, Kaz Matsui 2005 % of potential DP's turned (Rank) [balls of a certain type in a certain zone are tabulated as potential DP balls.] .484 (22nd) Plus/Minus To His Right: 0 Straight On: +2 To His Left: -3 Air: -1 Total: -1 Rank: 16 3B, Wright 3-year +/- ranking: 20 2005 Bunts: B- Plus/Minus To His Right: -14 Straight On: +2 To His Left: 0 Air: -2 Total: -14 Enhanced: -17 Rank: 25 SS, Reyes 3-year +/- ranking: 18 2005 % of potential DP's turned (Rank) .655 (5th) Plus/Minus To His Right: -14 Straight On: -1 To His Left: +3 Air: +3 Total: -10 Rank: 25 LF, Floyd 3-year +/-: 20 2005 Throwing Rank: 12 (3-year: 20) [# of kills + "Outfield Advance Percentage," which counts certain types of hits in certain zones as "opportunities to advance," thus neutralizing the whole "well, no one runs on Ichiro anymore, so how do we know how valuable his arm is"? Plus/Minus Total: -3 Enhanced: +1 Rank: 13 CF, Beltran 3-year +/-: 5 Throwing rank: 32 (3-year: 24) Plus/Minus Total: +1 Enhanced: +7 Rank: 8 RF, Diaz 2005 Throwing Rank: 1 Plus/Minus total: -6 Enhanced: -8 Rank: 23 RF, Nady (unranked due to lack of plays in 2005) 2003: Throwing Rank: 16 Plus/Minus Total: +7 Enhanced: +6 Rank: 7

Rotblatt Apr 21 2006 06:43 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 21 2006 07:21 PM

Reyes: 3-year GDPs & Pivots [Double play's turned/double play opportunities] [Pivot = "how many times the player made the double play pivot." Pivot Opportunity = "how many times the player accepted a force out at second in a situation that could have been a double play.] GDP Pct: .613 (7th) Pivot Pct: .713 (3rd) 2005 GDPs & Pivots Cairo GDP Pct: .568 (7th) Pivot Pct: .732 (6th) Matsui GDP Pct: .484 (22nd) Pivot Pct: .516 (36th) Left Fielders - 3-Year Throwing Cliff .411 Runner success rate for Extra Base Attempts, 23 Kills (20th total) compared to the surprise leader . . . Jay Payton .276 Success rate, 4 Kills and interestingly, #4 . . . Miguel Cabrera .328 Pct, 20 Kills CF 3-Year Throwing Beltran: .617 Pct, 17 Kills our leader . . . Jim Edmonds: .464, 19 Kills

Bret Sabermetric Apr 21 2006 06:54 PM

I love stats, my man, but you;re killing me here. A little context, please? What does this stuff mean, in the most basic sense?

Rotblatt Apr 21 2006 07:05 PM

FB Scouting. I'm going to do this Zagat style. 1B, Delgado Delgado has "limited range" and "poor instincts" but his "heads-up plays" and "great swings at the plate" more than make up for it. One observer, Bill James, notes, "Delgado had more good fielding plays against the Red Sox than any other player at any position [during a study I did a few years ago] . . . I'm not saying that he's a good first baseman or a good defensive player, but against the Red Sox in that season . . . he was a great defensive player. This may have been atypical, I don't know. 2B, Matsui Matsui "flopped" at shortstop, and at second "has show flashes of good speed and range" but has been a "below-average defender." His pivots "still need work." 3B, Wright Wright had a "good" defensive reputation, but "bad range," "poor footwork" and " a number of throwing errors," hurt the first half of 2005. However, in the second half he "really turned the corner." Observers note that he needs to handle balls in the air better, as he ranks "last" in that category over the past two years. SS, Reyes In 2005, Reyes "didn't play the position as well as he did in his 2003 debut." Nonetheless, observers are optimistic on his future, noting his "rocket" arm, "great" range, and "quickness." His work in the field has been inconsistent, and one observer guessing a problem may be positioning with a right-handed pitcher on the mound "(-13 vs. +3 with lefties). [I suspect this has more to do with our only lefty being Glavine last year.] LF, Floyd Observers note that Cliff deservedly takes "great pride" in his throwing, as his total of "23 baserunner kills" is the "highest" of all left fielders in the "previous three years." Oh, and he's injury prone. CF, Beltran Beltran's leg injury "may have affected" his defense in 2005. Observers specifically note the lack of his "explosive burst" but contend that he remains "above average." He needs work on holding runners. RF, Nady Nady is a "jack of all trades" but is "not really great defensively" anywhere. Nonetheless, he is "athletic," possesses "surprising speed" and "has some range." Observers think Nady could be "above average" if left in one spot for a year, but note that his "best position" is first base. RF, Diaz Diaz is "still learning" outfield, but has an "average arm and can make the routine plays." "Needs experience" especially on getting "good jumps" and on tracking the ball.

Rotblatt Apr 21 2006 07:10 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I love stats, my man, but you;re killing me here. A little context, please? What does this stuff mean, in the most basic sense? Yeah, I'm looking at what I posted, and realizing it's a little more complex than I thought. The scouting reports I just posted are more accessible, but I'll post a bit more in the stat entries.

Frayed Knot Apr 21 2006 09:56 PM

That's the thing with defensive stats, I've yet to see any that don't confuse the matter as much as explain it. Meanwhile, I agree completely with those written mini-scouting reports which say almost precisely what I would have said for each player just based on observation alone.

Rotblatt Apr 21 2006 10:35 PM

="Frayed Knot"]That's the thing with defensive stats, I've yet to see any that don't confuse the matter as much as explain it. Meanwhile, I agree completely with those written mini-scouting reports which say almost precisely what I would have said for each player just based on observation alone. Is it really that confusing? Matsui's below average because he's terrible at turning the pivot on double plays, and he has problems with ground balls to his left. Not earthshattering, no, but he hasn't "sucked" overall. Isn't it nice to have some evidence of that?

Nymr83 Apr 21 2006 10:40 PM

he ranked 22nd and 36th in the 2 measurements quoted, if thats out of 2bmen then he SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED, if it's out of middle infielders then he was at the high end of average in one area and the low end of average in the other

Frayed Knot Apr 22 2006 01:49 PM

The confusing part, as Bret mentions, is the lack of context with those stats: Rank amongst how many?; how large is the gap between 1st place and say 10th, or 10th and 20th - and are those gaps meaningful or trivial?; what kind of sample sizes?; etc. Too often there's some stuff that seems so counter to observations that I'm reluctant to trust the remainder. for ex: I remember Rob Neyer examining the Hampton/Bell-Cedeno/Dotel trade all those years ago and concluding (among other things) that the Mets would be hurt by it becuase Roger Cedeno had been a "dominant defensive RFer" - and of course he had some kind of stats to back up his claim. Now Roger verison 19.99 certainly wasn't as bad as the version we got back a few years later but, even then, anyone who had watched him play that season would know that the notion of calling him "dominant" defensively was simply laughable.

Rotblatt Apr 23 2006 07:22 PM

For more context, buy the book. If you're interested in how fielding impacts a team statistically, it'll be worth it. Nymr, you only looked at two stats, which are basically subsets of the more comprehensive plus/minus system. So Matsui is last in the majors in turning double plays and bad at pivots, but overall, he's merely below average. Or so these stats would indicate. They looked at people who played regularly, so in terms of ranking, it's about what you'd expect--up to about 36 or so at each position.

Bret Sabermetric Apr 23 2006 07:24 PM

Rotblatt wrote: . So Matsui is last in the majors in turning double plays and bad at pivots, but overall, he's merely below average . That's about the nicest appraisal of his fielding I've read in a while.

Nymr83 Apr 23 2006 07:30 PM

I don't think you should post information and then tell us to "buy the book" if we want an explanation of what you posted. Either put the information in it's proper context when asked to do so or don't quote it in the first place.

Johnny Dickshot Apr 23 2006 08:02 PM

Frayed Knot wrote: The confusing part, as Bret mentions, is the lack of context with those stats: Rank amongst how many?; how large is the gap between 1st place and say 10th, or 10th and 20th - and are those gaps meaningful or trivial? . Yeah, the thing with defensive stats is that you have to start knowing that the set of guys you're measuring are pretty elite: With a few exceptions they all meet minimum levels of acceptability or they wouldn;t be in the sample to start with.

Rotblatt Apr 23 2006 10:11 PM

Nymr83 wrote: I don't think you should post information and then tell us to "buy the book" if we want an explanation of what you posted. Either put the information in it's proper context when asked to do so or don't quote it in the first place. The proper context is the entire book. I'm sorry you didn't get anything from the Mets-relevant stats posted or from the articles I linked to in the first post. I personally found them very interesting.

Edgy DC Apr 23 2006 11:41 PM

What I've seen recently is interesting. David Wright is either (a) a very good fielder brought down to average so far by occasional yips, or (b) a superior athlete who can't (and may never) escape the fair to middlin' range defensively because he can't get his game down as far as the footwork and transfers --- like Howard Johnson and Hubie Brooks. Matsui has looked better on the double play this year and at the end of last year. We'll see.

Rotblatt Apr 24 2006 04:04 PM

For first basemen, they don't take into account receiving throws from middle infielders, so any ability to pick throws out of the dirt, save MI'ers errors, etc., isn't measured. The plus/minus range for 1B's is somewhere around +17 (Texeira in 2005) and around -25 (forget who), or the equivalent of +13 & -19 runs. For 2B, 3B & SS, it's between around -35 and +35 (26 runs) For RF, around -20 and +30 (-15 to 23 runs). For LF, around -20 and +20 (15 runs). They have a nifty team chart that divides the field up into several different areas. They then show the number of batted balls that fell in for hits above or below average in each of those areas. In CF for the Mets, we were very good in deep CF, which makes sense, since Beltran played pretty deep most of the year. Somewhat surprisingly, we were also good between 1B & 2B. I'm guessing that the range of Mientkiewicz & Anderson (who was highly rated for his work at 1B) negated the lack of range of Cairo. Matsui, as I noted above, was right around league average in terms of range. LF was average, and unsuprisingly, we were below average in shallow RF. Don't remember the breakdown of the other areas offhand. Overall, our defense has in the bottom third each of the past three years. Reyes in 2003 was quite good--in the top 10, I think, with positive scores both to his left and right. It's kind of surprising that he had such problems going to his right last year, but as they indicate in their scouting reports, Reyes likley has a bright defensive future. It makes sense that Matsui would have problems with the DP & the pivot, given last he's relatively new to 2B. As Edgy says, we'll see, but he has looked better in limited duty so far.