Say what you will about the Cincinnati Reds, as a team they play air-tight defense. I don’t think much has been made of it, but the Redlegs led the National League in UZR with 52 runs saved last season. Just looking at the team’s current depth chart, they might possibly improve on last year’s mark. This isn’t to say their squeaky clean glovework is going to somehow launch them into contention next year, but hey, when you can find a bright spot for a languishing franchise such as the Reds, it needs to be highlighted.

There are a couple nifty new sets of defensive projections that have recently come out. Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Boxscore has cooked some up, and Steve Sommer has some projections that go the extra mile and regresses UZR to a population based on the Fan’s Scouting Report.

                   Jeff  Steve
Joey Votto         2      3
Brandon Phillips   7      7
Scott Rolen        7      8
Paul Janish        4      7
Chris Dickerson    1      8
Jay Bruce          1      4

Be sure to click on the links if you would like to read up on their methods.

There’s not a weak link on this chain. I’m assuming Drew Stubbs will be their center fielder after Willy Taveras‘ replacement level season, but we can’t put anything past Dusty Baker. Stubbs gets glowing reviews from scouts, and his Total Zone stats (found at MinorLeagueSplits.com) agree: the numbers have him at +58 in 423 minor league games, including 19 runs in 107 games in AAA last season.

UZR had Stubbs at 8 runs in just 42 games in the big leagues, for what it’s worth. The bottom line is he can go get ’em.

Paul Janish may be Adam Everett-light, and I mean that as a compliment. I think. He hit for a paltry .275 wOBA and is projected to do the same next year, but in just less than 600 innings on the field he was good for 12 runs as measured by UZR. Small sample, yes, but the fans like him and the Reds like him enough to start him next season.

The Scott-Rolen-for-Edwin-Encarnacion-plus-prospects trade is still a head scratcher to me, but he was consistently -10 on defense where Scott Rolen is still mostly Scott Rolen.

Things might get ugly yet again this summer in Cincinnati, but it won’t be for a lack of fielding.

Yesterday we looked at the best baserunners of the 2009 season; now let’s finish up by looking at the laggards. Again, these numbers are taken from Baseball Prospectus’ baserunning metric (EQBRR), which was created by Dan Fox. Stolen bases/caught stealing are already factored in FanGraphs’ version of wOBA, so I’ve just subtracted the steals (EQBRR-EQSBR).

We’ve found out that only a handful of players have had major impacts on the diamond with their baserunning, and these players are the ones who really dragged down their WAR by their plodding and/or boneheaded play on the basepaths.

	       Runs
Melvin Mora     -8
Jorge Posada    -8
Carlos Lee      -6
Yadier Molina   -5
Pedro Feliz     -5
Josh Bard       -5
Billy Butler    -5
Michael Young   -5
Bengie Molina   -5
Jim Thome       -5

To no great surprise, we have a couple of Super Molina Brothers and a few “pleasantly plump” non-catchers such as Billy Butler and Carlos Lee.

Is Melvin Mora’s career over? Yep, probably. He’s going to be 38, he hit the skids offensively and now factoring in his awful baserunning, he was replacement level for 2009. He’s now a free agent, and it’s hard for me to envision him receiving a contract.

We’re filling in the holes in some player’s WAR looking at baserunning, and our own Matt Klaassen has done some hole-filling of his own with his version of quantifying catcher defense. Bookmark it folks: it’s an awesome reference on catchers. Using his run totals on some of these catchers and the baserunning numbers, the picture gets even clearer.

Yadier Molina’s gun-slinging ways have firmly established his defensive reputation. Matt has him at +7 runs — not as high as one might’ve imagined, but still very good. While Yadi’s defensive giveth, unfortunately his lack of ability on the basepaths taketh away, or at least a good bit.

The eldest and most hack-tastic Molina brother isn’t quite the hitter or the defender he once was. The d_f’s catcher metric has him at -3. For the Giants, Molina’s WAR was 1.8 but this drops him to 1 WAR. Bengie’s now a 34-year-old free agent. Given his rep as a steady backstop, I’m sure he’ll find a starting gig somewhere, whether he’s deserves it or not.

Jorge Posada stunk at both defense and baserunning. We have him at 4 WAR, which is obviously great, but when factoring Matt’s defensive numbers (-6) and his horrid baserunning, JP’s WAR goes down to 2.6, which is still good, but not quite as lofty. If you look into the scout’s dictionary and find the word “baseclogger,” you’ll see a picture of Jorge Posada.

Yesterday we looked at team baserunning; now let’s take a gander at the individual leaders for the 2009 season. Again, this is taken from Baseball Prospectus’ baserunning metrics (Hip-hip hooray for Dan Fox), sans the stolen bases, which are already figured in a player’s WAR total. These are the players who were the best at taking that extra base and not getting caught doing it.

Feel free to add these numbers in to a player’s total WAR to get a better picture of what these individuals were worth on the diamond.

	         Runs
Michael Bourn	   8
Chone Figgins	   7
Emilio Bonifacio   6
Cristian Guzman	   6
Dexter Fowler	   6
Chase Utley	   5
Ryan Zimmerman	   5
Rajai Davis	   5
Colby Rasmus	   5
Ichiro Suzuki	   5
Brandon Phillips   5

Baserunning matters, but it doesn’t matter a whole lot — at least not for the vast majority of players. Only 18 players contributed 4 or more runs, and only 13 players hurt their teams by 4 or more runs. Perhaps not surprisingly, we see a lot of speedsters on this list and…Ryan Zimmerman?

Bourn’s +8 lifts him up to the rarified air of 5 WAR, which is actually sort of mind-boggling when you think when you consider his awful 2008 season.

The Legend of Chone Figgins continues to grow. From 2007-2009, Figgins has been good for 19 runs of non-steals baserunning and 21 runs worth of fielding. It will be fascinating to see what sort of contract he gets on the free agent market.

Colby Rasmus may not have had the type of rookie campaign at the plate that was putting him in pre-season discussions for the NL ROY, but he was one of the best defensive fielders in the game (+9 UZR) and also added value with his legs. 2.8 WAR for a rookie is nothing to sneeze at; I humbly submit to you that Colby was a more deserving ROY than Chris Coghlan.

Oh, and is there anything Ichiro and Utley can’t do?

We’ll wrap this up tomorrow by throwing rocks at the biffs of the basepaths.

Our expectation is that anyone who reads this site on a regular basis has been given a strong education in the ways of WAR. But there’s a missing facet that you should not forget when putting together a player’s total value of what he does on the diamond, and that is baserunning. Sky Kalkman has visited this subject a time or two, and since he’s ridden off into the sunset for the time being, and I’m recently riding back into the picture, I’ll just pick up where he left off and give you an update on 2009 non-stolen bases baserunning.

Baseball Prospectus has a remarkable metric measuring baserunning. Here at FanGraphs we already include stolen bases/caught stealing in a player’s wOBA, but any educated baseball fan knows that there is more to baserunning than just steals. There is the art of taking extra bases on ground balls, fly balls, hits while not getting caught doing it. God-given speed has its place, but it takes brains and instincts on knowing when to be the aggressor and when not to.

The numbers presented are EQBRR – EQSBR (total baserunning runs minus stolen base runs.)

First let’s take a look at the best baserunning teams of 2009.

Team        Runs
Rockies       14
Marlins       12
Cardinals     10
Angels         8
Athletics      8
Rays           8
Giants         7
Twins          6
Blue Jays      6
Diamdonbacks   3
Tigers         3
Dodgers        2
Astros         1
Mariners       1
Red Sox        0
Indians        0
Brewers        0
Padres         0
Reds          -1
Phillies      -1
Mets          -2
Nationals     -3
White Sox     -4
Cubs          -5
Yankees       -6
Rangers       -6
Royals        -7
Braves       -10
Pirates      -13
Orioles      -15

The Rockies, Marlins and Cardinals all helped themselves to the tune of a full win thanks to their heady base-running. That’s a feather in their caps. The Cardinals and Marlins do not steal a lot of bases, but they know when to be aggressive on the basepaths and wreak havoc on opposing teams. How the Cardinals can put up a full win of baserunning with Yadier Molina on their team is a feat within itself.

The Braves, Buccos and O’s on the other hand put together quite a comedy show on the basepaths.

The major take away here is that for the best and worst teams, the difference was just a +/- a win (roughly).

Next up, we’ll look at the individual leaders and laggards.

Why are they here?

Back in the days when we all were fighting the winter doldrums and eagerly anticipating those magical words of “pitchers and catchers report”, various projection systems were forecasting mediocrity from the Cardinals. CHONE projected the Cardinals to win all of 83 games. PECOTA pegged them from 80. THT had them down for 85. Marcel, 83. All of them projected the Cubs to win the division in back to back years, but the Cardinals ended up with the flag. The reason is pretty simple. The Cardinals were the benefactors of unanticipated and terrific seasons from several players while making a key addition mid-season in Matt Holliday. The Cubs were hit with some key injuries, but more so, they just flat underachieved, no thanks to the likes of Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto and others.

Chris Carpenter went from the shelf to Cy Young contender (5.6 WAR), Adam Wainwright is also in Cy discussions (5.7 WAR), and Joel Pineiro (!) magically morphed into a strike-throwing sinker-baller (4.8 WAR).

Yadier Molina continued his surprising progress as a hitter while continuing to be the best defensive catcher in the NL (3.4 WAR, not factoring his defense) and former scrub Brendan Ryan blossomed into one of the best fielding shortstops in the majors (12.2 UZR, 3.3 WAR). Ryan Franklin even joined the act, proving to be an effective closer for most of the season. Oh, and they got a broken-down Hall of Famer in John Smoltz for nothing, and it took Dave Duncan and the Cardinal staff all of five seconds to fix him.

Matt Holliday largely is credited for turning around the Cardinals, and while his presence was definitely felt (2.6 WAR), he was just one of the many reasons the Cardinals vaulted their way to 91 wins. And of course, there was this guy named Albert Pujols, who had just another MVP caliber, nay, numinous type of season (8.5 WAR). Ho-hum.

That was the good, now the bad

At the all-star break, Ryan Franklin had a 27-7 K/BB ratio over 34 innings, and had held batters to a .217 on-base percentage. Then he suddenly remembered he was Ryan Franklin again, posting a 17-17 K/BB ratio, allowed a .380 on-base percentage over 27 innings. It’s also a little more than disconcerting to Cardinal fans that Jason Motte (4.81 FIP) and Kyle McClellan (3.97 FIP) are the two pitchers who are supposed to be setting Franklin up, and neither have done anything to distinguish themselves as pitchers their manager can trust in leveraged situations. I would not be surprised to see LaRussa go with Smoltz in crucial situations while using Kyle Lohse as the team’s fourth starter, who has fallen off after a career year, and has spent time on the DL with forearm tightness and a groin injury.

The Cardinals will also have to run the lefty gauntlet, something they failed at during the regular season, mustering a .233/.312/.362 line against lefties for the year. They will face Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw in games one and two. If the Cardinals are fortunate to beat L.A., they could face an even nastier group of southpaws in Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and JA Happ should the reigning champs make it past Colorado.

LaRussa will be counting heavily on his big three at the top of the rotation to go deep into games, and Pujols-Holliday and Co. to do enough damage so that he doesn’t have to fear when turning to an unstable bullpen. Also, because of the Cardinals surged so far ahead of their competition, they took to playing on auto-pilot for the month of September. It will be interesting to see whether or not they can ‘flip the switch’.

Last off-season K-Rod, Kerry Wood and Brian Fuentes were considered to be the cream of the free agent crop for closers. Wood signed for $20.5 M with an $11M vesting option if he finishes 55 games for the Tribe next year. Fuentes signed a two-year, $17.5 million contract w/2011 option. Francisco Rodriguez signed the richest deal of the three, with a 3-year, $37M contract. Other than all three pitchers becoming very rich men last winter, what else do they have in common?

They have all been, by varying degrees, free agent landmines. K-Rod’s peripherals have continued their downward decline. While his ERA looks acceptable enough at 3.36, his FIP has gone up from 2.70 to 3.22 to 3.79 this season over 65 innings pitched. That’s good for 0.6 wins above replacement, worth $2.6 million, a mere fraction of his actual salary.

Kerry Wood has thrown 51 innings and his FIP has nearly doubled from last year, from 2.32 to 4.08. His strikeout rate is still good at 10 K’s per nine innings, but his walk rate from has doubled and he’s suffered some severe bouts of gopheritis. Wood has been worth a measly .5 WAR. At least for this season, the rebuilding Indians are paying him 5 times his actual value. Chris Perez, who came over in the Mark DeRosa trade, has better peripherals and the stuff to close.

Brian Fuentes has all but lost his job for the Angels to youngster Kevin Jepsen. Fuentes has 43 saves but an awful 4.48 FIP, meaning he’s more deserving of mop-up duty than high leverage innings. He’s been worth just .3 WAR.

Meanwhile, the best relievers in the game have either been homegrown, as in the case with Brian Wilson, Andrew Bailey and Jonathan Broxton, or they have basically been freely available talent like Heath Bell or David Aardsma.

Paying a high price for a “proven” closer just isn’t always the greatest idea.

Quick, who is the best defensive shortstop in the National League? Jimmy Rollins? Troy Tulowitzki? Alcides Escobar? Rollins won the Gold Glove last year and is having a fine but unspectacular year, as measured by UZR. He’s been worth 6 runs. Troy Tulowitzki has a terrific defensive reputation, but UZR isn’t a huge fan this year at 2 runs. Jack Wilson is right there at +11 runs, but he’s since taken his act to the American League. Escobar has only been up for a short while. There’s still a whole lot of wait-and-see with him.

I humbly submit to you that the best defensive shortstop in the Senior Circuit has been Brendan Ryan. After riding the Memphis-St. Louis shuttle much of last year, Ryan has been thrust into full-time duties because of Khalil Greene’s struggles and battles with an anxiety disorder. His spasmodic behavior has formerly turned off to his conservative manager; Ryan has toned down the jumpiness a bit and turned up his game. According to the early returns on the Scouting Report by the Fans, Ryan’s defensive skills are drawing rave reviews across the board. He’s scoring 4.5 out of 5, and is right up there with Rollins and Tulo. He’s also leading NL shortstops in UZR with +13 runs.

In his brief career (161 games), Ryan has a UZR/150 of 14.3. While it’s better to have at least three years of data before we start making assumptions on a player’s defense, the eyes also really like him. Having personally watched him play for quite a while now, I would not be shocked if he was a +1 win defender every year. He has a flair for making the spectacular almost look routine.

He’ll never wow anyone with his bat. His career wOBA is .313, this season it’s .317. That’s close enough to average to make him a valuable player when you factor in his defense. From utility player to becoming a 3-win shortstop, Brendan Ryan is overshadowed by some of the stars on the Cardinals, but he’s been a big part of the team’s success.

Illustrated edition.

Yesterday I talked about San Francisco’s closer Brian Wilson and his breakthrough season. I mostly attributed his recent success to an increase in horizontal movement on his fastball. Since I don’t have my own Pitch F/x database and am to lazy to learn MySQL, I asked our own Dave Allen if he could give me a hand with some Pitch F/x graphs. Dave was suffering with some internet issues and wasn’t able to oblige me until the post had already published, but I thought it would be a shame to not put the graphs to good use. They really bring out the dramatic change in the movement of Wilson’s fastball, and more.

Wilson’s 2008 fastball had the speed of a normal 4-seam fastball, but almost cutter-like movement. This year’s edition is much more 4-seamer’ish. What also stands out his his breaking pitches are a little ‘sharper’, for a lack of a better term.

According to the Pitch F/x data available here at FanGraphs, Wilson’s slider had five and a half inches of horizontal movement last season, and .8 inches of vertical movement. This year’s slider averages 3 inches of horizontal movement and 1.2 inches of vertical movement. I take it that Dave has his own smarter pitch categorization system that differs from straight Pitch F/x, which is why you see more cutters than sliders in Wilson’s 2009 graph.

Whether you want to classify the pitch as a hard slider, cutter or ‘slutter’ or what have you, it’s plain to see Wilson is a bit of a different animal this season.

Thank you Dave.

The Giant’s Brian Wilson is a fun player. He looks more rock star than ballplayer, what with his mop hair, tattoos and tight pants. He even brings his own brand pyrotechnics to the mound with a blazing fastball that at times has been clocked in the triple-digits. While Wilson accumulated 41 saves for the Giants last year, those saves came with a bloated 4.62 ERA. His 3.93 FIP indicates that he pitched a little better than his ERA, but that is not what you would by and large hope for from your closer.

This year, Wilson has emerged from being a .6 win player to a 2.3 win relief ace. 2+ wins represents the upper echelon for relievers. So why the improvement?

Wilson’s heater has long been his meal ticket. His average velocity has seen a nice bump from this year to last, from 95.7 to 96.5 MPH.

Not only has he been able to crank up the heat, but perhaps more importantly the pitch also has considerably more movement than before. Looking at his Pitch F/x numbers, Wilson’s fastball used to be straight as an arrow, averaging just less than half an inch of horizontal movement. This season, Wilson’s fastball has much more tail, with -3.5 inches of horizontal movement. It’s probably no coincidence that batters went from slugging .390 against Wilson in 2008 to just .301 this season.

What’s more, Wilson has improved upon his control. Last season he walked a little over 4 batters per nine innings, this season he’s down to about 3.4 per nine.

With an enhancement in ‘life’ to his fastball and increased control of the pitch, “B-Weez” has blossomed into one of the game’s best closers. Giant fans haven’t enjoyed this kind of “Smoke on the Water” in quite some time.

Dan Szymborski, the brain behind the popular ZiPS projections found here at FanGraphs, has put together three decades of MLE’s available for download at the click of a mouse. Talk about a fun way to kill some time while chilling in your mom’s basement. Where have you gone, Adam Hyzdu?

Perhaps at another time we’ll dig up some of the Ken Phelpses That Never Were, but for right now I want to focus in on some interesting seasons of current minor league players. Like for instance, did you know Ruben Gotay has 102 walks this season in Triple-A? This is same Ruben Gotay that has walked 60 times in 811 big league PA’s. Instead of getting a September call-up from the Arizona Diamonbacks, a team who is probably in need of a second baseman for 2010, Gotay is playing for Puerto Rico in the Baseball World Cup in Barcelona. His MLE line for 2009 was .258/.390/.402.

—Shelley Duncan, the brother of Chris Duncan and son of Cardinal pitching coach Dave Duncan, has already experienced his Kevin Maas-like day in the sun a couple of summers ago, but he may deserve another look. That shot may not come with the Yankees again, but he has a nifty looking MLE: .262/.346/.508 with 28 homers in 461 at-bats.

–The Cardinals’ suffered through months of Joe Thurston with an injured Troy Glaus on the shelf. They also traded away their third baseman of the future (Brett Wallace) and traded for Mark DeRosa. DeRosa’s production has been down since coming over the NL, no thanks to a wrist injury – .240/.314/.417. 25-year old Allen Craig, who has played extensively at third base throughout his career. has an MLE line of .277/.327/.455. DeRosa and Holliday are both free agents at the end of the season. Craig just might be the Cardinals’ 2010 starting 3B or LF.

–The Rays got much more than a throw in for a PTBNL in the Scott Kazmir deal. Sean Rodriguez, a middle infielder by trade, put together a solid season in the power department, with an MLE slugging % of .456. The Rays already have a pretty solid core of infielders, but Rodriguez could provide a nice power boost off the bench for next year.

—John Bowker is a mystery. For Triple-A Fresno, Bowker not only tearing the cover off of the ball, but was also walking in 18% of his plate appearances. Since being called up to the Bay, he’s doing his best Bengie Molina impersonation, drawing just one walk once in 42 plate appearances. His MLE line is .283/.385/.460. That production beats the heck out of everyone else in the Giants’ lineup save Sandoval, it’s too bad he wasn’t called up earlier, and it’s also too bad he’s not really shown much in the little playing time he has received.

Download the files for some fun, and please consider giving Dan some gratuity for his efforts.