Plus/Minus & Runs Saved FAQ
Baseball Info Solutions has just released a more comprehensive FAQ on their fielding system, which we list on FanGraphs as DRS (and the various components that make up DRS).
It goes into details about how they make adjustments for various positions, ball hogging, home runs saved, the Green Monster, player positioning, etc….
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
I don’t see any mention of scoops for first basemen. With such an otherwise-comprehensive system (Bunt Runs Saved, Double Play Runs Saved), why not show this? Tango estimated that the magnitude of scooping ability was at best +4 runs. However, I thought his methodology was a bit questionable, given that he was scraping play-by-play data from STATS rather than looking at actual video like BIS does. The difficulty of judging scoops, of course, is that it’s a matter of inches between “a bad throw that a good first baseman can reach” and “a bad throw that even a good first baseman would be pulled off the bag by.” But maybe the folks at BIS could come up with some interesting analytical rubric for judging scoops.
I don’t think Baseball Info Solutions is responsible for the Scoops stat. I believe that’s just a counting statistic that is kept.
Scoops are part of the Good Fielding Plays/Defensive Misplays system, which is an entirely separate BIS set of data.
Other than HR Saving Catches, none of the GFPs/DMs factor into The Fielding Bible Defensive Runs Saved stats.