Archive for Defense

When the Indians selected Francisco Lindor 8th overall in the 2011 draft, he possessed a high floor and upside. Drafted out of Montverde, Florida, he was an accomplished shortstop but questions about how long it would take his bat to develop surrounded the young Puerto Rican. In his full season, Lindor has put rest to any doubt whether he will be one of the game’s brightest stars. Coming into 2013 he was ranked 20th by Marc Hulet, 9th by my colleagues at Bullpen Banter, and 8th by myself and early returns suggest he has staked his claim on next year’s top spot.

Lindor projects to be an elite defender, if he isn’t already. While not he’s a burner – his time from home to first is consistently a shade below four seconds, great but not excellent for the position – his defensive range can be attributed to the quickness of his first step, not his speed. His ability to covers yards of dirt in a single step is bolstered by his confidence using his backhand on balls hit towards third base. At 19 years old, his instincts actions at shortstop are remarkable making Mike Newman’s nickname for him – “Bruce Lee Lindor” – oddly fitting.

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When scouting, the first instinct is to comp. You fight the urge, knowing every player is an individual, but the desire to quantify the unknown inevitably creeps into your thoughts. Who has a similar body type? A similar swing? Approach? Range and athleticism? Background? Instinctively, you formulate a first impression by answering one question: Who does he remind me of?

Then there are prospects like Stryker Trahan. The attributes packed into his dense 5-foot-10 frame are anything but ordinary:

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Like many wannabe saberdorks, I love Joe Posnanski’s work. It’s not just because he’s so much better than, say, [horrible-and-inexplicably-award-winning columnist for major newspaper] or [rumor-mongering baseball reporter prone to bouts of self-righteousness]. This isn’t a Posnanski tribute, but in short: Posnanski is great because he tells an engaging story and incorporates good baseball analysis without confusing one for the other.

This doesn’t mean that I always agree with Poz.* I disagree with many things written by sportswriters. In Posnanski’s case, I think highly enough of him that it’s worth quibbling over minor points, unlike, say, with [arrogant breaker of stories for your dad’s favorite sports magazine that we would have found out about anyway], who is only worth refuting because of his [alleged] influence. I hold Posnanski to a higher standard (not that he knows I exist).

*Or “JoPo”; has a sports journalist ever had so many different nicknames?

Which brings us to today’s Poz post on likely future Hall-of-Famers currently under 30. It’s an entertaining (if unsurprising) read. One claim in particular caught my eye. Posnanski writes that Ryan Zimmerman is “probably better defensively” than Evan Longoria. Now, Longoria didn’t qualify for the list (hasn’t played 500 major-league games), so while I do think he is the better player, that isn’t the point here. The issue is whether Zimmerman is “probably better defensively” than Longoria, as Posnanski claims.

Although he doesn’t cite specific defensive numbers in this piece, Posnanski has used Dewan’s plus/minus system in the past (although he has increasingly cited UZR). Here are the Dewan numbers for Zimmerman and Longoria in seasons in which they’ve both played (2008 and 2009):

Plus/Minus 2008:
Zimmerman: +10 plays (+11 runs) in 910.2 innings
Longoria: +11 plays (+9 runs) in 1045.2 innings

Plus/Minus 2009:
Zimmerman: +28 (+22 runs) in 1337.2 innings
Longoria: +21 (+17 runs) in 1302.2 innings

Over the last two seasons, Zimmerman has been 7 runs better in about 100 fewer innings according to plus/minus. Seven runs is seven runs, but given everything that is rightly said about the large error bars on defensive metrics, the gap isn’t as significant as it looks.

Given the various issues with defensive metrics, looking at other systems will give us a more perspicuous overview. Here at FanGraphs, UZR is used to measure fielding. I’m not qualified to argue which metric is the best; I’m simply using them as separate data points. UZR has a helpful “rate stat” version, UZR/150 (runs above/below average per 150 games). I’ve included the “non-rate” runs in parentheses.

UZR/150 2008:
Zimmerman: +3.4 (+2.1)
Longoria: +20.1 (18.5)

UZR/150 2009:
Zimmerman: +20.1 (+18.1)
Longoria: +19.2 (+14.9)

Suddenly things are less obvious. While 2009 was practically even, in 2008 UZR has Longoria almost two wins better. Their career UZR/150s: +12 for Zimmerman, +19.6 for Longoria. It’s a smaller sample for Longoria, but if you check Jeff Zimmerman’s regressed and age-adjusted 2010 UZR/150 projections, Zimmerman is at +10, and Longoria +12.

Defensive stats are obviously important, but when estimating fielding skill, in particular, we need to weight visual evidence — scouting — heavily. I’m not a professional scout, and unlike Posnanski, I don’t have access to them. Perhaps legendary scout Art Stewart, who told Poz “You will remember this day for the rest of your life” after Royals great Chris Lubanski’s first batting session at Kauffman Stadium, thinks Zimmerman is way better than Longoria. Jokes aside, scouting is essential for estimating defensive ability.

While most of us don’t have access to professional scouts, we do have access to the
Fans Scouting Report. In both 2008 and 2009 Longoria was rated as (slightly) better than Zimmerman.

Given that plus/minus seems to “prefer” Zimmerman — and UZR, Longoria — does this make the Fans Scouting Report a tiebreaker in Longoria’s favor? No. Given the relative closeness of the rating, neither the numbers nor the testimony of observers has the degree of reliability for us to make that kind of call. However, contra Posnanski, I do not think we can say that either player is “probably better defensively” than the other.

Molehill converted to mountain? Check. Happy American Thanksgiving, everyone!

Other than stolen bases, which I addressed a few weeks ago, very little has been published on catcher’s fielding numbers. Tom Tango first conceived his WOWY technique in studying catchers. Now I’ve extended my stolen base study back to the beginning of the current RetroSheet in 1953, and added the rates of wild pitches and passed balls allowed back to the same date. It should put a smile on Tango’s face that Gary Carter of his beloved Montreal Expos rates third in career SB_RAA behind Ivan Rodriguez and Jim Sundberg, and fourth in career WP_RAA behind Bill Freehan, Bruce Benedict and Brad Ausmus, and second overall behind only Pudge, along with the best single season of +28.2 in 1983…the worst, Dick Dietz, -18.6 in 1970.

I had earlier included groundballs to catchers when I ran my infield defense. There just aren’t that many grounders fielded by catchers – the most in any one season over the past sxi years was 74 by Jason Kendall in 2006. Single season RAA on grounders ranges from Jason Phillips’ +1.1 in 2004 to Mike Lieberthal‘s -2.4 in 2003. Totals for the last six years range from Carlos Ruiz’s +2.4 to Lieberthal’s -3.4. (I don’t yet have a groundball table built for seasons before 2003).

The process is the same as I descrobed in the previous article on stolen bases. I queried RetroSheet’s events table, creating a new table of every combination of catcher and pitcher in each year, how many batters were faced with runners on base, and how many wild pitches and passed balls occured. A total was made of each catcher’s stats in each year (the “with” part) and also the stats of each pitcher he caught, while working with any other catcher (the “without”). These were weighted to the smaller of the sample sizes, and then summed into season and career totals.

The single best season for preventing wild pitches and passed balls, since 1953, was Bill Freehan of the Tigers in 1971. The pitchers he caught that year would have been expected to throw 62 wild pitches and 20 passed balls in Freehan’s playing time, but he only allowed 31 wild pitches and 7 passed balls to get by hum, saving an estimated 12.6 runs that season. His total allowed of 38 was 46% of the expected 82. Freehan had the highest career RAA of +52.0, while Jorge Posada had the lowest at -38.2.

On the other end is one of America’s favorites, who not only couldn’t hit, but apparently couldn’t catch either, Bob Uecker. In 1967, appropriately his last in the majors, in which Uecker split time between the Phillies and Braves, in only 80 games played he allowed 40 wild pitches and 25 passed balls, 222% above his expected totals of 18 and 12.

The major league average is .016 wild pitches and .004 passed balls per plate appearance with a runner on base. The best career normalized wild pitch rates go to Bruce Benedict, Yogi Berra and Mike Redmond at .010; Brian Downing, Del Crandall and Jason Varitek at .011; and Rod Barajas, Manny Sanguillen, Bill Freehan, Kirt Manwaring, Sherm Lollar and Steve Yeager at .012. The worst wild pitch rates are Earl Battey at .021; Junior Ortiz and Mike Macfarlane at .021; and Miguel Olivo, Johnny Roseboro, Tim Laudner, Jorge Posada, Pat Borders, Thurman Munson, Hal Smith, Darrell Porter and George Mitterwald at .020.

The lowest normalized passed ball rates were Brian Downing, Charlie O’Brien, Bruce Benedict, Dan Wilson, Yogi Berra, Brad Ausmus, Del Crandall, Sherm Lollar and Ron Karkovice at .002, with the worst being Miguel Olivo and Bob Brenly at .008; and Joe Azcue, Jorge Posada, Earl Battey and Lance Parrish at .007.

The top 5 ratios of reducing both are Bruce Benedict 56%, Yogi Berra 59, Brian Downing 60 and Mike Redmond and Del Crandall 64% each. The worst were Bob Brenly 142%, Earl Battey 140, Miguel Olivo 140, Jorge Posada 132, and Junior Ortiz and Mike Macfarlane 129% each.

In 2008, the best at runs saved blocking the plate were Kurt Suzuki +6.9, Kenji Johjima +5.8, Brian McCann +5.2, Ramon Hernandez +5.1 and Jason Varitek +4.1, while the worst were Miguel Montero -3.0, Miguel Olivo -2.8, Kevin Cash -2.7, Greg Zaun -2.7 and Jesus Flores -2.6. In case you were thinking that one year might be a small sample size for some of these backup catchers, Montero, Olivo and Flores are also among the five worst career rates for active catchers, along with Mike Rivera and Jorge Posada.

Career WP&PB Records
Yearly WP&PB Records

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