Will There Be Another Ryan Braun?
I have a theory about front offices, and about baseball organizations in general. It seems to me that everybody’s trending in the direction of getting smarter about the game. There are fewer things within the game to exploit, because everyone’s got better awareness and understandings. I believe that, over time, front offices will come to closely resemble one another, strengthening the correlation between team success and team payroll. The front-office extremes will be closer together, and teams will depend more on money and luck. It’s just a theory and we’re not there yet, but it seems to be a sensible conclusion.
About those extremes, and about better understandings — today, we’re still trying to nail down evaluations of defensive performance. When people complain about WAR, they almost always begin by complaining about UZR, because UZR isn’t perfect or even anywhere close to it. But while we’ve still got a ways to go with regard to defensive quantification, over the last several years tremendous progress has been made. I probably don’t need to explain it to you, because you are smart. We’re getting numbers, the numbers usually aren’t dreadfully inaccurate, and people better understand that defense is important and can make a whale of a difference. Finding good defenders is no longer something to be exploited; defense isn’t nearly as underrated as it used to be.
So one wonders about the extremes. There will always be the elite-level defensive performances. Some players are just going to be far and away better defenders than others. But what about the opposite extreme? What about the truly awful defenders? It seems to me that teams will be less willing to tolerate dreadful defense from a position, now that they get how much it can matter. Teams should be less willing to find room for an extremely bad defender. Which brings us to the case of Ryan Braun in 2007.
The last year of the other Ryan Braun’s major-league career was the first year of this Ryan Braun’s major-league career. He was promoted to the Brewers after a few months in the minors, and over those few months in the minors, he slugged .701. He wasn’t down in triple-A to work on his hitting; publicly, he was down in triple-A to work on his defense, although there were presumably also service-time concerns factoring in. Braun was a third baseman, or at least that was his title.
Braun had switched to third base as a junior at Miami. Upon being drafted, it was, for him, a new position, and in the minors, he played all of 186 games. He played all of them at third, and he played third for Milwaukee, too. In the spring of 2007, Braun drew attention with his bat, but he committed too many defensive miscues. The time in the minors didn’t make them go away.
It’s laughable what Braun did as a rookie at the plate. In another way, it’s laughable what Braun did as a rookie in the field. As a third baseman for the Brewers, he played just under 950 innings. He was charged with 26 errors. The Brewers, for the record, were a fine team, and they finished just over .500. The quick Braun defensive summary:
- Braun finished with an .895 fielding percentage. How often does a fielding percentage begin with an 8? Between 2002-2012, no regular posted a lower fielding percentage than Braun did in 2007.
- Braun finished with a -32 DRS. If we shift to DRS per 1,000 innings, then between 2002-2012, no regular posted a lower DRS/1000 than Braun did in 2007.
- Braun finished with a -28 UZR. If we shift to UZR per 1,000 innings, then between 2002-2012, three regulars posted a lower UZR/1000 than Braun did in 2007. One was Bernie Williams in 2004. One was Bernie Williams in 2005. And one was Brad Hawpe in 2008, trying to man the unusually large Coors Field outfield. Hawpe’s defensive numbers might have park-factor issues, and his UZR/1000 was just 1.4 runs worse than Braun’s.
- Braun’s Total Zone rating sucked too.
Over the last decade, 2007 Ryan Braun might’ve had the worst individual defensive season. Maybe Williams was worse, but Williams also preceded Braun; depending on what you make of Hawpe, it’s possible no one’s been worse than Braun since. Braun scored a 40 overall rating in the 2007 Fan Scouting Report. Interestingly, that tied him with Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Kouzmanoff. Defensively, Braun was dreadful, and the Brewers knew it.
“I think Braunie’s biggest problem is reading the ball off the bat,” says Brewers coach Dale Sveum […] “He’s gotten a lot better on the routine plays, has gotten a lot better with his throws.
“He’s a very good athlete. He’s working very hard at it. It gets easier when you learn to slow the game down. That comes with the territory. It wasn’t like we brought him up and didn’t think some of these things would happen. Obviously, he’s a very special young man. He has worked his butt off defensively. He’s going to get better, no doubt about it.”
Now, a couple quick notes. For one thing, while Braun was aware of his own defensive shortcomings, he certainly didn’t let them get him down at the plate. He didn’t seem to take his work in the field with him to the batter’s box, even though he was also in his first go-around at the highest level of baseball in the world. Additionally, the Brewers seemed committed to keeping Braun at third, but then in the winter they moved Bill Hall to third and moved Braun to the outfield. Braun had never before played the outfield, and yet in 2008, he posted a positive DRS and a positive UZR. Third base was hard for him because it was unfamiliar. The outfield was unfamiliar, but he made it work, quickly. Ryan Braun is impressive.
But anyway. In 2007, Ryan Braun finished with the same wRC+ as Albert Pujols. He finished with a lower WAR than Ryan Church and Khalil Greene. Everybody knew he wasn’t a good defensive third baseman — everybody has known this for a while — but still he played a lot of third base, perhaps because the Brewers didn’t understand how much he was costing them. Or perhaps because the Brewers understood he was still contributing more than he was taking away, but I can’t help but wonder.
Teams understand defense now better than they ever have. They have access to numbers that we don’t, and some of them even use those numbers. Teams have the best idea who is and who is not a good defender, and teams get what defense can gain or cost. So: are we ever going to see another Ryan Braun? Are we ever going to see a team commit so much playing time to such a dreadful defender in the big leagues? Braun, in 2007, had a -29.3 UZR/1000. Last year, the worst defensive regular in baseball had a -13.5 UZR/1000, and that was another outfielder in Colorado. Will there be another, or do teams now know enough?
There are always going to be bad defenders, at least relative to the rest of the defenders. That’s the nature of talent distribution. I can’t help but be curious about the future of exceptionally bad defenders. They seem to be something of a dying breed.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I’ll admit to being mildly faked out; I thought this was going to be yet another PED article.
I was also faked out. I thought this was going to be about a third Ryan Braun in baseball (the Brewers outfielder and the Angels pitcher being the first two).
I thought this was a story about PED’s. He was really bad at one thing and then, *presto, he all of a sudden becomes adequate defensively while greatly improving in another.
It is irresponsible and frankly pathetic to write a post about Braun and not point out that he was using performance enhancing drugs. Braun is a cheat and he was let off on a technicality. The synthetic testosterone was not a result of the sealed package being delayed. You could keep a clean sample for years and no synthetic testosterone would magically appear. The lab tech swore that the package was not tampered with and the collection was sealed.
It is strange that statisticians write about small differences that can only be quantified by using upper level mathematics yet they ignore the elephant in the room that is anabolic steroids.
enhanced performance, this article references Ryan Braun’s 2007 performance. His abnormal test results were leaked to the press in 2011.
Also, you mention that synthetic testosterone was found in his sample then go on to bemoan the ignoring of the elephant in the room, “anabolic steroids”. Those are two different substances.
Synthetic testosterone is a manufactured form of testosterone, an anabolic steroid.
I was also faked out. I thought this was going to be about the former Royals relief pitcher.
I, too thought that. I am very delighted that it was not.
One of Jeff’s best posts yet.
It seems that teams “know enough” as you say, and they make the change in the minors. I doubt we’ll see a guy in the majors given that much time at a position playing that bad day-in-and-day-out just because of his bat.
Unless, or course, you are talking about the Brewers. They did what they did with Braun here in 07, but they recently did this with Brett Lawrie. They were so willing to trade the guy away for a soft tossing pitcher, because they felt he was blocked by Rickie Weeks.
If your team believes that they can get by solely on offense (much like the 2013 Brewers do), you will do whatever it takes to get a bat in the order, no matter the position, and no matter how bad said player may be at that position.
Ruben Amaro Jr will take that bet
Was he drafted as a SS?
Drafted as a 3B, but played SS until his junior year at Miami.
Considering how bad Lucas Duda was in the field for the Mets last year, I am blown away that Braun was basically twice as bad…and was still a positive WAR player! Ryan Braun is stupid good at hitting.
Ditto! Judging by his numbers I would guess Duda is costing the Mets runs while warming up.
Does UZR have a baseline that will remain in place forever and ever? Or does the baseline change based on the actual skill levels at the position?
In other words, will it ever be possible for everyone to be an above-average defender? If not, I wonder what the lowest generally acceptable UZR/150 will eventually be for most teams. Maybe -10?
UZR should be 0 averaged over every position.
The main cause of Braun being so inept defensively at the major league level was that his bat was too good to keep down in the minor leagues. If a NL team finds a hitter that is truly elite but can’t catch a cold, I’m sure he will be trotted out there just as often as Braun was. If Braun had taken 3 or 4 years to get to the majors like most players, he probably would’ve been considerably better in the field just by sheer repetition.
Or he simply could have “done” somethign to make himself better. Cough* Cough*
Practice? He could have practiced, right? That’s where you were going with this.
>If a NL team finds a hitter that is truly elite but can’t catch a cold, I’m sure he will be trotted out there just as often as Braun was.
My take from the article is this is going to be more rare. Defense is more consistent than offense, so the FO mentality is shifting so that a defender who saves 3 runs above average is going to be more valuable than one who produces 3 runs more on average.
What about a guy like Sano with Minnesota? Most of the reports I’ve read aren’t particular glowing about his defense, but he could get the majors based on the raw power alone.
Sure, but Sano may move to LF like Braun or share 1B/DH with Mauer. More interesting to me is what the Tigers would have done with Cabrera if he had been as bad as Braun. Would they have moved him to LF and kept Inge? Moved Fielder to DH? Or kept Cabrera at 3B?
I could still see historically awful fielding performances on an individual basis from teams expected to lose 100 games, if a positional need arises. Would the current Astros really care if a new prospect they had next year played out of position, to give him MLB at-bats?
The problem with that theory is that you have to have someone of worthwhile ability to be able to block a new prospect from playing (that position). Losing teams don’t typically have anyone so good they can’t be moved.
Yes but losing teams sometimes have more than one terrible fielding good hitter and may want to play both of them to get them MLB experience or at least boost their trade value. For example, I bet the Indians play Asdrubal Cabrera at SS every day even if his defense deteriorates to -15 or -20. He’s not worse than Lonnie Chisenhall or Jason Kipnis, but they’re “blocking” him in the sense that the Indians want them to get playing time. They would have to give up on Chisenhall for Cabrera to be moved to 3B.
Alternately, sometimes bad teams just don’t have anyone else to play infield spots.
I guess you could argue he should have been shifted to the OF in spring training of ’07, but you can’t really fault the Brewers for finding him 500 PAs. It wasn’t like they could put him at first or DH, and a 1 OPS is still a 1 OPS.
And yet his defense single handedly kept the Brewers out of the post season that year. His UZR may have been worth 3 losses, but situationally, I counted around 5 games that that team lost because of it.
Yes, ignore his contributions with the bat. Or the miscues/meltdowns of his teammates. It was all Braun’s fault, single-handedly.
The 677 innings of 4.9+ ERA thrown by Jeff Suppan, Dave Bush, Chris Capuano, and Claudio Vargas had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
The team had a worse winning % with Braun on the team so he obviously cos them the post season. It wasn’t Cordero blowing two saves when he only had to get one more out. In one case one more strike.(against the Cubs)
The other thing keeping the Brewers out of the playoffs was keeping Braun in the minors at the start of the season.
And what did Jeff Suppan, Dave Bush, Chris Capuano, and Claudio Vargas all have in common? They had Ryan Braun attempting to play 3B behind them.
His offense single-handedly kept them in contention for most of the year.
Think about who was in the outfield “blocking” Braun.
Corey Hart – Solid player all around.
Tony Gwynn, Bill Hall, and Kevin Mench – All fairly sub-par.
I guess we will never know the difference.
Kevin Mench.. While Carlos Lee may not have been an elite player, there is no way that Kevin Mench should have been the second best piece in a Lee deal.
I can’t help but chuckle at the notion that teams needed advanced defensive stats to understand how bad Braun was at 3B. The guy was a trainwreck, and the biggest luddites in the MLB world couldn’t stop talking about it.
They didn’t need the numbers. Just like how you keep pitchers starting until they definitively prove themselves incapable, you keep hitters at a premium position until you’ve given up all hope of them being able to stay there.
The difference in offense and defense is shocking, and Braun was a very athletic, fit dude. Makes you wonder how much he worked on defense in high school and college. He obviously could get by (even in the majors) even with awful defense.
Positional adjustments aside, I’m not typically surprised to see a guy switch positions and stink at it. Especially 3B. That’s a tough position and a totally different skillset generally, than SS. Was he even good at SS, or was he merely playable there? His bat, with a -25UZR at SS would be pretty awesome, and even kind of fun to watch, I bet.
Yes, Braun may have always worked very hard at defense and just was not good at it and had an awful time trying to adjust to third base. Considering how good of an athlete he is, I’m skeptical that is the case, but I will admit I have no real evidence to refute that possibility.
I totally forgot Braun was a 3B once upon a time. Imagine how awesome he’d be if he could’ve made that work.
I know right. Imagine if Ryan Braun was an awesome baseball player.
Michael Morse was a SS. Jayson Werth was a C. Baseball is weird.
Jesus Montero? Word of mouth says he’s terrible at catcher, though I don’t know how much of that is supported by the numbers. For what it’s worth in 2012 he was 13th worst in the FSR you cite.
It would not be surprising to me if Brad Hawpe posting the worst UZR in the history of the stat had nothing to do with park factor issues. I once saw him make a whole season’s worth of defensive miscues in one inning against the Giants.
Miguel Cabrera is a pretty obvious answer. Detroit probably assumed that he would be the worst fielding third baseman, and he was, yet they most likely expected him to be even worse than -10.0.
And he wasn’t even close to as bad as 2007 Braun, making half as many errors in almost 400 more innings.
There’s a difference between a guy who is too fat to play third, and a guy who is just incapable of playing third.
But at the same time, Cabrera is only getting older and fatter. Sure he wasn’t as bad as 2007 Braun last year, but he might be this year, or next year. Will the Tigers be willing to move him (or Prince) to DH full time if that happens? Maybe not…
Possible candidate is Miguel Sano. Signed as a shortstop, but moved to 3B. Most likely he will stick at 3B, but maybe he struggles defensively then moves to a corner outfield spot. It could happen!
As far as I’m concnered the worst 3B defensive performance goes to Mark Reynolds. Dude munches sunflower seeds in the middle of a double play.
He was utterly terrible at 3rd.
Which is confusing since he was more than competent at first.
I think Shin-Soo Choo has a good chance to come close next year for three reasons:
1) He is playing CF for CIN next year.
2) He didn’t have stellar Fld ratings when playing corner OF.
3) Dusty Baker will keep Choo in CF regardless of his defensive performance because Dusty Baker likes to piss the baseball world off.
Yes
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5648&position=P
In 2007, nobody really expected the Brewers to compete. They didn’t have a winning season in 14 years before Braun.
Good fielders aren’t rare either. The minor leagues have enough “all glove/no bat” players to go around the world twice. A team can only save so many runs with fielding before it becomes counter-productive. Better off being terrible at fielding, than anything else. You won’t get anywhere with terrible pitching and terrible hitting.
that should be:
A team can only save so many runs with “fielding alone”, before it becomes counter-productive.
“A team can only save so many runs with “fielding alone”, before it becomes counter-productive.”
What number is that?
Clint Barmes’s 2012 tested that theory at the extreme. His wRC+ was 62, but he posted a 14.4 UZR and 1.7 WAR. Honestly having watched most of the games with him in there versus other SS, he was saving a lot of runs with his glove.
It’s pretty obvious that WAR and UZR are pretty fucked up.
Winning is not a number.
You can’t win without scoring runs.
It was a crime that he won the ROY over Tulowitzki
Dante Bichette, 1999. 34 HRs, .295 AVG, 100 wRC+, -1.8 WAR
Imagine a defense with him in the OF and Braun at 3B.
Matt Kemp’s 2010 was also pretty atrocious defensively. He posted a 105 RC+, hit 28 home runs, played in 162 games, and was only worth 0.5 WAR due to a -26 UZR. And his DRS was -37. Wow. He was never great in CF (and still isn’t), but that year might take the cake.
Didn’t hear win a gold glove that year?
2011. He still wasn’t good at CF then either.
Gold gloves have been a popularity contest for awhile now. Jeter is the perfect example. Though I do think he’s all time great player he’s been given a few undeserved GG’s based on name alone. He could really struggle this year coming back from a broken ankle.
of course there will be another Ryan Braun. There is a spot in the batting order devoted to the Ryan Braun’s of the world. It’s called the DH…
Now, if every team played REAL baseball, the Ryan Braun’s of the world would have to be managed somehow, but a spot has already been created for them…
Lucas Duda is a terrible defense outfielder but even if his defense is atrocious during 2013 I am not sure the Mets have many (any?) in house options to replace him…he could have a really, really awful year for outfielders.
No regression for 1 yr UZR? Shame.
Jake mentioned it first…but the whole time as I am reading through this blog I am thinking How On God’s Green Earth did Braun win Rookie of the Year in 2007 over Tulowitzki. Tulo has gone on to greater heights winning a couple Gold Gloves and is regarded as one of the best Shortstops in the game…if we can only keep him healthy. +He is clean of PEDs as well…
He won ROY over Tulo because he had more HR and RBI than Tulo and that’s what voters look for. Setting a rookie record for SLG and Tulo having a typically abysmal road batting line didn’t hurt either. I guess I can’t really fault the voters for not having the foresight to know that years later Braun would have abnormal PED test results leaked to the media in breach of the CBA, but maybe that is just me.
In regards to Tulo going on to “greater heights” I guess I’d take the guy with the MVP and 32 WAR to the guy with two gold gloves and 25 career WAR, but again, that could just be me.
Yeah, and I would take the guy who has been clean his entire career, plays at an elite level for a premium defensive position, and if not for an injury last season would be regarded the best player in baseball.
Braun’s MVP and all of the numbers associated with it have a huge shadow of doubt hanging over him because of the positive PED test. If this BALCO East situation has any mention of Ryan Braun in it, I will not be surprised, and it puts his entire career in doubt.
how has tulo gone on to greater heights? braun is one of 2-3 best players in the game
I think most teams would accept really bad fielding to get that offense for a short term solution.
Lucas Duda