Manny Ramirez: Average Left Fielder? Options

[BosoxBob]

David Pinto recently posted his Probabilistic Model of Range figures for 2005 Left Fielders, and lo and behold, Manny is not only not rated as far and away the worst left fielder, but he's not even at the bottom of the list. Guys like Pat Burrell, Miguel Cabrera, David Delucci, and Ricky Ledee rated even worse. According to Pinto's two models, Manny cost the Sox somewhere between 12 and 15 outs last year. Now the conversion of outs to runs is not up yet over at the Chronicle of the Lads site, but I expect it will show Manny at about -7 runs. The startling thing about this is that it is vastly different than what UZR showed (I believe MGL reported it to be -47 runs).

Now consider that Manny led all major league outfielders with 17 assists last year. According to my calculations (using the rate of assists per inning played for all LFers), Manny's expected number of assists would be 8. That's 9 additional outs that Manny was responsible for. And given that many of those outs occurred at the plate or at third, it's likely that they very nearly offset the -7 run differential for range. So based on his overall play, Manny may well have been an average left fielder last year. Amazing...