246 replies to this topic

[SumnerH]

All kidding aside. I think if Iglesias starts in Boston it says more about Valentine than it does about either Cherington or Iglesias.

No, it says more about Cherington--the GM would have to make the move to put Iglesias on the Boston roster. The front office isn't insane; there's basically no chance of that happening, barring Iglesias hitting like Ruth in ST or multiple injuries at short.

[Rasputin]

Why? That would be Cherington's decision, not Iglesias or Valentine's.

It's an organizational decision and I think CET thinks (and I agree) that the only way Iglesias is the starter on opening day is if Bobby Valentine is adamant about it.

[yecul]

Don't confused understanding the desire for strong defense at the SS position with support for such a move. Iglesias should be in AAA to start the season.

That said, what's the upside here? A .650 OPS would have to be considered good. While not an absolute black hole we are talking about a dud in the lineup any way you slice it. At the end of the day it's about run differential and if he helps with the glove more than he detracts with the bat compared with the alternatives, then it's a win. I dont' think he's there at this point.

[Carl Everetts Therapist]

It's an organizational decision and I think CET thinks (and I agree) that the only way Iglesias is the starter on opening day is if Bobby Valentine is adamant about it.

exactly

and I think Cherington would defer to Valentine to some extent

[Van Everyman]

If he is sent down, it will have to be over Cafardo's dead body.

JUPITER, Fla. - If the Red Sox send Jose Iglesias back to Pawtucket now, they may have some explaining to do.

Iglesias has emerged as the best shortstop in camp, with another sparkling defensive play and a three-run triple in the eighth inning against the Cardinals Thursday.

Josh Beckett , who pitched three strong innings in the 9-3 loss, was the beneficiary when Iglesias robbed David Freese in the second inning. Iglesias made a diving, backhanded stop on his knees, then got up and made a perfect throw to first base.

“Yeah, he’s pretty sick,’’ said Beckett. “I can see why they gave him all that money.’’

Beckett played with another slick-fielding shortstop, Alex Gonzalez, for seven years between Florida and Boston, and was asked if Iglesias compared.

“I haven’t seen Jose enough,’’ said Beckett. “I know I saw Alex Gonzalez for a long time. He was pretty good, pretty special.

“It’s nice when they make the great play, but I think when a guy hits a ball that hard, if he’d have missed that, I think I would have been able to understand. It was hit pretty hard.’’

Manager Bobby Valentine is getting used to seeing terrific defense from Iglesias, and Thursday, Iglesias tied the game at 3-3 in the eighth with the triple.

“His other at-bats were decent, too,’’ said Valentine. “His rhythm is very good. He’s getting close. He’s also playing under control and starting to dispel some of the things that were said about him in the past.’’

http://mobile.boston...hlights_coming/

I will say, I saw that stab in the 2nd inning in person and it was stunning. And a hit before the rain delay that sent me and my daughter packing. But clearly the hype (and pressure) is building.

[Rasputin]

If he is sent down, it will have to be over Cafardo's dead body.

I'm okay with that.

[uncannymanny]

I'm okay with that.

That steal a few days ago was probably lucky, but sure was ballsy (took off after the catcher had the ball). Certainly doesn't lack confidence.

[JakeRae]

The team can absorb an offensive dud. The left side of the IF could be an issue if SS is substandard (or merely average) when combined with a fresh-off-surgery-and-aging Youkilis. I can see the logic behind going glove first.

While it's possible that he could start hitting well enough (say, the .250 cited above), but it's also possible that he sprouts wings and flies to harpy island.

I'm not trying to pick on you specifically, as I've seen this logic in a lot of posts on this topic, but this line of reasoning is asinine. The team should play the best player at the position in question. If they believe Iglesias' bat/glove combo is superior to that of Aviles, they should play Iglesias. If not, they should play Aviles.

The question of what the overall offense can "afford" to do is irrelevant.

That's not to dismiss situational factors. There could be different returns to the Red Sox from a specific offensive or defensive skill than to an average MLB team. For instance, the argument in Yecul's post about Youkilis is worth discussing. An argument that the marginal impact of SS offense on total runs scored is different from what RC formulas would lead us to believe would also be discussion worthy. Assertions that the offense is really good therefore they can afford to sacrifice offense for defense are not. Greater balance is not a worthwhile pursuit in and of itself.

Personally, I have a really hard time seeing the logic behind having Iglesias break camp with the team. Even if they feel he is ready, he is unlikely to be a significant upgrade over Aviles and it makes more sense to wait until June and get 4 months out of him this year plus 6 more years rather than this year plus 5 more years. The Red Sox are rarely in a position where service time games make sense, but unless Iglesias' bat was cubically transformed this offseason, this is that time. Let Iglesias prove he is ready by actually hitting in AAA for a couple months, see what Aviles can do with a return to a starting job for a couple months, and then re-evaluate.

[meadow11]

That steal a few days ago was probably lucky, but sure was ballsy (took off after the catcher had the ball). Certainly doesn't lack confidence.

That was called a delayed steal....and you just don't see that play very often any more.

A delayed steal is a stolen base normally on the middle infielders, instead of the pitcher/catcher. The baserunner takes an extra secondary lead ( 3 shuffles instead of the normal 2) and then takes off. Why it works is middle infielders are taught to keep an eye on the baserunner until the pitch enters the hitting zone (which if run properly is that 3rd shuffle). And by the time the middle infielders realize what is happening, it's normally too late. Many times you'll see the catcher double pump...since no middle infielder is covering the base, and more times than none the throw ends up in center field.

Delayed steals work best with two outs, when the infielders are playing deep and are intended for smart baserunners who may not be the best candidates for a straight steal. In my many years of coaching, I have only seen a few delayed steals not work properly, and that is always when the baserunner takes off too early (after 2 shuffles instead of 3) and then it just looks like a bad jump off a straight steal.

Love how Bobby is bringing oldies but goodies back. You just don't see this much anymore.

[jackno]

There are probably at least a few glove first shortstops who were available via free agency or trade who project to be less historically inept at the plate than Iglesias. People keep saying, "Oh, the Sox can absorb a bad offensive player if he has a good glove." I wouldn't vehemently disagree, but right now, Jose Iglesias projects not to be a "bad hitter," rather he projects to be one of the WORST EVER major league hitters. Starting Iglesias at SS in 2012 is the functional equivalent of starting Kevin Cash at catcher in 2009.

I don't recall anyone calling Cash the best defensive catcher in baseball. If J.I. is truly an historicallly good defensive SS, I would give it a try.

[Doctor G]

Jose has to learn to be able to work the count with runners on base. 21 walks in 359 ABS last year in Pawucket is the stat that will have to be improved for him to play in Boston. Right now the opposing pitchers will see him as an escape hatch out of any jam they get in with the bottom half of the order. If he can learn to work the count to the degree that he can draw a walk they won't be able to do this.

[AZBlue]

There are several people who think Iglesias will be an "historically bad" hitter at the major league level, based on limited minor league stats that were associated with injuries and transitions to higher levels. After having seen him play about 15 games over three seasons (including the AFL), I'll predict that he will become a slightly above average hitting shortstop with 10 HR power and, eventually, 30 doubles. I like the way he looks at the plate. He has good bat speed. I see no reason why his pitch recognition will not improve. He seems to be staying back on the ball better than he did earlier in his career in pro ball.

It is not outside of the realm of possibility that he can create as many or more extra outs with his glove than he will give away with the bat because of his lack of experience as a hitter. His intangibles are impressive. His high level of confidence is not likely to be crushed if he has a slow start. I hope they give Iglesias two months to prove that he is not an offensive black hole and put him in the starting lineup from day one. It is hard to quantify the extra outs he will create in the field compared to Aviles and Punto, but sometimes the eyes are more important than imprecise defensive numbers. My eyes are impressed.

[uncannymanny]

Great explanation. It his was more a thing that was done when I was a kid...I always assumed this was a baserunner call which is why I used "ballsy." You're saying this is generally called from the bench (as in the manager notices a MI napping as the ball reaches the plate on a previous pitch)?

(null)

[Sprowl]

There are several people who think Iglesias will be an "historically bad" hitter at the major league level, based on limited minor league stats that were associated with injuries and transitions to higher levels. After having seen him play about 15 games over three seasons (including the AFL), I'll predict that he will become a slightly above average hitting shortstop with 10 HR power and, eventually, 30 doubles. I like the way he looks at the plate. He has good bat speed. I see no reason why his pitch recognition will not improve. He seems to be staying back on the ball better than he did earlier in his career in pro ball.

It is not outside of the realm of possibility that he can create as many or more extra outs with his glove than he will give away with the bat because of his lack of experience as a hitter. His intangibles are impressive. His high level of confidence is not likely to be crushed if he has a slow start. I hope they give Iglesias two months to prove that he is not an offensive black hole and put him in the starting lineup from day one. It is hard to quantify the extra outs he will create in the field compared to Aviles and Punto, but sometimes the eyes are more important than imprecise defensive numbers. My eyes are impressed.

I am also impressed, in a much smaller sample of observations, by Iglesias' visible talents. His soft hands, quick release, and smooth footwork on the double play pivot are already on Alex Gonzalez' level, and Iglesias is rangier, more acrobatic and has a quicker first step.

Was his triple a legitimate drive or a grounder down the first-base line? Youth and bat speed are on Iglesias' side, but 10 HR / 30 doubles seems like a lot to expect, or even to hope for.

[Rasputin]

Was his triple a legitimate drive or a grounder down the first-base line? Youth and bat speed are on Iglesias' side, but 10 HR / 30 doubles seems like a lot to expect, or even to hope for.

I was listening to the radio and the cards guys called it "a shot." They sounded like they were drunk but I'm going to choose to believe it was really hit hard.

[Hee-Seop's Fable]

Something that's likely to have a strong bearing on how well Iglesias will have to hit in Pawtucket before he entrenches himself in Boston:

"The new collective bargaining agreement will change the Super Two rule from the top 17 percent of players under three years of service time to allow the top 22 percent to qualify for Super Two status. In the past, teams were safe with top prospects by calling them up in late May or June to avoid Super Two qualification. Now, though, that cut-off date will be pushed ahead, perhaps several weeks. We could start seeing top prospects a month later now in late June.

Read more: http://www.kffl.com/...e#ixzz1om1M1Ar8 "

So if Igelsias stays under 86 days or is in the bottom 78% of rookies in service time, the Sox still have him under control for 6 more years, or through 2018, his age 28 season. I think it follows that he's gonna have to tear up AAA for them to want to let him hit free agency after the 2017 at the age of only 27. Starting in Boston from the get-go would shock me. Beckett's career OPS is 407 overall, 559 in Boston. Using Ortiz to hit for Iglesias rather than Josh in his starts would start to become a consideration if you translate Iglesias' 554 OPS from AAA to the major leagues. He's got to show he can add 100-150 points to that before he faces full, dialed up major league repertoires on a regular basis.

Hopefully jettisoning Scutaro was a sign Cherington thinks the marginal downgrade from him to Aviles and Punto over three months is tolerable, not that six months of them are a acceptable, and that he thinks Iglesias is only a half season away. I can't believe he felt in January that Iglesias was ready enough to make that bet, or that Aviles' defense (or Punto's overall game) really is good enough for a playoff contender at the second most important position on the field.

[OttoC]

Iglesias was signed to a 4-year contract as an amateur free agent, so don't they lose control after 2013 if they don't extend his contract or sign him to a new one?

[Crazy Puppy]

So if Igelsias stays under 86 days or is in the bottom 78% of rookies in service time, the Sox still have him under control for 6 more years, or through 2018, his age 28 season.

If a player qualifies for Super Two status, it does not change the amount of time a team has him under control. He'll still need 6 years of ML service time to qualify for free agency. Super Two status just means he gets four years of arbitration instead of three. A big market team like Boston really should not be overly concerned about a guy getting an extra year of arb -- he'd make $1 million, maybe $1.5 million, in that extra year of arb instead of the $400,000 league minimum. Not that big a deal.

Iglesias was signed to a 4-year contract as an amateur free agent, so don't they lose control after 2013 if they don't extend his contract or sign him to a new one?

Unless he has a clause in his contract that prevents Boston from tendering him a contract at the end of 2013, he should still be under club control until he has 6 years of ML service time. However, because he signed a ML contract, he'll be out of options after the 2013 season (unless he's not optioned for more than 20 days in either 2012 or 2013).

Edited by Crazy Puppy, 11 March 2012 - 10:29 AM.

[JimBoSox9]

He needs more seasoning and the best move is to keep him in AAA until September. That said, I'm tremendously high on his attitude and makeup, so I think that if he breaks camp with the big club with the understanding that he's going right back down in a month if he can't hit well enough to hold the starting job, the risk to his development path is very minimal. It wouldn't drive me crazy if they went that direction - just don't let him linger at MLB if it obviously isn't working out.

[OttoC]

...
Unless he has a clause in his contract that prevents Boston from tendering him a contract at the end of 2013, he should still be under club control until he has 6 years of ML service time. However, because he signed a ML contract, he'll be out of options after the 2013 season (unless he's not optioned for more than 20 days in either 2012 or 2013).

The fact that he was signed to a 4-year contact suggests an out but that's just conjecture. One reason for signing him to a multi-year contract would be to stretch out the bonus payment over that period.

[Hee-Seop's Fable]

If a player qualifies for Super Two status, it does not change the amount of time a team has him under control. He'll still need 6 years of ML service time to qualify for free agency. Super Two status just means he gets four years of arbitration instead of three. A big market team like Boston really should not be overly concerned about a guy getting an extra year of arb -- he'd make $1 million, maybe $1.5 million, in that extra year of arb instead of the $400,000 league minimum. Not that big a deal.



Unless he has a clause in his contract that prevents Boston from tendering him a contract at the end of 2013, he should still be under club control until he has 6 years of ML service time. However, because he signed a ML contract, he'll be out of options after the 2013 season (unless he's not optioned for more than 20 days in either 2012 or 2013).

My point wasn't the club's concern for the money, it's whether he gets the chance to be set free into the market after 2017 or 2018. His four year contract is only a current financial arrangement - the club still controls him until his 6 or 6+ years of club control are up, so long as they tender him a deal and get an agreement while they still have exclusivity when the time comes, or pay his arb. award.

I think I'm conflating super-two status vs. when a year is long enough to count as one of his six under team control. How long can he be on the roster this year before he gets credit for the first of his six before free agency? How long would he have to season in Pawtucket to still be a Red Sox in 2018, presuming he's with the team all of 2013 forward?

[JakeRae]

If a player qualifies for Super Two status, it does not change the amount of time a team has him under control. He'll still need 6 years of ML service time to qualify for free agency. Super Two status just means he gets four years of arbitration instead of three. A big market team like Boston really should not be overly concerned about a guy getting an extra year of arb -- he'd make $1 million, maybe $1.5 million, in that extra year of arb instead of the $400,000 league minimum. Not that big a deal.



Unless he has a clause in his contract that prevents Boston from tendering him a contract at the end of 2013, he should still be under club control until he has 6 years of ML service time. However, because he signed a ML contract, he'll be out of options after the 2013 season (unless he's not optioned for more than 20 days in either 2012 or 2013).

The issue with Super Two status is not the first year arb award but the 4th. Qualifying for arbitration a year early raises the baseline for each subsequent year. So, instead of making say 2/5/8 in arbitration, that same player would make 2/5/8/12.

But, that is also not the primary issue with service time. The difference between a player breaking camp with the team and getting called up midseason is that the midseason call up gives you an extra half season of control of that player, meaning more value. Since the Sox have a viable SS option and Iglesias does not look like he'd be a significant upgrade, there is no good reason for him to not start the year in AAA.

Edited by JakeRae, 11 March 2012 - 03:53 PM.

[gammoseditor]

The fact that he was signed to a 4-year contact suggests an out but that's just conjecture. One reason for signing him to a multi-year contract would be to stretch out the bonus payment over that period.

No, he would not be a free agent. The purpose of the 4 year contract is to spread out the money it took to sign him.

[Carl Everetts Therapist]

I am also impressed, in a much smaller sample of observations, by Iglesias' visible talents. His soft hands, quick release, and smooth footwork on the double play pivot are already on Alex Gonzalez' level, and Iglesias is rangier, more acrobatic and has a quicker first step.

Was his triple a legitimate drive or a grounder down the first-base line? Youth and bat speed are on Iglesias' side, but 10 HR / 30 doubles seems like a lot to expect, or even to hope for.

His Triple was a legitimate smash and he has hit the ball hard a good number of times inducing either a hit or poor fielding. He seems to make really solid contact ie. squaring up the ball pretty regularly so far in ST. If he could learn to work the count I think he could become a very good hitter for average. That is exactly why he needs to start the year in AAA. he simply needs to see more pitches. so far in ST I haven't seen many AB's when he has looked overmatched, but at the true ML level he might be overmatched quite a bit. The ability to walk would hide some dificiencies and could excentuate the positives.

All that being said I can't see him ever having 10HR/30 Double power. I have seen him hit balls that look like he crushed them and they haven't even made the warning track. He isn't a gap to gap type hitter who you would expect to turn doubles into homers as he developes. He's more of a contact/slap hitter who is looking to turn flyballs into line-drives and hopefully singles into doubles.

He is fast and I think the "poor baserunning" label is overblown, he's aggressive and again he needs to have more experience on the bases. I think he could develope into an Elvis Andrus type and that could be useful in a deep sox line-up.....

I think his main goal should be to go from a black hole in the line-up to a guy who can make good contact to all fields, spoil a lot of pitches, steal a few bases, move runners and occasionally peg the gaps.

[Rasputin]

All that being said I can't see him ever having 10HR/30 Double power. I have seen him hit balls that look like he crushed them and they haven't even made the warning track. He isn't a gap to gap type hitter who you would expect to turn doubles into homers as he developes. He's more of a contact/slap hitter who is looking to turn flyballs into line-drives and hopefully singles into doubles.

And all he really needs to do to have a good major league career is get on base at a decent rate.

[mt8thsw9th]

There are several people who think Iglesias will be an "historically bad" hitter at the major league level, based on limited minor league stats that were associated with injuries and transitions to higher levels. After having seen him play about 15 games over three seasons (including the AFL), I'll predict that he will become a slightly above average hitting shortstop with 10 HR power and, eventually, 30 doubles. I like the way he looks at the plate. He has good bat speed. I see no reason why his pitch recognition will not improve. He seems to be staying back on the ball better than he did earlier in his career in pro ball.

http://sonsofsamhorn...post__p__714524

[nvalvo]

I don't know where to get P/PA numbers in spring training, but in every game I've seen him in, he's done a good job spoiling pitches and working the count.

[nvalvo]

http://sonsofsamhorn...post__p__714524

I just read this whole thread. Recommended.

[soxfan121]

I just read this whole thread. Recommended.

Ditto. Good read - and fun to see some user names I haven't seen in a while.

To be completely fair, there was a ton more on that subject, including AZBlue's insistence that Pedroia was a 2b, not a SS - something he has turned out to be 100% correct about. As someone who went more than 10 rounds with him on that subject, it's fair to note that while this thread was dug up to "discredit" his analysis in this thread, the poster did (and does) have valuable insights and has been right, as well as wrong, on the same player.

But, as always, the point is that everyone who has been here long enough has a few opinions in the archives they'd like a mulligan on.

Edited by soxfan121, 14 March 2012 - 02:39 PM.

[SumnerH]

But, as always, the point is that everyone who has been here long enough has a few opinions in the archives they'd like a mulligan on.

Not me. I'm still standing by my assertion that Anibal Sanchez will be a better pitcher than Jon Lester ever is.

[ivanvamp]

I just read this whole thread. Recommended.

Wow, that was fun reading!

[Rovin Romine]

I can't reply to the SS thread in the main forum (very old membership? completely infrequent posting?)

I wanted to ask about defensive metrics here though. It seems like we can roughly measure a defensive player against an average player in the same position though chances, zone, etc. We can also measure by the eye and stopwatch.

What I'm curious about is the effect of defense on the pitching staff; is this factored into the various defensive metrics, and if so, which ones?

There's got to be value in someone who can make a marginal defensive play and thus "extend" a starting pitcher's ability to go deeper into a game. I'm sure the pitchers would like it psychologically, but it seems like this could be measurable. For example, if Iglesias converts one extra play per Lester start (due to range turning a single into an out, or arm turning a single into an out, or quickness converting a single out into a DP), he'd be adding an extra possible batter onto Lester's start. I realize one extra play sounds like a lot, but this seems like a measureable/projectable thing, no? I think the easy part of it is that if you get one "extra" out, it would equal one batter deeper a starting pitcher could go. Maybe that much of a marginal increase in "gas" left in the tank does not get the SP out for another inning. Or maybe if you have an extreme GB pitcher you'd get a much greater practical effect. Iglesias' value to Lowe in his heyday might have been huge. Would an elite defensive skill that conserved a starter and thus (assuming starters have better ERAs) lowered team ERA be measureable? If so, how much value would it have?

[AZBlue]

Another question along the same lines (I am math challenged), isn't a hit saved on defense as valuable as a hit on offense? If Iglesias makes one out creating play every three games that Aviles would not accomplish, wouldn't that offset a considerable batting average differential between the two players?

[JakeRae]

Another question along the same lines (I am math challenged), isn't a hit saved on defense as valuable as a hit on offense? If Iglesias makes one out creating play every three games that Aviles would not accomplish, wouldn't that offset a considerable batting average differential between the two players?

Yes. If he was actually that much better than Aviles, it would be worth an awful lot. On the other hand, almost all of those hits saved would be singles, so it would do nothing to counteract the power difference between the two. Based on available evidence, there is virtually no chance Iglesias is that much better with the glove than Aviles. That would be a 38 run differential over the course of the season, assuming every one of the hits Iglesias saves is just a single. That's pretty much combines the most optimistic defensive expectations for Iglesias with the most pessimistic ones for Aviles and then adds in an extra 10 runs for good measure.

[doctorogres]

Another question along the same lines (I am math challenged), isn't a hit saved on defense as valuable as a hit on offense? If Iglesias makes one out creating play every three games that Aviles would not accomplish, wouldn't that offset a considerable batting average differential between the two players?

JakeRae is right. Another problem with this line of thinking is that with the data we have right now, it's pretty much impossible to measure which plays Iglesias makes that Aviles could not. This is the basic problem with evaluating defense, we don't have the same kind of data as we do with PitchFX and its relationship to pitching/hitting.

[Plympton91]

The way I've always thought about it, and I'm not claiming this is original at all, is that the object of baseball is to score more runs than your opponent. That suggests you should weight offense and defense (roughly*) equally. But, defense involves both pitching and fielding. Thus, the 50 percent of the game that is defense gets split into 2 buckets, while offense gets a full 50 percent all to itself. As a result, it seems fairly inarguable to me that Offense >>> Fielding.

Pitching reduces the value of fielding by both striking people out, reducing the total number of chances for fielders to have an effect on the game, as well as by producing routine outs that even an advanced high school fielder could execute 99 percent of the time. Bill James famously said a few years ago, "A lot of what we think of as pitching is really fielding." Well, the converse is also true, they are intertwined. They are intertwined within the 50 percent of the game that they represent, meaning each is worth much less than 50 percent.

Put more succinctly, the number of true opportunities for a fielder to make a difference on a play are way, way fewer than a typical casual fan realizes. I believe this is the reason the advanced defensive metrics produce such small numbers of runs saved for even the best fielders.

*You have to account for the distribution of runs and that all runs are not created equal, but Bill James does that in Win Shares and still comes out at 48/52, and further defines pitching on average to be 35% and fielding 17%. Look at the 2004 Red Sox -- Mueller, Bellhorn, and Millar are varying degrees of average to below, certainly not sniffing gold gloves, neither is Trot Nixon, and most people think Ramirez is a historically bad leftfielder.

Edited by Plympton91, 23 March 2012 - 11:09 AM.

[Rudy Pemberton]

That makes sense, but not sure i understand what the '04 Sox have to do with it. They didn't win because of their defense, although they felt it important enough to trade for Cabrera and Mientkiewicz who were not the offensive equals of the guys they replaced. That was a poor defensive team, so were the Yankees. Lousy defensive teams can win, so can teams that can't hit.

[Rovin Romine]

I looked on baseball reference. http://www.baseball-...-fielding.shtml

SKETCHY MATH, just to eyeball it:

If you scroll down and look at the Player Advanced Fielding -SS, it seems like the Plate Appearances for the opposing team (per full time, healthy SS) is somewhere in the 4.5k to 6k zone. The number of balls a shortstop actually fields (PA/Fld) seems to be in the 10%-11% range for the SS who have the most opportunities - Aybar, Andrus, Cabrera, and they also range in the 87% to 91% in actually creating an out on a fielded ball.

I like looking at these numbers because it makes sense to me that the number of balls hit through a SS "zone" or "window" or whatever will average out. Guys with great positioning or physical athleticism will be able to get to a greater number of balls in the window. So if we know the number of times a SS actually fields a ball v. the number of PAs they're there for, we can get a "range" number as a percentage of total PAs. I'm sure there are better numbers to use, but this works for my thumbnail analysis. (UZR seems so overworked sometimes - over 150 or so games, some guys are just, for whatever combo of reasons, going to catch the ball more - the question is, how often do they catch the ball?)

So too, the conversion number (F2O%) measures strong arm, good instincts, whatever combination it takes to make a fielded ball into an out. Again, not perfect numbers for projection, as you could have a guy with high talent and jitters match up with guy who has low physical talent but perfectly uses that talent. But still, it's a number.

Aybar, Andrus and Peralta all had about the same # of PAs, but Aybar and Andrus actually both fielded 529 balls, and Peralta only got to 468. Running that through the percentage resulting in outs (F2O%) gets us, 460, 469, 425 outs per season. Which is an interesting spread to me. 40ish outs seem significant to me.

If we assume the number of PAs when a healthy SS plays is say, 5K, and for whatever reason, an "average" healthy young SS will get to 500 of those at an averageish 10% clip, and convert 88% if them to outs, you have a 440ish out baseline, for a healthy SS with good range.

So a "perfect storm of crap" season gets you fewer chances/poor range/crappy throws result of, say, 4.7K, 8%, 85% (4700/376/319) or 319 outs. Or 120 outs below my "baseline".

A "perfect" season of high chances, great range/positioning, great conversion of, say, 5.6K, 12%, 92% (5600/672/618) or 618 outs, 178 outs above my "baseline".

(Or an average chance season for a physically gifted SS of 5K, 12%, 92% (5000/600/552) or 552 outs, 110 outs above the baseline)

Yes, I know these are crap numbers: I'm just trying to eyeball it.

I think it makes sense though, if we assume the number of balls hit through a SS "zone" or "window" is more or less consistent over a season, one good way to measure, roughly, range, is the number of balls a SS actually fields. It seems that number is the most important - which is basically "range," but we can say it also takes in initial positioning, etc. - it's "getting to the ball-ness." So with these thumbnails, over the course of a season, if you've got a guy who makes not a highlight play, but a "yeah, really good range on that guy" play once a game, you're at 162. That seems reasonable to me if we're truly talking about an elite defensive talent who plays all year. Or downgrade it to 100 fielded balls - whatever.

Conversion to outs seems to vary somewhat (and I'm just going with the F2O% numbers) but it looks like 85-91 seems like the reasonable range in 2011. If you factor in range v conversion, high conversion on the low end of range (91% on 400 fields = 364 outs) is not as good as low conversion on the higher end of range (85% on 529 fields = 449 outs).

So the actual out differential between a "solid" and an "amazing" ss might be what over the course of a year? 75 to 150 outs?

If that's even roughly correct (and I think it is, largely because of the number of balls good range/positioning lets you field) it's not only blanketing the opposing offense you have to figure, but the synergistic effect of letting your starters go deeper. If the starters go deeper, you bridge to your elite relievers more easily (in tight games), so a large percentage of your additional theoretical 100 outs could be expressed in not using crappy middle relief guys.

As a final caveat, I'm CERTAIN there's a lot of noise in those numbers. If anyone does spreadsheets, etc, it would be great to see a better analysis along these lines. What seems to be key though is the number of balls a SS actually gets to - huge difference on the number of outs made.

(edit - BTW, if we look at the AL league average numbers, the average PA is 6173, the Fld is 579 (which equals a .09% "range"), and the F2O% is 88%, for 509 outs. But that's really a league average SS that plays every inning of every game.)

Edited by Rovin Romine, 23 March 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[JakeRae]

Rovin Romine,

Quite simply, you are taking a range of results with an enormous number of unaccounted for variables and trying to draw conclusions from it. That is never a good idea. Over the same number of PA in the field, a SS who plays for a team where the pitchers strike out more batters and/or have a higher FB:GB ratio will see significantly fewer balls through his range than one who plays in front of a different sort of staff. Since we know that staffs are not equal in these respects, we cannot look at raw balls fielded/plays made stats and draw any sort of useful conclusion. The reason stats like UZR are so complicated is because they are trying to address the inherent difficulty in creating meaningful baselines against which to judge defensive performance.

[Rovin Romine]

Hey Jake,

I understand what you're saying and agree with it in the abstract. Ideally we'd want a noise free measurement of a player that we can use to compare them to other players; it would be better still for projection if we could characterize those measurements into physical and mental skills that might improve or decline.

Problem is, I'm not sure we ultimately get to a defensive metric system that takes account of positioning, leaping/stretching ability to the inch, lefty/righty at the plate v lefty righty on the mound, etc. Particularize it enough and eventually it becomes noise again.

Take OBP as an example - is it eye, skill, physical development, favorable matchups, day, night, seeing over the top righties better than 3/4 release point guys? We really don't care after a certain point. (You only carry so many players so we need only to refine their skills to a certain level. Platoon splits seem to be about that level. If we could carry 90 players, we'd get more practical value out of odd ball splits.) But, OBP - we know on the whole it's predictive, we know there are certain shapes the development of this skill shows with age and exposure. It's actually very crude when you think about it it's just a result, a percentage. The "batting eye" and the starkly different things it faces is implied in the overall result, and over the course of the season, we want the 350 OBP guy in there, as opposed to the 300 OBP guy. Additionally, we have some idea of what the distrubution curve of OBP talent looks like at the MLB level. Obviously, it won't tell you anything absolute about a player, but it's a great proxy.

Results - I think that defense works this way as well, although with a bit more noise. You can refine my analysis above and improve greatly on it, but I think adding in too many factors misses the point. Some guys just get to more balls than others do. There's probably a historical high water mark for number of outs made by a SS, probably a cluster of "good" seasons for number of outs made by a SS, probably a cluster of "great" seasons. What I'd like to get is some sense of the "results" numbers and the actual difference between them.

What struck me was that the range of the numbers I was looking at is pretty narrow. You start with multiple thousands of plate appearances and the SSs, no matter what the staff, seem to come within a small range. The question is - how valueable is the variance in that range?

Additionally, I think you have to keep the noise. It's there, right? I mean in real life. Unless you're dealing with some oddity - a five lefty or five knuckleballer starting rotation, the vast majority of the SSs who have played MLB are going to have faced, on average, very similiar numbers of leftyies and righties and so on and so forth.
I have to think that 5K PAs is enough for the difference between fielding 400 and 500 balls to be worth considering.


Anyway, if we had this ("actual outs") sense, I think it would be then easier to understand (and project) in a real sense, the difference between an elite defender and an average defender. Sure, there'd be noise in there, but it would give us a better idea of the range of value.

How many actual outs can Iglesias give us in a best case scenario (because there must be a plauseable limit, yes, then another "elite season average")? What's the average for a SS?

I don't think this is some kind of end all, be all, but the WAR stats that get tossed out there don't really work all that well.

[Rovin Romine]

So, I actually have a good deal of respect for UZR - great effort.

I'm still turning this one over in my head, and what I keep coming back to (per UZR/WAR) is "what do I care about the zone?" Especially in the infield.

Seriously, maybe that's the thing that always bugged me about UZR. Over the course of a season I simply want the fielder who will put his glove on the greatest number of balls. (How bad does that sound?) Do I care if someone is "penalized" for dropping a ball or missing something in the zone? Not really - at the end of the day the guy who (somehow) gets to 500 balls and drops 25 for errors is more valueable to a guy to gets to 400 with flashy leaping catches.

Also, I'm pretty much convinced that "range" is where it's at for full season fielding value. Good range gives you a much bigger capture point , and unless you have a Dwight Evans Arm - one that lets you convert an insanely large amout of plays to outs on that merit alone.

Iglesias is supposed to have great range.

[SumnerH]

So, I actually have a good deal of respect for UZR - great effort.

I'm still turning this one over in my head, and what I keep coming back to (per UZR/WAR) is "what do I care about the zone?" Especially in the infield.

Seriously, maybe that's the thing that always bugged me about UZR. Over the course of a season I simply want the fielder who will put his glove on the greatest number of balls. (How bad does that sound?) Do I care if someone is "penalized" for dropping a ball or missing something in the zone? Not really - at the end of the day the guy who (somehow) gets to 500 balls and drops 25 for errors is more valueable to a guy to gets to 400 with flashy leaping catches.

It sounds like you want UZR, then, because that's mostly what it measures: how many balls hit in your vicinity did you turn into outs? The guy who generated 475 outs is going to be more valuable than the guy who generated 400 by UZR.

I like looking at these numbers because it makes sense to me that the number of balls hit through a SS "zone" or "window" or whatever will average out.

A) Why do you say that? If team A has a ton of left handed starters and team B has a ton of righties, wouldn't you expect the shortstops on teams A and B to see a different number of balls? And if team C has Halladay/Lee/Hamels/Oswalt at the top of their rotation, wouldn't you expect more strikeouts, fewer balls in play, and hence fewer balls hit to the SS than a AAAA 2000s-era Pirates rotation?
B) Not all balls are created equal. It's tougher to turn a line drive into an out than it is a grounder or fly ball. Having Derek Lowe in your rotation can skew the distribution of what kind of balls go to the SS.
C) There are park factors in play--in particular, teams that play at home on astroturf/field turf may find fielding a lot different from on grass.

UZR and Total Zone basically do what you're trying to do (measure the rate at which you turn balls in play into outs) but try to correct for A, B, and C. They're quite far from perfect, but if you're going to go down that route to evaluate defense then it's worth understanding the issues they've faced and how they try to address them before you go reinventing the wheel.

[Plympton91]

I have to think that 5K PAs is enough for the difference between fielding 400 and 500 balls to be worth considering.

I think this is the fundamental flaw in your assumptions. The variance for the average number of balls to shortstop within each 5,000 PAs would be very large. Moreover, it is a maxim of statistics that estimates of the tails of a distribution -- which is what you're trying to do in attempting to place Iglesias in the context of the best ever "outs created" by shortstops -- have even greater variance than the middle points of the distribution. What you're outlining is basically a very crude version of what are called "advanced defensive metrics" such as UZR and others. Unfortunately, even those barely rise to the level of a plus / minus rating in hockey, because they do not yet take account of the the other fielders on the team. Jose Iglesias would get a much higher UZR on a team that had Jeff Frye at 2B and Kevin Mitchell at 3B than he would on a team that had Dustin Pedroia at 2B and Mike Lowell at 3B.

[radsoxfan]

The way I've always thought about it, and I'm not claiming this is original at all, is that the object of baseball is to score more runs than your opponent. That suggests you should weight offense and defense (roughly*) equally. But, defense involves both pitching and fielding. Thus, the 50 percent of the game that is defense gets split into 2 buckets, while offense gets a full 50 percent all to itself. As a result, it seems fairly inarguable to me that Offense >>> Fielding.

Pitching reduces the value of fielding by both striking people out, reducing the total number of chances for fielders to have an effect on the game, as well as by producing routine outs that even an advanced high school fielder could execute 99 percent of the time. Bill James famously said a few years ago, "A lot of what we think of as pitching is really fielding." Well, the converse is also true, they are intertwined. They are intertwined within the 50 percent of the game that they represent, meaning each is worth much less than 50 percent.

Put more succinctly, the number of true opportunities for a fielder to make a difference on a play are way, way fewer than a typical casual fan realizes. I believe this is the reason the advanced defensive metrics produce such small numbers of runs saved for even the best fielders.

*You have to account for the distribution of runs and that all runs are not created equal, but Bill James does that in Win Shares and still comes out at 48/52, and further defines pitching on average to be 35% and fielding 17%. Look at the 2004 Red Sox -- Mueller, Bellhorn, and Millar are varying degrees of average to below, certainly not sniffing gold gloves, neither is Trot Nixon, and most people think Ramirez is a historically bad leftfielder.

This is a fair way to look at it, but its important to realize that pitching and fielding are events "in series", not "in parallel". Before the ball is put in play, you can come up with numbers like pitching is worth X% and fielding is worth Y%. But they don't happen at the same time, and once the ball is put in play, the defense essentially has the ability to make the out (or not make the out).

The relative importance of defense is significantly less than than 50% because pitchers have so much control by striking people out, not walking people, and creating weak contact (more debatable). But once you've used a selection bias (eliminating strike outs, walks, and routine plays), defense has huge value.

Of course there are not that many of these plays, which is why defense is only a small overall percentage of the equation. But at the same time, when those plays do come along, the defense really can be saving an entire hit.

[Rovin Romine]

Plympton -

I understand even the advanced metrics are crude, and that's what puzzles me. There are 4374 outs in an average season. (What the average number is surely can be found by people with access to the numbers. Surely we can figure out who make the outs - pitcher Ks, and defense. Of the defenders, we can figure out, on average, the number of outs made by each defensive position. A defender who makes more outs than average is probably a plus defender. I think the problem with UZR is that it's kind of an "invisible" stat - we don't see what goes into it.

I guess I'm just puzzled at the response to my musings. I understand they're not sophisticated, but I'm honestly curious as to which defensive players "make" outs, regardless of whether UZR thinks they're hard or easy or in or out of the zone or penalizes or rewards. Ah well. It's not my day job - for which we're all thankful.

Speaking of thanks - thanks for taking the time to read and respond. (also to SumnerH)

[Brianish]

I think part of it is that, even after you've paired it down to outs created, you've got to determine how they were created. How much of it is range, but how much is positioning, how much is luck, and how much is glove work? And once you've determined how much is things like positioning, when is it the manager's call, the pitcher's, or the shortstop's as the de facto captain of the infield? All that said, I would guess that, over a large enough sample size, outs created could give you some substantive information about a defender's quality. The best option is probably to look at it next to things like UZR and scout evaluations with an eye toward some sort of aggregate evaluation. Generally speaking, and without special insight, I have to believe that's basically what the Sox do. But it's certainly a bigger project than I'm prepared to take on.

[OttoC]

There are a lot of variables involved and for infielders, particularly middle infielders, I don't think outs are the best measure. You probably should look at assists. But even that isn't the whole answer because a player can get an assist or putout because another player makes a tremendous play...the second baseman gets a force out after the shortstop goes deep in the hole and makes a great throw to the player routinely covering the bag; the second baseman doesn't get the forceout because the throw from the shortstop is off-line and he has to stutter-step to get to the bag, allowing the runner time to get there; the second baseman picks up a lot of assists as a relay man.

As for the 4374 outs in an average season, the catcher is credited with about 25% of them and the first baseman about 33%. When you atart looking at other positions, then you are faced with small sample sizes and the possibility that a specific player will look much better or much worse than average. Until fielding F/X gets into the mainstream, I won't place much faith in fielding evaluations. Unfortunately, it does not appear that MLB, etc., will put that raw data into the public domain.