Bogaerts' Defense Poll: Worthless Defense or Worthless Data?

[kieckeredinthehead]

Folks reading this poll have probably watched Xander as much as anybody working for Baseball Info Solutions. Can we come to a consensus on what kind of shortstop he's been defensively, to this point? Ignore what he'll become, what has he done for us lately?

 

[Jnai]

The scale on this poll seems absurdly big. I don't think anyone is going to pick 1 win worth of defense in either direction.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

The scale on this poll seems absurdly big. I don't think anyone is going to pick 1 win worth of defense in either direction.

 
Well then we're doing better than UZR.

 

[teddywingman]

I said between 5 and 10 runs, but it's really hard to assess something as subjective as that.
 
In every inning where runs have scored after he failed to get to a very reachable grounder (which is the big problem), or committed an error of any sort--the next play could have been a pop up or a double play. It seems to me most of his poor defensive plays have not resulted in a run scoring directly on that play. It's more often that the inning becomes longer, the pitcher throws more pitches than he should have, and sometimes runs score in the aftermath.
 
It's probably a stretch to say that his below average glove has cost the team more than 5 runs--but I'll stick with it--because I do think that he's been very bad. 

 

[Rasputin]

I'm not sure it's possible for him to have cost us near ten runs. Ten outs, sure, but ten runs is a lot.

He's not a good shortstop so far and mostly what I see is him just not having his hands in the right place. He gets to the ball but just misses the catch.

 

[teddywingman]

 

I'm not sure it's possible for him to have cost us near ten runs. Ten outs, sure, but ten runs is a lot.

He's not a good shortstop so far and mostly what I see is him just not having his hands in the right place. He gets to the ball but just misses the catch.

I'll argue with you on this point: The reason he fails at "having his hands in the right place" is that his footwork in pursuit of the ball is terrible. 
 
Edit to add: that it's his pursuit of groundballs that is so incredibly weak. Meanwhile, he makes catches on hard-to-reach pop-ups with the best.

 

[Jnai]

 
Well then we're doing better than UZR.

 
Is there some other version of UZR I don't know about? According to Fangraphs, UZR currently has him as a -.9 fielder. That's -.9 RUNS.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

 
Is there some other version of UZR I don't know about? According to Fangraphs, UZR currently has him as a -.9 fielder. That's -.9 RUNS.

 
Unfortunately there wasn't an option for -..9 runs in the poll 

 

[smastroyin]

I think the problem with this poll is that the wisdom of crowds relies on a large crowd without bias.  Since most of the people interested in this subject are heavily invested in one side of the debate, you may not actually get the fair view you are looking for.
 
I'm also not sure why this drum needs to be beaten so loudly for a 21 year old after a month or so of play in the majors.  We need things to talk about but why is it always "this player really sucks at baseball because I'm pissed at the team right now and he made this bad play that I remember."
 
As for the magnitude of how bad he has been.  The Red Sox as a team have a .312 BABIP allowed this year and a collective FIP/xFIP of 3.43/3.66 versus their actual ERA of 3.68. This doesn't really indicate to me that the Red Sox problem this year is with fielding.  But let's compare to last year.  Last year they had a .294 BABIP allowed and 3.89/3.84 vs. 3.79.  So last year they were better than expected whereas this year they are about where you would expect.  (The FIP/xFIP difference this year is largely due to a very low 8.4% HR/FB ratio, which Xander, JBJ, and everyone else on the field have little control over).
 
At the end of the day, when comparing to average, we probably need to think about average instead of the 2013 team, who were very good at least on a cursory look.  
 
Scale is also a problem.  The Red Sox have given up 158 runs this year, in 337.2 innings.  They have 318 strikeouts, second in the league.  That means they've recorded 695 outs in other ways, while allowing 303 non-HR hits.  The idea that he's responsible for allowing 5-10 runs (or more!) doesn't make a lot of sense within these numbers.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Boy, if there is this much hand-wringing over a consensus top-5 (top-3? top-1?) prospect, this board is going to beserk over the next few years if the Sox stick to their plan of adding one or two prospects to the mix every season.  Prospects are going to struggle, either defensively, offensively, or both.  Some are even going to flame out.  Apparently the Sox are okay with this.
 
The more specific problem with this poll is that while we are acutely aware of the bad plays that XB made and may be able to judge how many runs his play has cost, but except for truly exceptional plays, we have a limited ability to judge whether a play that he made would be made by other average shortstops, and we have virtually no ability to determine how many runs any particular play might have saved. 

 

[bankshot1]

I think we are still in SSS land, but IMO X suffers from the "eye test" and that our most recent memories of SS include Drew and Iggy, both far more skilled, polished, experienced (Drew) and flashy (Iggy) than X.
 
Having said that, my eye test says, he looks below average

 

[Plympton91]

Boy, if there is this much hand-wringing over a consensus top-5 (top-3? top-1?) prospect, this board is going to beserk over the next few years if the Sox stick to their plan of adding one or two prospects to the mix every season.  Prospects are going to struggle, either defensively, offensively, or both.  Some are even going to flame out.  Apparently the Sox are okay with this.
 
The more specific problem with this poll is that while we are acutely aware of the bad plays that XB made and may be able to judge how many runs his play has cost, but except for truly exceptional plays, we have a limited ability to judge whether a play that he made would be made by other average shortstops, and we have virtually no ability to determine how many runs any particular play might have saved. 

 
He's a consensus top 5 prospect because he projects to have an 850 or higher OPS who might be just good enough at SS, at least for a little while longer, to not give a lot of that offensive value back on defense, not because he's supposed to be a good defensive shortstop.  Given that there's a shortstop available who could immediately step in and provide well above average defense in addition to somwhat above average offense, and the current third baseman also has significant question marks on offense and defense, it is most certainly a legitimate discussion as to whether living with the growing pains at shortstop is worthwhile in the short-term, given that the long-term may not consist of more than a few years anyway if his body outgrows the position.
 
i chose "awful" because that's what he isl right now, awful.  And I picked 5-10 runs, though I suspect it is in the vicinity of 5 runs, as we are about 1/4 of the way through the season and I expect his UZR type scores to level out somewhere around -20 / 150.  He's never looked like a particularly good shortstop to me at any level that I've seen him play at, and until he becomes that 800+ OPS guy I expect him to be very soon, he's taking value away on net. 
 
I would concede a point made above, which is that this assessment is based primarily on his work on groundballs and may understate his ability on popups (Gee, where have I heard that before?  I believe it was in a more mocking tone though).  Thus, if he is well above average tracking flyballs in his vicinity, that may offset a portion of the travesty we're watching on groundballs and to a lesser extent, throws.

 

[Plympton91]

If Bogaerts were hitting, I think we'd hear a lot less about his defense.

 
Well, duh?  That's the tradeoff we're supposed to be getting, and the one many signed up for willingly.  But, he hasn't exploded onto the scene offensively as much as people hoped (not that he's been bad, the power just hasn't quite come yet) and so it's not clear the tradeoff is netting to positve at this point.   If it isn't going to net positive relatively soon (like later this year or next), and if long-term (3 to 5 years) he is going to have to move anyway, why pay the upfront cost?

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

 
Well, duh?  That's the tradeoff we're supposed to be getting, and the one many signed up for willingly.  But, he hasn't exploded onto the scene offensively as much as people hoped (not that he's been bad, the power just hasn't quite come yet) and so it's not clear the tradeoff is netting to positve at this point.   If it isn't going to net positive relatively soon (like later this year or next), and if long-term (3 to 5 years) he is going to have to move anyway, why pay the upfront cost?

 
JFC, he's had less than 200 PAs in the majors in his short career. How soon exactly were you expecting him to hit like the best offensive SS in baseball?  He's 21 years old and just getting established as a major league player. Now he's got to be an offensive force by the end of this year? God forbid he waits until he's, say, 24 before becoming a stud.
 
Have we lost all reasonable expectations for the development of young players? It sure seems like it.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

A little more on the motivation of this poll. Over here, Jnai said:
 

 
 
I don't see why asking a bunch of non-experts to compare the value of Bogaerts vs. all other shortstops is really any better than using UZR or any other defensive metric. Yes, UZR is going to be awful after a month, but so are most of our opinions. Does anyone really feel like they have better predictive value in a very short sample than UZR does?

 
So it seemed reasonable to get a sense of the range of estimates from a bunch of non-experts. The strong consensus appears to be that he's been slightly below average defensively, costing somewhere between 0 and 5 runs. My guess is the people who are saying he cost the team more than 5 runs are comparing him to what Drew would have done, not the average shortstop. Jnai's right, I should have put the outer boundaries a little lower. UZR's current run estimates for all qualified shortstops ranges from -8 to 6, with a median at about -1. (See here for histogram). Last year at shortstop in 52 innings, UZR had him at 1.8, which converted to his current inning total would have been about 10 runs saved. The opposite at 3B.
 
The question here was whether non-experts could estimate Bogaert's defense as well (however you define that) as UZR up to this point in the season. I'm sure some of the votes are informed by UZR, so it's a bit circular. Nevertheless, estimates here appear to be more stable than UZR. They also fit into a consensus that he's been a little worse than the average shortstop. He's been average offensively. That's a joy to watch in a 21-year-old shortstop who's only going to improve. This wasn't meant to be another whinging exercise at all. 

 

[JMDurron]

 
 
Have we lost all reasonable expectations for the development of young players? It sure seems like it.

Ellsbury's 2007 screwed up position player expectations for a long time, I think. Bogaerts having a solid October last year only adds to our emotional memory. Intellectually, Pedroia in 2007 and Ellsbury's 2008 season are easy to reference, but they have no visceral staying power.

Buchholz seems to have helped to keep us grounded on the pitching front, but I think our emotions tend to run hotter with the guys that we see every day.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

I'm sure some of the votes are informed by UZR, so it's a bit circular. Nevertheless, estimates here appear to be more stable than UZR. They also fit into a consensus that he's been a little worse than the average shortstop. He's been average offensively. That's a joy to watch in a 21-year-old shortstop who's only going to improve. This wasn't meant to be another whinging exercise at all. 

 
You have the wrong circularity.  People think he is below-average; that is why they picked cost 0-5 runs.  For instance, I'm sure there aren't a lot votes that said he was below average but had him saving runs on whole.
 
I don't think anyone has any idea how many runs he might have saved or cost.  The only way to figure that is to go back through each play and see whether he made or didn't make a play an average shortstop would make and then go back to the run expectancy chart . . . Oh wait, isn't that what UZR does?

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

 
You have the wrong circularity.  People think he is below-average; that is why they picked cost 0-5 runs.  For instance, I'm sure there aren't a lot votes that said he was below average but had him saving runs on whole.
 
I don't think anyone has any idea how many runs he might have saved or cost.  The only way to figure that is to go back through each play and see whether he made or didn't make a play an average shortstop would make and then go back to the run expectancy chart . . . Oh wait, isn't that what UZR does?

 
As stated in the initial post, I assume people posting on this board have watched Bogaerts play as much as any single employee of BIS. No, presumably most people haven't been keeping notes, but we all have a sense of what we've seen. If the responses were all over the place, that would suggest that we don't have consensus on what kind of shortstop he's been. Fine, people think he's below average so that's why they picked 0-5 runs. That is exactly the kind of measurement we're trying to get at, right? If we don't have any idea how many runs he saved/cost, why did everybody pick approximately the same number? The question was whether UZR was better than a bunch of fans who watch every game. I don't see any evidence that it is. 

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Ellsbury's 2007 screwed up position player expectations for a long time, I think. Bogaerts having a solid October last year only adds to our emotional memory. Intellectually, Pedroia in 2007 and Ellsbury's 2008 season are easy to reference, but they have no visceral staying power.

Buchholz seems to have helped to keep us grounded on the pitching front, but I think our emotions tend to run hotter with the guys that we see every day.

 
We said time and again at the time in 2007 that Ellsbury's BABIP that year was utterly unsustainable. And so it was, to the tune of an 88 OPS+ in 2008 and and 98 OPS+ in 2009. Why can't we remember that fact now? I mean, SoSH prides itself on being a "better" sports discussion board but we continually ignore the most basic lessons in player development and analysis that take place right in our own backyard. It's maddening to witness.
 
X has fewer than 200 PAs in the majors and fewer than 45 games played at SS in the majors. That's the very definition of Small Sample Size. They prove, IMO, absolutely nothing about his baseball skills so far. It's perfectly fine to say, "Gee, he hasn't looked very good at short so far." That's fine, and probably very true. It is, IMO, absolutely insane to start talking about possible position changes and being disappointed in his production to this point in his career.

 

[snowmanny]

 
JFC, he's had less than 200 PAs in the majors in his short career. How soon exactly were you expecting him to hit like the best offensive SS in baseball?  He's 21 years old and just getting established as a major league player. Now he's got to be an offensive force by the end of this year? God forbid he waits until he's, say, 24 before becoming a stud.
 
Have we lost all reasonable expectations for the development of young players? It sure seems like it.

You are right of course, but given that he had 7 XBH in 84 PAs last year -and how the ball just jumped off his bat at times -
I did expect more than 8 XBH in his first 144 PAs this year.  But I am confident the power will present itself.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

You are right of course, but given that he had 7 XBH in 84 PAs last year -and how the ball just jumped off his bat at times -
I did expect more than 8 XBH in his first 144 PAs this year.  But I am confident the power will present itself.

 
Pitchers (and perhaps more importantly, defenses) have a book on him after those 84 PA last year (and the 144 and counting PA this year).  That can certainly play a role in his "struggles".  He's going to make his counter-adjustments eventually.

 

[AbbyNoho]

I'm not sure it's possible for him to have cost us near ten runs. Ten outs, sure, but ten runs is a lot.

He's not a good shortstop so far and mostly what I see is him just not having his hands in the right place. He gets to the ball but just misses the catch.

 
Crap, For reason my mind read the poll as 5-10 outs, not 5-10 runs. 10 runs is a lot. I think his defense has been pretty awful so far, but it's not been long enough that I'm convinced he won't ever be a competent SS. 

 

[Plympton91]

 
JFC, he's had less than 200 PAs in the majors in his short career. How soon exactly were you expecting him to hit like the best offensive SS in baseball?  He's 21 years old and just getting established as a major league player. Now he's got to be an offensive force by the end of this year? God forbid he waits until he's, say, 24 before becoming a stud.
 
Have we lost all reasonable expectations for the development of young players? It sure seems like it.

The only problem is if by the time he becomes an offensive stud he's outgrown the shortstop position, a scenario that many professional scouts and many prospect watchers here, including me, believe is at least as realistic as one where he plays SS for the Red Sox for the next 6 to 10 years. In that eventuality, you've paid the price of below average SS defense for several years and gotten no reward at all on the back end, as his peak production comes from elsewhere on the diamond. Note, I'm not saying that's the most likely outcome, and presumably the Red Sox see it differently or wouldn't be going this route, but it is in the set of likely outcomes.

But, you're clearly among the group that's happy to have a bridge year, I'm not. And I think last year proved that you don't have to be in order to run a fiscally responsible. At this point it's pretty clear they're not getting their precious draft pick for Drew anyway, Middlebrooks is ok but not great, and Cecchini needs the whole year at AAA. But, Agree to disagree.

 

[metaprosthesis]

 
As stated in the initial post, I assume people posting on this board have watched Bogaerts play as much as any single employee of BIS. No, presumably most people haven't been keeping notes, but we all have a sense of what we've seen. If the responses were all over the place, that would suggest that we don't have consensus on what kind of shortstop he's been. Fine, people think he's below average so that's why they picked 0-5 runs. That is exactly the kind of measurement we're trying to get at, right? If we don't have any idea how many runs he saved/cost, why did everybody pick approximately the same number? The question was whether UZR was better than a bunch of fans who watch every game. I don't see any evidence that it is. 

 
While people here have certainly had ample opportunity to observe Bogaerts in the field, they have also been engaged in discussion of that play for the whole season, and particularly in a discussion of the exact nature of his goodness or badness immediately before the creation of this poll.  That means that you will have an inherent bias.  Most of the discussion said that he's bad in the field-- exactly how bad, and what that entails for future planning are debated, but the general tone has been "look how bad Xander is".  So, people who have thought less about it will tend toward the consensus (established in the other thread), and people who have engaged the conversation a bit more are the very ones who set that consensus.  In that light, it's completely unsurprising that there is only one vote (so far) that says he had been at all good and that most votes are for what was already argued for.

Now, I have a stupid question about UZR.  It was stated in the other thread that the small sample UZR numbers are not even good as a measure of what has already occurred because of the human error and variation involved in the classification of plays and batted balls (please correct me if this is a false impression of that discussion).  However, if that same error and variation applies to all the data, then doesn't it at least provide some sort of useful measure for comparing Xander to other SSs?  Obviously, the messiness of the data means that it's not a good measuring stick for real value, but if you use the same screwed up stick for measuring two pumpkins, you can still tell which one is bigger.  (Incidentally, looking at UZR for all SSs right now puts Xander below average [#18 out of 28], so it does actually reflect the discussion here.)

 

[glennhoffmania]

But, you're clearly among the group that's happy to have a bridge year, I'm not. And I think last year proved that you don't have to be in order to run a fiscally responsible. At this point it's pretty clear they're not getting their precious draft pick for Drew anyway, Middlebrooks is ok but not great, and Cecchini needs the whole year at AAA. But, Agree to disagree.

 
At what point will the discussions about Drew end?  Everyone is fully aware of your opinion on the matter.  Unfortunately the front office disagrees with you. What you call a bridge year a lot of other people call an opportunity to get a couple of young, cheap, cost-controlled players into the lineup so that they don't have to field a whole team of over-paid mercenaries.  Meanwhile, despite all of your angst and chicken little shit, they're in second place 1.5 games out in May.

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

I find the way that defensive stats are expressed tend to make it very counter-intuitive to understand where defenders lose or gain their team runs.  (Other, of course, than DRS.)  I mean, I can look at a chart and understand how much run expectancy goes up if the difference is between runner on first no out and no runner on, one out.  But that's not really helping me figure out how to compare any particular fielder against any other, or against a mythical average player.  
 
What's the cost of an error in runs?   Consider two middle infielders, each with 400 chances -- one makes 10 errors (.975) and one makes 20 errors (.950).  How does this translate to runs?  Is or can there be a general answer?  How about the vague range and in-zone stats?  How do those translate to runs? I feel on much firmer ground when looking at batting and pitching stats.  I have at least a general feel for how OBP etc. translates to runs, but feel a bit ungrounded with respect to defense and runs saved.
 
I think if pressed to guess how many runs Xander costs, I would be unduly swayed by the fact that Drew seemed to make a a handful of very good plays in very high leverage games/situations last year, and so would probably pick a bigger number than is really called for.

 

[smastroyin]

 
Now, I have a stupid question about UZR.  It was stated in the other thread that the small sample UZR numbers are not even good as a measure of what has already occurred because of the human error and variation involved in the classification of plays and batted balls (please correct me if this is a false impression of that discussion).  However, if that same error and variation applies to all the data, then doesn't it at least provide some sort of useful measure for comparing Xander to other SSs?  Obviously, the messiness of the data means that it's not a good measuring stick for real value, but if you use the same screwed up stick for measuring two pumpkins, you can still tell which one is bigger.  (Incidentally, looking at UZR for all SSs right now puts Xander below average [#18 out of 28], so it does actually reflect the discussion here.)

 
I don't know how much we want to repeat the UZR discussion, but the point is that UZR is not directly comparing the shortstops to one another with a consistent ruler, because each shortstop sees different opportunities.  So it's more like, picking up two different sticks in two different places to measure the pumpkins.  Over the course of a large enough sample, the size of the sticks evens out, and we have a pretty good idea.  Over a small sample, one pumpkin patch may be getting screwed by the observer consistently picking up a bigger stick to measure with.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

The only problem is if by the time he becomes an offensive stud he's outgrown the shortstop position, a scenario that many professional scouts and many prospect watchers here, including me, believe is at least as realistic as one where he plays SS for the Red Sox for the next 6 to 10 years. In that eventuality, you've paid the price of below average SS defense for several years and gotten no reward at all on the back end, as his peak production comes from elsewhere on the diamond. Note, I'm not saying that's the most likely outcome, and presumably the Red Sox see it differently or wouldn't be going this route, but it is in the set of likely outcomes.

But, you're clearly among the group that's happy to have a bridge year, I'm not. And I think last year proved that you don't have to be in order to run a fiscally responsible. At this point it's pretty clear they're not getting their precious draft pick for Drew anyway, Middlebrooks is ok but not great, and Cecchini needs the whole year at AAA. But, Agree to disagree.

 
Yeah, see, part of the pleasure of watching young players establish themselves as every day major league players is seeing them overcome obstacles. That's rather the point.
 
As for the "bridge year" comment, it's perfectly OK by me if a young player has some ups and downs while becoming an every day player; this team is talented enough to still win a lot of games even with that taking place. Unless you're saying, once again, that by daring to give a talented young player his first shot at the big leagues the club is kicking away the 2014 season, which in that case I'll label "disagree strongly" and move on.

 

[Plympton91]

Part of the "chicken little shit" is that there are 10 teams within 2 games of each other and only 3 playoff spots available to the AL East. Plus the Rays aren't one if those 10 right now. Every game matters, a lot. 1 game might decide the division and 2 games might decide the wild card.

Learning on the job is great, as long as everyone is clear of the stakes.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Part of the "chicken little shit" is that there are 10 teams within 2 games of each other and only 3 playoff spots available to the AL East. Plus the Rays aren't one if those 10 right now. Every game matters, a lot. 1 game might decide the division and 2 games might decide the wild card.

Learning on the job is great, as long as everyone is clear of the stakes.

 
Yeah, it's not even May 15. Wringing hands about the playoff race right now is pretty hasty.
 
Every game matters, blah blah blah. Same old. Yes, but. We survived The Eric Gagne experience, and we survived Joel Hanranhan, both of whom blew games in bunches in years the Sox went on to win the WS. We'll survive this.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Part of the "chicken little shit" is that there are 10 teams within 2 games of each other and only 3 playoff spots available to the AL East. Plus the Rays aren't one if those 10 right now. Every game matters, a lot. 1 game might decide the division and 2 games might decide the wild card.

Learning on the job is great, as long as everyone is clear of the stakes.

 
So what you're saying is that you're pissed off because in mid May Boston isn't blowing away the rest of the AL and on the brink of wrapping up a playoff spot.  We get it.  Can we move on now?

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

Part of the "chicken little shit" is that there are 10 teams within 2 games of each other and only 3 playoff spots available to the AL East. Plus the Rays aren't one if those 10 right now. Every game matters, a lot. 1 game might decide the division and 2 games might decide the wild card.

Learning on the job is great, as long as everyone is clear of the stakes.

 
Every team, every year, is susceptible to having one out, or run, or win make the difference between advancing and not advancing.  A team doesn't let a guy "learn on the job" for charity.  It does so because it thinks that it will ultimately cause more wins than not doing it.  One can agree or not with that proposition, but inflating or decreasing the meaning of stats based on perceptions of how tight the league may or may not be isn't the answer.  Should we pay a 5.0 WAR player less if his team won the division by 6 games than if it won by 1?

 

[metaprosthesis]

 
I don't know how much we want to repeat the UZR discussion, but the point is that UZR is not directly comparing the shortstops to one another with a consistent ruler, because each shortstop sees different opportunities.  So it's more like, picking up two different sticks in two different places to measure the pumpkins.  Over the course of a large enough sample, the size of the sticks evens out, and we have a pretty good idea.  Over a small sample, one pumpkin patch may be getting screwed by the observer consistently picking up a bigger stick to measure with.

 
Alright, that makes sense.  Thanks.  I guess the trick to getting useful defensive information is to develop a consistent annotation scheme, which appears to be a tall task.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

I'm pretty sure that we, and the FO, are all pretty clear on what the stakes are here. Some of us are fine with watching players grow into their positions and others aren't. 
 
This is a really good discussion on UZR and other defensive metrics and I want to give props to the people in here taking the time to explain things in a way that is very helpful to everyone.
 
I know some people here are very aware, but every year Tom Tango crowd sources a scouting report on defense. Here is a link to the 2013 Sox. There is not a scouting report on XB. I was thinking that it could be a good idea to do something like this on XB going forward if people want to commit to it. We can see how good we really are when the regular report comes out after the season. 

 

[judyb]

Part of the "chicken little shit" is that there are 10 teams within 2 games of each other and only 3 playoff spots available to the AL East. Plus the Rays aren't one if those 10 right now. Every game matters, a lot. 1 game might decide the division and 2 games might decide the wild card.

Learning on the job is great, as long as everyone is clear of the stakes.

Why would you worry about the Rays when they're always letting young players learn on the job?

 

[Jnai]

 
Alright, that makes sense.  Thanks.  I guess the trick to getting useful defensive information is to develop a consistent annotation scheme, which appears to be a tall task.

 
Not really. The issue is that it takes time for measurements to stabilize because different players actually get a different sample of batted balls and because the skill is inherently noisy (it involves a lot of moving parts). I think, generally, that people do tend to overstate the instability of UZR on this board - even something like batting average takes ~900 PA to stabilize. (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17659).

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

 
Alright, that makes sense.  Thanks.  I guess the trick to getting useful defensive information is to develop a consistent annotation scheme, which appears to be a tall task.

 
It's just not possible for humans to quantify it that precisely with the naked eye, especially given the limited TV angles available. The new "every player, every play" tracking system that MLB is developing is going to be the thing that will finally, once and for all, quantify defensive ability. We will have precise data on how far each shortstop had to go to get to a ball hit at X speed. Which means we'll be able to estimate how well positioned players are (player mean distance from ball in zone vs. league mean), their range, speed, footwork...
 
All of the available data that we have - as unreliable as it is - suggests that Bogaerts hasn't been great, but there's very little chance that it's cost the team more than a fraction of a game. That's from the conversations here, from sources and anonymous scouts/coaches, and from the available defensive metrics. It's amazing how much argument there's been over something about which there's actually very little disagreement. 
 
I think what's in the back of most peoples' minds are the mind-boggling results from pitch framing studies. For a half century, the universal consensus was that pitch framing was a nice skill, but maybe, at the extremes, saved or cost a half game per season. We could all see the extreme plays - catchers pulling in clear balls, or dropping obvious strikes, but nobody had taken the time to quantify it. Then we get PITCHF/x data, and the available evidence suggests that a great framer can be ten times as valuable as people thought. Anxiety over that kind of disconnect is maybe what's underlying the conversations about Bogaerts. 

 

[mauidano]

The FO obviously believes X will grow rapidly into the position and improve with everyday play or Drew would still be here.  He's gonna make some mistakes, part of the learning curve.  Interesting to see the data going forward as mentioned up thread.  But to those who watch him everyday from afar as well as those on the payroll, he's got a ton of potential.  I'm good with him.

 

[scotian1]

I hope you are right about Xander but I fear that the rapid growth hasn't shown itself as of yet.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

Why would you worry about the Rays when they're always letting young players learn on the job?

 
It's the character he plays.

 

[EricFeczko]

All of the available data that we have - as unreliable as it is - suggests that Bogaerts hasn't been great, but there's very little chance that it's cost the team more than a fraction of a game. That's from the conversations here, from sources and anonymous scouts/coaches, and from the available defensive metrics. It's amazing how much argument there's been over something about which there's actually very little disagreement. 

Thanks for setting up the poll, Kiecker. the disagreements played a small role in the formation of the poll; the idea to generate the poll arose out of the discussion of how best to measure what Xander has done so far this season.
 

 I'm sure some of the votes are informed by UZR, so it's a bit circular. Nevertheless, estimates here appear to be more stable than UZR.

Research into crowdsourcing suggests that voting crowds who are informed by expert opinions (particular contradicting ones) provide more reliable and accurate estimates. It's controversial, but even studies that have not found this effect did not find that the estimates were poorer.
 

 
You have the wrong circularity.  People think he is below-average; that is why they picked cost 0-5 runs.  For instance, I'm sure there aren't a lot votes that said he was below average but had him saving runs on whole.

I wouldn't call it a circularity. The first question creates a priming effect where people are biased to answer the second question on the basis of the first. Still, you are right that this creates a confound. It probably would've been better to ask people to pick a number of runs that Xander has saved (with negative values being runs he has given up). I'm not sure the estimates would be less stable though, because most would probably select somewhere between 0 and -5 runs.

 
 

I think the problem with this poll is that the wisdom of crowds relies on a large crowd without bias.  Since most of the people interested in this subject are heavily invested in one side of the debate, you may not actually get the fair view you are looking for.
 
I'm also not sure why this drum needs to be beaten so loudly for a 21 year old after a month or so of play in the majors.  We need things to talk about but why is it always "this player really sucks at baseball because I'm pissed at the team right now and he made this bad play that I remember."
 
As for the magnitude of how bad he has been.  The Red Sox as a team have a .312 BABIP allowed this year and a collective FIP/xFIP of 3.43/3.66 versus their actual ERA of 3.68. This doesn't really indicate to me that the Red Sox problem this year is with fielding.  But let's compare to last year.  Last year they had a .294 BABIP allowed and 3.89/3.84 vs. 3.79.  So last year they were better than expected whereas this year they are about where you would expect.  (The FIP/xFIP difference this year is largely due to a very low 8.4% HR/FB ratio, which Xander, JBJ, and everyone else on the field have little control over).
 
At the end of the day, when comparing to average, we probably need to think about average instead of the 2013 team, who were very good at least on a cursory look.  
 
Scale is also a problem.  The Red Sox have given up 158 runs this year, in 337.2 innings.  They have 318 strikeouts, second in the league.  That means they've recorded 695 outs in other ways, while allowing 303 non-HR hits.  The idea that he's responsible for allowing 5-10 runs (or more!) doesn't make a lot of sense within these numbers.

 
A lot of good points here. You are right that crowdsourcing works with large numbers of independent votes (~2000). However, there are resampling techniques that can measure the level of bias and its effect on the central tendency. If you want, I could bootstrap the results after 100 votes, and establish confidence intervals for the bins. It's unfortunate that the selections here aren't continuous, but it doesn't really matter much for bootstrapping.

I'm not really complaining, nor do I think most non-plympton people are. Bogaerts has contributed to the team as an ML starting shortstop and I (along with many) are excited to see how he grows.The poll really stemmed out of how to think about measuring what bogaerts has done. As absinthe suggests, this type of poll could be a way of checking our own reality as the season progresses.

Regarding how to evaluate the team's defense, I completely agree with you. Our April woes had more to do with bad luck offensively (injuries, problems with RISP, baserunning blunders) than anything else.





 

 

 

[EricFeczko]

 
He's a consensus top 5 prospect because he projects to have an 850 or higher OPS who might be just good enough at SS, at least for a little while longer, to not give a lot of that offensive value back on defense, not because he's supposed to be a good defensive shortstop.  Given that there's a shortstop available who could immediately step in and provide well above average defense in addition to somwhat above average offense, and the current third baseman also has significant question marks on offense and defense, it is most certainly a legitimate discussion as to whether living with the growing pains at shortstop is worthwhile in the short-term, given that the long-term may not consist of more than a few years anyway if his body outgrows the position.

....
Do you write for the Boston Globe sports section?
 

 

[Plympton91]

 
So what you're saying is that you're pissed off because in mid May Boston isn't blowing away the rest of the AL and on the brink of wrapping up a playoff spot.  We get it.  Can we move on now?

 
I didn't start this thread.  Who's pissed?   It seems to me like the people getting pissed are the ones who want to shout down anyone who suggests that the Red Sox front office isn't perfect and that watching a completely different team every single season isn't the most enjoyable way to be a fan.
 
Also, to be clear, I expect Bogaerts will end up with an OPS well in excess of 800, and that will make the net of his offense and defensive contributions squarely positive.  But, I don't think that outcome is baked in the cake because the Red Sox bet on it, and whether it makes doing so a good decision also depends on whether Middlebrooks can pick it up and whether they make the playoffs.
 
If you're going to tell me to root for laundry, then failing to make the playoffs is a failure of a season, no matter what else happens.  Because rooting for laundry is equivalent to saying winning is the only thing that matters.

 

[JakeRae]

 
I didn't start this thread.  Who's pissed?   It seems to me like the people getting pissed are the ones who want to shout down anyone who suggests that the Red Sox front office isn't perfect and that watching a completely different team every single season isn't the most enjoyable way to be a fan.

 
So, you'd have preferred they sign Drew for the next couple years to hoping Bogaerts can fill a role for the next 6+ years in the name of lineup consistency?

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Jesus, P91. Every team in the majors changes players season to season. If that's your complaint here, then maybe baseball isn't really for you unless they bring back the reserve clause.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

 
I didn't start this thread.  Who's pissed?   It seems to me like the people getting pissed are the ones who want to shout down anyone who suggests that the Red Sox front office isn't perfect and that watching a completely different team every single season isn't the most enjoyable way to be a fan.
 
Also, to be clear, I expect Bogaerts will end up with an OPS well in excess of 800, and that will make the net of his offense and defensive contributions squarely positive.  But, I don't think that outcome is baked in the cake because the Red Sox bet on it, and whether it makes doing so a good decision also depends on whether Middlebrooks can pick it up and whether they make the playoffs.
 
If you're going to tell me to root for laundry, then failing to make the playoffs is a failure of a season, no matter what else happens.  Because rooting for laundry is equivalent to saying winning is the only thing that matters.

 
Although even if they missed the playoffs this year, wouldn't it be really cool if they manage to win one or even more than one with JBJ as starting CF, WMB as starting 3B, and XB as starting SS?  Oh and Daniel Nava as 4th OF, elder stateman?

 

[glennhoffmania]

Honest question.  If breaking in young players when the games count isn't acceptable, how are you supposed to break in young players?  Or is the better answer that you wait until other teams' young players hit FA and then sign them all?
 
The point is, unless you want to be like the Yankees and have every starter over 30 and making 8 figure salaries (which presumably Boston cannot do) then at some point you need to find cost-controlled players to mix in with the high-paid FAs.  I'm trying to understand how they can do that without letting guys like Bogaerts and JBJ play at some point.

 

[Plympton91]

Honest question.  If breaking in young players when the games count isn't acceptable, how are you supposed to break in young players?  Or is the better answer that you wait until other teams' young players hit FA and then sign them all?
 
The point is, unless you want to be like the Yankees and have every starter over 30 and making 8 figure salaries (which presumably Boston cannot do) then at some point you need to find cost-controlled players to mix in with the high-paid FAs.  I'm trying to understand how they can do that without letting guys like Bogaerts and JBJ play at some point.

 
Ideally, you'd break them in at positions of need, not at positions that can be covered by borderline all-stars for nothing but money; or break them in at positions that have well qualified backups.
 
Dustin Pedroia was broken in perfectly with Cora as a safety net; Jacoby Ellsbury was broken in perfectly as a 4th outfielder; Kevin Youkilis was broken in perfectly gaining playing time at 1B and 3B behind Mueller and Millar; Jarrod Saltalamacchia was broken in perfectly as he nudged Varitek into a backup role and retirement.  

 

[glennhoffmania]

Ok, they offered Drew $14m to play this year.  He turned it down.  Presumably he wants a multi-year deal.  They were happy to "break in" Bogaerts with Drew around this year but unfortunately it's not up to them.  So unless you're going to say they should give him a three year deal I don't know what your issue is with the Drew situation.
 
Edit: responding to P91, and what Rudy said.

 

[teddywingman]

I hate to derail this conversation any further with Drew talk, but I'm starting to wonder--this far along--how much money would Drew accept to get back on the field for the rest of the 2014 season. Maybe this has been discussed already in The Famous Drew Thread, but that's on page 2.
 
And before you grab your pitchforks--I'm not suggesting a panic button move that derails the Bogaerts/Middlebrooks project. But think about how much better this team would be with Drew in the mix. Against tough RHP you could slide Bogaerts over to third (unless Middlebrooks catches fire), and have a platoon at SS.
 
Ideally, all 3 of them would play about 2 out of every 3 games down the stretch. Better team.