2008 LF Defense By PMR

by Dan Turkenkopf on Nov 17, 2008 8:00 AM EST in Stat-Colored Glasses Comment 8 comments

Each season, David Pinto releases his Probablistic Measure of Range (PMR) ratings based on play-by-play data from Baseball Info Solutions. PMR measures how many plays above or below expected each team or player made based on batted ball characteristics like velocity and location. Here at Beyond the Box Score, we're translating the play numbers into runs (following a method developed by LA Black Hawk of Waterloo). More information can be found in this post.

Today, we look at left fielders - first on the team level and then for individuals.

Team	In Play	Actual Outs	Predicted Outs	Outs Delta	Runs Delta	Runs / 4000	RAA / 4000
Royals	4413	368	353.21	14.79	12.296406	11.15	10.77
Rays	4264	344	331.81	12.19	10.134766	9.51	9.13
Indians	4513	302	290.89	11.11	9.236854	8.19	7.81
Nationals	4417	350	339.72	10.28	8.546792	7.74	7.36
Mets	4335	308	299.09	8.91	7.407774	6.84	6.46
Diamondbacks	4224	306	298.79	7.21	5.994394	5.68	5.3
Orioles	4540	362	355.59	6.41	5.329274	4.7	4.32
Brewers	4354	305	299.07	5.93	4.930202	4.53	4.15
Braves	4383	279	273.49	5.51	4.581014	4.18	3.8
Rangers	4667	323	317.21	5.79	4.813806	4.13	3.75
White Sox	4409	293	287.74	5.26	4.373164	3.97	3.59
Athletics	4285	333	328.28	4.72	3.924208	3.66	3.28
Padres	4419	310	306.42	3.58	2.976412	2.69	2.31
Astros	4292	282	278.71	3.29	2.735306	2.55	2.17
Cardinals	4597	312	308.84	3.16	2.627224	2.29	1.91
Red Sox	4232	292	291.37	0.63	0.523782	0.5	0.12
Dodgers	4265	286	285.62	0.38	0.315932	0.3	-0.08
Tigers	4536	356	355.77	0.23	0.191222	0.17	-0.21
Giants	4232	308	308.26	-0.26	-0.216164	-0.2	-0.58
Yankees	4349	316	316.76	-0.76	-0.631864	-0.58	-0.96
Angels	4374	285	286.29	-1.29	-1.072506	-0.98	-1.36
Cubs	4156	302	304.23	-2.23	-1.854022	-1.78	-2.16
Blue Jays	4215	270	272.75	-2.75	-2.28635	-2.17	-2.55
Pirates	4683	293	299.34	-6.34	-5.271076	-4.5	-4.88
Reds	4299	280	288.41	-8.41	-6.992074	-6.51	-6.89
Rockies	4535	282	290.95	-8.95	-7.44103	-6.56	-6.94
Marlins	4338	289	299.06	-10.06	-8.363884	-7.71	-8.09
Mariners	4512	324	336.18	-12.18	-10.126452	-8.98	-9.36
Phillies	4396	260	279.09	-19.09	-15.871426	-14.44	-14.82
Twins	4607	306	327.83	-21.83	-18.149462	-15.76	-16.14

Team	In Play	Actual Outs	Predicted Outs	Outs Delta	Runs Delta	Runs / 4000	RAA / 4000
Skip Schumaker	1085	85	73.79	11.21	9.319994	34.36	33.98
David DeJesus	1522	136	121.91	14.09	11.714426	30.79	30.41
Matt Joyce	1249	94	84.77	9.23	7.673822	24.58	24.2
Brandon Boggs	1818	131	118.1	12.9	10.72506	23.6	23.22
Ben Francisco	2021	150	138.34	11.66	9.694124	19.19	18.81
Willie Harris	1685	145	135.55	9.45	7.85673	18.65	18.27
Carl Crawford	2715	231	217.97	13.03	10.833142	15.96	15.58
Juan Pierre	1816	125	116.83	8.17	6.792538	14.96	14.58
Jay Payton	1293	132	126.31	5.69	4.730666	14.63	14.25
Conor Jackson	1944	146	139.06	6.94	5.769916	11.87	11.49
Gregor Blanco	1547	86	82.08	3.92	3.259088	8.43	8.05
Johnny Damon	1998	155	152	3	2.4942	4.99	4.61
Luke Scott	2668	200	196.08	3.92	3.259088	4.89	4.51
Wily Mo Pena	1260	99	97.68	1.32	1.097448	3.48	3.1
Ryan Braun	3919	275	270.93	4.07	3.383798	3.45	3.07
Carlos Lee	2840	187	185.42	1.58	1.313612	1.85	1.47
Adam Dunn	2942	210	209.06	0.94	0.781516	1.06	0.68
David Dellucci	1164	75	74.64	0.36	0.299304	1.03	0.65
Alfonso Soriano	2653	186	185.23	0.77	0.640178	0.97	0.59
Fred Lewis	2622	178	177.57	0.43	0.357502	0.55	0.17
Carlos Quentin	3465	228	228.42	-0.42	-0.349188	-0.4	-0.78
Jack Cust	1753	129	129.74	-0.74	-0.615236	-1.4	-1.78
Emil Brown	1229	89	89.7	-0.7	-0.58198	-1.89	-2.27
Chase Headley	2159	156	157.62	-1.62	-1.346868	-2.5	-2.88
Matt Holliday	3850	240	243.2	-3.2	-2.66048	-2.76	-3.14
Manny Ramirez	2894	190	193.4	-3.4	-2.82676	-3.91	-4.29
Adam Lind	1712	113	115.52	-2.52	-2.095128	-4.9	-5.28
Xavier Nady	1212	87	89.04	-2.04	-1.696056	-5.6	-5.98
Chris Duncan	1012	73	74.8	-1.8	-1.49652	-5.92	-6.3
Garret Anderson	2113	144	148.53	-4.53	-3.766242	-7.13	-7.51
Raul Ibanez	4203	303	312.07	-9.07	-7.540798	-7.18	-7.56
Jose Guillen	1098	83	85.62	-2.62	-2.178268	-7.94	-8.32
David Murphy	1317	86	89.62	-3.62	-3.009668	-9.14	-9.52
Luis Gonzalez	1547	105	109.32	-4.32	-3.591648	-9.29	-9.67
Josh Willingham	2551	166	173.8	-7.8	-6.48492	-10.17	-10.55
Jason Bay	4215	254	268.19	-14.19	-11.797566	-11.2	-11.58
Eric Byrnes	1209	76	80.12	-4.12	-3.425368	-11.33	-11.71
Delmon Young	4209	282	301.19	-19.19	-15.954566	-15.16	-15.54
Marcus Thames	1537	120	127.42	-7.42	-6.168988	-16.05	-16.43
Pat Burrell	3646	202	223.39	-21.39	-17.783646	-19.51	-19.89

Two of the worst center fielders, Skip Schumaker and David DeJesus show up as the best left fielders. There aren't a whole lot of full-time left fielders, as the highest rated player with more than 3000 BIP is Ryan Braun at number 15. Big improvement for the Brew Crew in moving him from 3B.

The 16th and 17th rated left fielders are a surprise as well. Neither Carlos Lee or Adam Dunn are thought of as good fielders, yet they both scored between 3 and 4 runs above average. If this number is correct for Dunn, and he can maintain this level of fielding ability for another few years, he could be quite a steal this offseason. The other major non-Manny free agent from the left field crop, Pat Burrell, probably should be looking for an AL team to DH for, since he was by far the worst left fielder this season.

Extremely surprising is the relative placement of Manny Ramirez and Jason Bay. Manny has always been considered a pretty terrible outfielder by the play-by-play metrics. While many of those have had problems dealing with Fenway, even his road numbers were nothing to write home about. Jason Bay, at least to my memory, has been a pretty good fielder - even getting some games in CF (although the last of those was in 2005). Still, Manny finished 8 runs above Bay. I wonder how much of this is a Fenway factor, and how much of it is the conventional wisdom being wrong. Of course the Red Sox as a whole were basically average in left field, so Bay was likely pretty bad in Pittsburgh.

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Comments

Pat Burrell really, REALLY needs to DH.

I know that's a pisser, baby.

by Blicks on Nov 17, 2008 9:42 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Through most of the season, Burrell rated as average in LF by combined zone ratings...

Based on past performance, I believe PMR a bit more. Sean has him projected at -14 runs.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Nov 17, 2008 10:26 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Plus/Minus also hated him.

And That Happened: Sports with a Hint of Sarcasm

by philkid3 on Nov 22, 2008 5:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Bay never played the monster before

He’s not an awesome fielder, but he seemed uncomfortable at times at Fenway. Give him another year and he’ll have better defensive numbers than Manny.

Mother---- him and John Wayne!

by MerryGoByeBye on Nov 17, 2008 10:46 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

When people say "playing the Monster" don't they mostly mean playing the bounces off of it?

If so, that doesn’t get reflected in PMR or other measures of range. (It would show up in an arm rating.)

If, however, it means being able to make (or not make) catches up against the wall, then yes, Bay’s range rating would be affected.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Nov 17, 2008 11:09 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Making catches against the wall, adjusting to the monster distance and, yes, playing the bounces off of it

But mostly is about the dimensions, Bay seemed uncomfortable in left in first time as a Red Sox.

Mother---- him and John Wayne!

by MerryGoByeBye on Nov 17, 2008 11:24 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Pardon my ignorance...

But what does this metric say about Delmon Young (I get that it doesn’t like him, but why doesn’t it like him) and why/how is it more accurate than Range Factor/9, which puts him barely below average?

This isn’t coming from a critical POV, just wondering why this metric is so much different than what I thought – namely that Delmon wasn’t a great LF, but wasn’t a huge liability.

by KMils on Nov 17, 2008 12:59 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

PMR is based on more detailed information than is Range Factor

PMR is one of a series of fielding measures that uses play-by-play data to rate fielders.

Basically, the way PMR works is that David Pinto looks at each and every ball in play and figures out how difficult it is to convert into an out, based on things like location and how hard it was hit. Then he figures out the total number of plays a given player was expected to convert into outs. The difference between that number and the actual number indicates the fielding value for that player. I’ve simply turned that into runs here.

Range factor is simply describing the number of plays converted into outs per nine innings. It doesn’t take into account opportunities or difficulty, which means it’s a much less accurate way of looking at things. For example, if the Twins had a higher than average number of fly balls, Young could have a higher range factor than other left fielders, even if he was converting a smaller percentage into outs.

For more information on different fielding metrics, I suggest checking out the Sabermetric Wiki site on Evaluating Fielding.

by Dan Turkenkopf on Nov 17, 2008 6:27 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs