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Fun With Justin's Stats

As of September 5th, here are the best fielding teams in the league according to an average of STATS and BIS zone rating runs:

Team Def
OAK 46
TOR 40
STL 39
PHI 38
HOU 37
MIL 25
CHN 22
ATL 21
TB 20
SD 19
CLE 16
LAA 15
NYN 15
LAN 14
WAS -2
DET -5
COL -6
SF -7
SEA -7
CIN -11
PIT -15
CHA -21
BOS -24
ARI -25
BAL -35
TEX -35
FLA -36
MIN -41
NYA -53
KC -57

Anyone still wondering why the Yankees were so disappointing this year?  Or why Rangers' pitchers always seem to struggle?  That the Twins were so poor on defense makes their young rotation that much more impressive.  Milwaukee went from a bad fielding team to a good one in just one year.  You can credit moving Ryan Braun from 3B (-25 runs last year) to LF (+8 runs this year) for a lot of that improvement.  Ten of the top fifteen fielding teams are in the National League.

Star-divide

Here's a comparison of offensive runs above replacement, compared to average.  Sure, you could just order the teams by run scored, but that doesn't adjust for league or outs used:

Team Off
BOS 103
TEX 79
DET 77
STL 71
CHN 69
BAL 59
TB 52
NYA 51
NYN 45
CHA 39
CLE 34
MIL 30
FLA 15
ATL 14
PHI 9
MIN 2
LAA -19
COL -22
HOU -23
PIT -29
LAN -32
TOR -37
SEA -45
CIN -47
SD -56
ARI -59
KC -87
WAS -89
OAK -100
SF -102

I'm not sure anyone's shocked to see Boston and Texas near the top or San Francisco and Oakland at the bottom (it must be tough to be a fan of offense in the Bay Area these days).  The Rays are surprisingly high and the Angels surprisingly low.  And it will be a really impressive feat for the Diamondbacks to make the playoffs with a bottom five lineup

Lastly, at least on the team level, here are the teams with the best position players, offense and defense combined:

Team Total
STL 109
CHN 91
BOS 79
DET 73
TB 71
NYN 60
MIL 55
CLE 50
PHI 47
TEX 43
ATL 35
BAL 23
CHA 18
HOU 14
TOR 3
NYA -2
LAA -5
LAN -18
FLA -20
COL -28
SD -37
MIN -39
PIT -44
SEA -52
OAK -54
CIN -58
ARI -84
WAS -91
SF -109
KC -144

Wow, the Royals really just need to start over -- Tony Pena, Ross Gload, Jose Guillen, Mark Teahen, and Esteban German are a combined 53 runs worse than replacement level, and there are only five position players who accumulated more than one run above replacement level.

Going into 2008 the Cardinals' pitching staff was a big question mark, and they ended up letting the team down.  They had the best set of position players in the majors and still couldn't catch the Cubs or Brewers, who to be fair, were also both among the top eight teams.

How about the best and worst individual fielders at each position?

Pos Best Runs Worst Runs
CA Kendall 12 Salty/Doumit -7
1B Teixeira 17 Jacobs -16
2B Utley/Ellis 17 Ramirez/Durham -12
SS Escobar 11 Harris -11
3B Beltre 22 Cantu -17
LR Guierrez 19 Abreu -25
CF Gomez/Beltra 13 McLouth -16

No, that Abreu number is not a typo.  The team on the left is about 250 runs better than the team on the right, just considering fielding alone.

And finally, here are the top 20 best and worst defensive players (fielding at position plus a position adjustment):

Player Def
Adrian Beltre 23
Jason Kendall 20
Chase Utley 18
Mark Ellis 18
Marco Scutaro 18
Scott Rolen 17
Carlos Beltran 17
Franklin R Gutierrez 16
Carlos A Gomez 16
Yunel Escobar 16
Kurt K Suzuki 15
Willie Harris 14
Grady Sizemore 14
Jose Molina 14
Joe Mauer 13
Adam Kennedy 13
Cesar Izturis 13
Placido Polanco 13
Omar Vizquel 12
Brian Giles 12

 

Player Def
Bobby Abreu -29
Brad B Hawpe -24
Jason Bay -23
Mike Jacobs -21
Delmon D Young -21
Raul Ibanez -18
Jorge L Cantu -18
Manny Ramirez -17
Justin Morneau -17
Prince Fielder -17
Jason J Kubel -16
Richie Sexson -15
Jose Guillen -15
Casey Blake -15
Jason Giambi -15
Milton Bradley -14
Edwin Encarnacion -14
Alex J Gordon -14
Ross Gload -14
Aubrey Huff -14

It's shocking how low Justin Morneau rates defensively this year.  Certainly some of it could weirdness in the batted ball distribution.

All stats courtesy of Justin.  I merely copied, pasted, pivot-tabled, and commented.

0 recs  |  Comment 7 comments

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So does all that defensive prowess...

… along with Kendall’s rep for calling a good game and working well with hitters, make up for his crap-tastic .671 OPS? I think it does, but I know you’ve made bold claims about things like wanting Big Papi’s bat so badly that you’d start him at first in Interleague games. Thoughts?

by WD to Evers to Chance on Sep 9, 2008 9:44 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

stats at THT

You get the same team fielding stats by using the source info at THT. It might be nice to give us some credit for purchasing the stats and making them available to the public.

by studes on Sep 9, 2008 11:33 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

THT is a fantastic website and resource, everyone should support them.

Studes, to be fair, I credit and link to THT all the time. And these numbers are an average of the BIS zone ratings (available at THT) and STATS zone ratings (available at CNNSI and ESPN, which of course, are not nearly as cool as THT.)

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 9, 2008 2:40 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Credit

I do include a thanks to THT on every post I make regarding these data. It is appreciated, studes.

All I do is apply some well-established methods to synthesize these data in a way that is not currently available elsewhere….at least, not in the same form.

As Sky said, these specific fielding stats are averages of translations of THT’s data and ESPN’s (stats inc) data. -j

by JinAZ on Sep 10, 2008 9:21 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

MBradley

How could accumulate such a large negative, he rarely plays the field?

by JTodd on Sep 9, 2008 2:44 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

i listed defensive value, which includes both a position adjustment and fielding your position

Bradley has a -10 run adjustment for his time at DH (and some right field) and has accumulated -4 runs while playing the field.

the point that defense = position + fielding is important in those last two tables.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 9, 2008 4:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

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