Graph of the Day: Andre Dawson's Career Defensive Value

by Sky Kalkman on Mar 24, 2009 11:00 AM EDT

Andre Dawson had two parts to his career. He started as a very good defender and then became a liability. Not only do his fielding ratings relative to position decrease over his career, but he was moved from center to a corner spot in 1994, bringing his overall defensive value down in two ways.

In case it's not clear, yellow is his overall defensive value, red is his TotalZone (plus arm) rating relative to the position he played, and blue is the position adjustment (higher means more difficult).

WAR data from Sean's historical WAR database. It's awesome. Each players' seasons sorted from best to worst, left to right.

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defense AND andre dawson.

gotta open strong.

by larry on Mar 24, 2009 11:25 AM EDT reply actions

Couple points

A. part of the reason he broke down blah blah blah knees blah blah blah turf blah blah blah
B. how is his positional adjustment never positive?

Are you comparing him to the average CenterFielder? Because it doesn’t say that you are. Also, does the “average” CF only play CF? I would think he would spend some time in the corners or on the bench for rest . . ?

"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" -- Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

by jessef on Mar 25, 2009 11:38 PM EDT reply actions

Yes and good question.

I’m not sure exactly what position adjustments Rally is using, actually. Probably what he outlined over at Fangraphs a while ago. Dawson played only CF from ‘78 through ’83 and his PosAdj changed from -2 to 0 (rounded) at 1980. That matches his Fangraphs work exactly, so that’s what he’s using, with 75% confidence.

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

by Sky Kalkman on Mar 26, 2009 12:20 AM EDT up reply actions

I put that post into graph form here:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/1/27/737974/position-adjustments-acros

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

by Sky Kalkman on Mar 26, 2009 12:40 AM EDT up reply actions

thanks for responding, Sky

Interesting . . . I guess that means Robin Yount’s defensive value took a big hit when he moved to centre from short?

"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" -- Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

by jessef on Mar 26, 2009 8:28 AM EDT up reply actions

A qualified yes.

Shortstop has always (well, since the 50s for sure) been the toughest non catcher position. So switching to another position will hurt Young or another ex-SS in the PosAdj department. But the adjustments are based on how players typically rate when they play multiple positions, so you’d expect a player with a typical skillset to gain the same number of runs relative to position that they lose from the adjustment. That’s no longer true when a player has skills that can be leveraged by one position more than another, or is so bad or so good that the number of opportunities to showcase his (lack of) skills becomes a significant factor. Yount was moved to CF because they thought it was a better fit, right? So maybe he lost 7.5 runs to the PosAdj, but gained 10 relative to position (going from -10 at SS to 0 in CF?) Just making up those last numbers.

Actually, we can look up Yount’s TZ numbers. Uh, interesting stuff. I’ll graph it for today’s GotD. Summary: looks like a really dumb position switch.

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

by Sky Kalkman on Mar 26, 2009 9:16 AM EDT up reply actions