Debunk This: Raul Ibanez's Defense

by JonBBT on May 30, 2009 3:51 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

Seattle Times' Geoff Baker on Raul Ibanez's improved UZR ratings:

We all know Ibanez had trouble running in on balls. But what isn't mentioned often is that he's pretty good going back on fly balls to the wall and warning track. I had a conversation about this subject with The Fielding Bible author John Dewan, inventor of the Plus/Minus defensive stats system. Dewan told me Ibanez was a much better fielder than he got credit for. Not a Gold Glover, but far better than the guy he replaced in Philly, Pat Burrell.

The reason was Ibanez's ability to go back on balls.

Now, in Philadelphia, he's got less ground to cover in left field. So, I'll take a stab at why his UZR is so much better. I think the ballpark in Philadelphia plays to his strengths. If you know he can cover ground running back to the wall and you know there is less distance to cover in left field there compared to at Safeco Field, it makes sense that Ibanez could be cheating further up towards the infield.

By doing so, he can cut down the number of blooped hits that drop in front of him and penalize him on the UZR front. At the same time, he can still track down balls he runs back on because there is less ground to cover before he gets to the wall. And, he has the skills to make the tougher plays when he's running back

I'm not a sabr-head by any means so correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't UZR account for where the player is positioned? Bakers' explanation seems to explain why he might be putting up better numbers in the +/- system rather than UZR. Could be wrong, though-- I'm asking here because I'm not sure and I know you guys can set me straight.

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UZR, like all stats, are subject to small sample size flukes

It’s much more likely that Ibanez still sucks at defense and is playing particularly well so far this season, than his previous -15 UZR ratings were fundamentally flawed to hurt Ibanez.

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 30, 2009 4:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No, UZR knows nothing about a player's positioning.

It infers the difficulty of a batted ball from its location (not exact as field is divided up into lots of small zones), pitcher/batter handedness, ballpark, base-out state, GB/FB tendencies of pitcher, and speed (soft/medium/hard). If an outfielder decides to stand on the warning track, he’ll receive extra credit making those “tough” plays. But he’ll lose credit for not making many of the routine plays accessible by playing in a normal position. If a player were psychic and positioned himself exactly where every batted ball was going to go, he’d make every play without moving at all, and rate off the charts by UZR.

MGL, creator of UZR, has done research showing that while speed correlates to outfield defensive ability (shocker!) it doesn’t appear to be more useful in larger ballparks (like we might guess).

It’s a plausible theory about Ibanez, but not one the data or research currently supports, especially the data from two months of 2009.

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

by Sky Kalkman on May 30, 2009 5:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Interesting.

I’m not sure where I picked up that misunderstanding.. might have been reading a discussion about Chase Utley’s +/- vs. UZR, though i can’t remember for certain. Thanks for the clarification.

by JonBBT on May 30, 2009 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Phillies

As a Phillies fan, I think that the Phillies “Moneyball” is actually defensive positioning. I’ve believed that since I saw the Dewan article about Utley’s +/- and Rollins’ vast improved in the +/- system as well. The middle infielders are very well positioned, and I’m always amazed by how often groundballs go directly right at Utley. I think that the Phillies probably position their outfielders pretty well too, and Ibanez’s improvement is probably also due to being in the right place. He’s had a lot of balls hit right to him or near him this year, too.

by Matt Swartz on May 31, 2009 9:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's very interesting

Do you have any more research on that?

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 31, 2009 9:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

no, i don’t really research defense. it’s just a suspicion i have from reading the articles of people who do, and mixing it with my observation. it seems like rollins’ defense was constantly listed as among the bottom half of players in the league and then suddenly in the last two years, it shot up. i know utley was never supposed to be a superstar, but that dewan article was really eye opening. it confirmed what i had noticed— there just seems to be so many times that i see a groundball off the bat on TV and i’m used to thinking to myself “well that’s going to be a hit” but than utley is right there.

so it seems like they may be positioning themselves really well, and naturally i wonder if that’s true for outfield defense too. ibanez really doesn’t seem to move that well but he’s decent at going back on the ball and the ball seems to be hit right at him a lot. i’d love to see some research on that, but i don’t do defense research myself.

by Matt Swartz on May 31, 2009 10:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

"Losing feels worse than winning feels good." Vin Scully

by One won lost won on Jun 3, 2009 11:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

perhaps

phillies corner of is really easy to play(its quite small and look at and werth’s great numbers defensively) and burrell was so bad he couldnt be useful even there

by viktor06 on Jun 4, 2009 9:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs