A Saber-Slanted Baseball Community

Tango requests your input for the 2010 Fans Scouting Report. Especially fans of the following teams: Arizona Diamondbacks Cleveland Indians Florida Marlins Houston Astros Washington Nationals

Ed Valentine (sweet name, whether it's real or not) takes a look at the improved Yankee fielding this year through the lens of advanced fielding metrics. It's a good read, and something I'm glad is appearing more often around the web. I really enjoyed the conclusion the article, too, which was refreshingly non-hyperbolized: "Despite their errorless streak, the Yankees are not a 'great' defensive team. What they are is a 'solid' defensive team, which is a huge improvement over the awful defensive team they were in 2008. Last season the Yankees cost themselves runs -- and ultimately games -- by not being able to make routine plays. This year, they are making the plays they should make and occasionally making a brilliant play. They may not be the best defensive team in the league. They are, however, helping themselves instead of hurting themselves. That's good enough."

Chris Dial uses his Defensive Runs Saved statistic (based on Zone Rating) to determine what a replacement level defender is. In general, it's about the same level as offensive replacement is (85% of average). Most of those he found as replacement level defenders are above average hitters (unsurprisingly), so they're still above replacement level in general.