fielding Stories - Beyond the Box Score
What's Up With...? Arizona's Defense
"If we're going to preach pounding the strike zone to our pitching staff, we need to have a defense behind it that can catch the baseball. I don't want to just get better... I want to blow that number out of the clubhouse. Making plays was difficult for us at times, and it cost us games." --...
Ozzie Guillen: Ramirez Not As Good As Me
The Game That Wouldn't End might have finished a lot sooner if Alexei Ramirez hadn't pulled Paul Konerko well off the bag with another one of his lackadaisical lollipop throws to first base. Ramirez clearly has a strong enough arm to play shortstop in the major leagues, but he's shown a reluctance...
Graph of the Day: The 2008 Rangers Outfield
The Texas Rangers are in first place, and a lot of credit has been given to their improved defense. Today's Graph of the Day looks at last season's outfield defense using David Pinto's Probabalistic Model of Range (PMR), which gauges the probability of each play being turned into an out by an...
How Age Affects Infield Defense Using UZR Component Skills
In a previous article I looked at how the individual UZR components (Arm, Range, Errors) change as outfielders age. I have extended that study to include infield defense. I looked at players who played the same infield position two years in a row and compared their UZR components, Range, Double...
Graph of the Day: The Yankees Outfield
Trying something new here on GotD. In the past week the Yankees have announced their starting outfield for 2009 - choosing Brett Gardner and Xavier Nady over Melky Cabrera and Nick Swish respectively. Here's how the current starters stacked up defensively in 2008 by vector. All vectors extend...
I Won't Resign Before This Struggle Ends; So I'll Construct This Sound Defense: An Advance Look at the Jays Defense in 2009
Not too long ago, we took a look at the Jays' pitchers for 2009, using tRA and tRA+. Now let's look at a related factor in preventing runs, defense. Defense in baseball is a fascinating thing - while it is clearly very important in determining a players' value and for a team in preventing runs,...
An All-Hit, No-Field, Off-Season Experiment
This off-season there are a plethra of all-hit, no-field free agents available. Off the top of my head, I count: Manny Ramirez Pat Burrell Adam Dunn Jason Giambi Bobby Abreu Frank Thomas Milton Bradley Raul Ibanez Barry Bonds (ok, kidding) With more and more teams recognizing that...
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