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Getting Past Defense

Blog Post by: John Bonnes
September 16, 2010 - 7:49 AM

When you’ve studied baseball stats for a while, you become sensitive to the trends. One popular trend lately has been the rise of defensive statistics, mostly because it’s exciting to objectively measure something that nebulous. And with excitement almost always comes a little over enthusiasm.

In the case of defense, it’s been especially fun to watch because of the changing roles it’s forced on rival tribes. In the 90s, when the sabrmetricians were pounding their chest about the importance of their offensive metrics … that’s “offensive” with the stress on the first syllable, though I suspect some traditionalists would say it was the second. Anyway, when they were pounding their chest about the importance of their offensive metrics, the traditionalists loved to talk about the importance of defense. But now it’s the sabrmetricians that can’t talk enough about its importance.

That goes for Twins Territory, too. The constant refrain about the Twins and their “little things” has created a natural backlash about whether the Twins really are good at defense. The truth is that they are pretty good this year, mostly because of some changes in the middle infield. So the focus has drifted to the outfield, particularly the outfield corners where the Twins had three poor fielders statistically.

But, of course, if you’re going to have poor fielders, isn’t that where you would want them? And those three players, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Delmon Young, have also formed a productive middle-of-the-order for the Twins this year. Shouldn’t that count for something?

And so, the question arises – just how important is defense in the outfield corners?

Left Field

Certainly the most criticized fielder has been Delmon Young, and justifiably so. His Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) (as stated by FanGraphs.com) says he has cost the Twins about 10 runs this year with his defense. (I suspect half of them came in the series versus the Rays, but I digress.) But how much has that hurt his overall season?

Not much, it turns out, but you’ll need to stick with me through a quick history lesson.

One of the first real breakthrough sabrmetric offensive stats was Runs Created by Bill James. Basically James took a look at a team’s hits and walks and was able to estimate the total number of runs they scored for a season, and it was spooky how close he could get. He called the formula Runs Created, tinkered with it several times, and it served as the basis for most of the offensive metrics that followed.

If you would like to learn a little more about Runs Createdt (it’s easy and kinda fun, I promise), click here.

The neat thing about Runs Created is that you can apply it to players, too, not just teams. In Young’s case, he has created about 77 runs with his offense. Giving back 10 of those with his glove drops him from the 5^th most productive left fielder this year in the majors to 8^th. Here, in case you’re interested, is the rest of the list.

PLAYER	TEAM	RC	UZR	Total
Josh Hamilton	TEX	123	6	129
Carl Crawford	TB	98	30.3	128
Matt Holliday	STL	104	7.7	112
Brett Gardner	NYY	74	16.9	90.9
Ryan Braun	MIL	97.2	-10.5	86.7
Juan Pierre	CHW	70.5	9.1	79.6
Alfonso Soriano	CHC	68.5	8.6	77.1
Delmon Young	MIN	76.6	-9.9	66.7
Josh Willingham	WSH	70.5	-4.3	66.2
Scott Podsednik	KC/LAD	72.1	-6.1	66
Raul Ibanez	PHI	73.4	-9.9	63.5
David Murphy	TEX	60.7	2	62.7
Jose Tabata	PIT	48.4	9.4	57.8
Pat Burrell	SF/TB	54	2.2	56.2
Tyler Colvin	CHC	54	1.5	55.5
Fred Lewis	TOR	58.4	-6.1	52.3
Seth Smith	COL	50.8	1	51.8
Jason Bay	NYM	52	-1.8	50.2
Jonny Gomes	CIN	64.7	-14.7	50
Austin Kearns	CLE/NYY	51.9	-3.7	48.2
Lastings Milledge	PIT	47.2	0.9	48.1
Melky Cabrera	ATL	51.1	-3.6	47.5
Chris Coghlan	FLA	48.6	-1.3	47.3
Gerardo Parra	ARI	33.7	11.7	45.4
Carlos Lee	HOU	59.4	-14	45.4
Ryan Raburn	DET	45.2	-1	44.2
Juan Rivera	LAA	43.3	-3.4	39.9
Corey Patterson	BAL	40.2	-2.1	38.1
Eric Hinske	ATL	41.7	-3.7	38
Travis Snider	TOR	29.4	3.7	33.1
Logan Morrison	FLA	35.4	-3.6	31.8
Shelley Duncan	CLE	26.6	3.9	30.5
Scott Hairston	SD	33.2	-3.5	29.7
Laynce Nix	CIN	23.7	5.3	29
Felix Pie	BAL	30	-2.3	27.7
Milton Bradley	SEA	26.9	0.3	27.2
Conor Jackson	OAK/ARI	25	1.4	26.4
Michael Saunders	SEA	28.3	-2	26.3
Chris Heisey	CIN	24.2	1.8	26
Matt Diaz	ATL	26.1	-0.5	25.6

Three guys pass him when you include defense, and they are Brett Gardner, Juan Pierre and Alfonso Soriano, all guys know for their speed. And Young finds himself far away from the elite names on the list, Josh Hamilton and Carl Crawford. But overall, his defensive shortcomings haven’t hurt his production much. It looks like there are 20+ other teams that would be more than happy to take him off the Twins hands, defense or no.

Right Field

Ranked at the same level as Young are Michael Cuddyer (-8.3) and Jason Kubel (-9.4). And now a quick interjection by the Geek Chorus…

Geek Chorus: Can you say ludicrous? Those values are ludicrous. I know these stats are freely available, and so I’m loathe criticizing anything that someone is providing free. But there is an error in that computation and that stuff needs to be driven out an tested before it is published.

A couple of weeks ago Kubel was at -5, and now he’s at -9.4? He’s worse than Delmon? Worse than Bobby Abreu? Can Abreu even get around without a walker out there anymore? Did he upgrade to a motorized scooter? Is that how he’s passed those guys?

I don’t know what’s wrong, but something is wrong. Perhaps the adjustment for Target Field’s short right wall wasn’t made yet. Perhaps it is some other error. These values jump around quite a bit and adjustments are sometimes applied later. Two months from now we’re going to find a fix has been made. At some point, I’m afraid these problems are going to make these numbers lose credibility, and that would be a shame.

I agree that those values for Cuddyer and Kubel are likely a few runs too low, but let’s use them as they are. How much do they diminish the impact that Cuddyer and Kubel have had?

Cuddyer has created 71 runs and Kubel 65.4 with their bats, which rank them 15^th and 18^th respectively. When you subtract their defense, they slide to 18^th and 23^rd overall. I’ll put the results below, but there is, to me at least, a more telling result.

PLAYER	TEAM	RC	UZR	Total
Jose Bautista	TOR	117	-4	112.7
Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	92.7	9.8	102.5
Jayson Werth	PHI	98.8	-0.8	98
Shin-Soo Choo	CLE	88.6	7.7	96.3
Jason Heyward	ATL	89.4	0.9	90.3
Jay Bruce	CIN	74.7	14	88.7
Nick Swisher	NYY	91.1	-3.3	87.8
Hunter Pence	HOU	84.6	-0.2	84.4
Nick Markakis	BAL	87.4	-3.8	83.6
Justin Upton	ARI	75.4	7.8	83.2
Ben Zobrist	TB	72.1	5.1	77.2
Nelson Cruz	TEX	67.6	8.3	75.9
Corey Hart	MIL	82.8	-7.7	75.1
J.D. Drew	BOS	67.9	6.9	74.8
Bobby Abreu	LAA	78.8	-5.7	73.1
Andre Ethier	LAD	79.8	-11	68.8
Ryan Ludwick	STL/SD	60.9	3	63.9
Michael Cuddyer	MIN	71	-8.3	62.7
Jose Guillen	KC/SF	61.3	-1.5	59.8
David DeJesus	KC	57.7	1.6	59.3
Brennan Boesch	DET	61.3	-4.5	56.8
Magglio Ordonez	DET	54.7	1.6	56.3
Jason Kubel	MIN	65.4	-9.4	56
Will Venable	SD	47.5	6	53.5
Kosuke Fukudome	CHC	57.1	-3.8	53.3
Mike Stanton	FLA	47.6	2.2	49.8
Jeff Francoeur	TEX/NYM	47	2.5	49.5
Carlos Quentin	CHW	63.9	-18	45.9
Roger Bernadina	WSH	49.4	-3.9	45.5
Andruw Jones	CHW	41.5	3.1	44.6
Ryan Spilborghs	COL	49	-5.4	43.6
Matt Joyce	TB	31	5.6	36.6
Ryan Sweeney	OAK	36.6	-0.4	36.2
Jon Jay	STL	38.3	-3.7	34.6
Nate Schierholtz	SF	26.2	7.3	33.5
Michael Morse	WSH	34.3	-6.1	28.2
Joe Inglett	MIL	18.1	2.1	20.2
Randy Winn	NYY/STL	23.8	-4.1	19.7
Delwyn Young	PIT	21.3	-2.1	19.2
Willie Bloomquist	KC	18.3	-3	15.3
Ryan Church	PIT/ARI	17.7	-2.5	15.2

If you sort that list another way – by the best offensive production, you get an interesting result. I’ll show you:

RK	PLAYER	TEAM	RC	UZR	Total
1	Jose Bautista	TOR	117	-4	112.7
2	Jayson Werth	PHI	98.8	-0.8	98
3	Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	92.7	9.8	102.5
4	Nick Swisher	NYY	91.1	-3.3	87.8
5	Jason Heyward	ATL	89.4	0.9	90.3
6	Shin-Soo Choo	CLE	88.6	7.7	96.3
7	Nick Markakis	BAL	87.4	-3.8	83.6
8	Hunter Pence	HOU	84.6	-0.2	84.4
9	Corey Hart	MIL	82.8	-7.7	75.1
10	Andre Ethier	LAD	79.8	-11	68.8
11	Bobby Abreu	LAA	78.8	-5.7	73.1

Now look at the defensive values in that chart. Of those top 10, only two provide a truly positive defensive glove. Three more are neutral. The other five all rank somewhere between not good and ugly. It suggests what we already really know – if you can hit in right field, you can play. In fact, the defensive specialists are clustered towards the bottom. Defense is what you put in right field if you can't find a guy who hits.

The defense is icing on the cake if you can bring it. And in the case of Cuddyer and Kubel (and plenty of others on the list) it doesn’t hurt your overall production much if you aren’t playing defense well.

Conclusion

The new defensive metrics helps considerably in standardizing an area that couldn’t be objectively measured before. They also help in popping some over-the-top statements by local announcers who over value their own team’s defensive prowess. But for some positions, particularly corner outfielders, defensive ability has been an afterthought, both traditionally and statistically.

And it looks like that is appropriate.