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 5th most productive left fielder this year in the majors to 8th. 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 15th and 18th respectively. When you subtract their defense, they slide to 18th and 23rd 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. More from TwinsCentric - Seth focuses on last night's game and the race for home field advantage. - Nick talks about Jesse Crain's year. - Yesterday, I dissected the battle between Jesse Crain and Paul Konerko. - How would you like to watch a Twins game with TwinsCentric? Well, you can, just about every night, because we almost all tweet during games and take questions. Just follow John, Seth, Nick and Parker by clicking on these links.