Put Me In, Coach
Accounting for Defense
By: Joe Del Sole
|
Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes? Fugeddaboutit. You’re not in a pansy league, you can’t waste your time debating “’Great Player’ or ‘Greatest
Player’” (thank you, Stephen Colbert). You need to be prepared to draft a fourth starter or utility player; if you are in a serious worth-playing
league, then snoozing on these selections is going to cost you big. If you spent too much time last year asking yourself why Edwin
Encarnacion (waiting to bust out like Pamela Anderson’s twins) went for more than Scott Rolen (waiting to bust like the stock market), you need
this site and our skilled team of experts to effectively prepare your draft strategy tool kit.
No matter the experience a fantasy player brings to the table, he or she doesn’t come armed with just memories of the season past. Perhaps
the ballsiest will merely print out the 2007 statistics and develop rankings from those, but while they are waiting for Luis Gonzalez to hit another
15 home runs, you’ll have long since utilized depth charts and realized that “he-who-once-bested-his-career-high-by-26” is not slated to start,
even in the much depleted Florida lineup. Instead, with such readily depth charts available out there, you need to be cognizant of the greater
environmental effects in which your players will be placed.
Did you notice that every pitcher last year achieved identical stats to 2006? Of course not. Some got injured, some healthier. Others got better
coaching, while still others were distracted because they were dumped by their centerfold girlfriend for an accountant (how am I supposed to
know what distracts a multimillionaire athlete?). Many, however, actually did perform reasonably similarly in 2006 and 2007, but a glance at the
statistics would have you hunting out that squirrelly math-lete for dropping you out of contention.
By referencing a player’s environment we are not only comparing wet, low altitudes to dry, high altitudes. Rather, we are focusing on the
defensive support a pitcher receives by the eight players out on the field behind the pitchers. Let’s start with this comparison: Why exactly is
Dontrelle Willis (REC 10-15/ ERA 5.17/ WHIP 1.60/ 146 Ks) expected to pitch just as well as Mark Buehrle (REC 10-9/ ERA 3.63/ WHIP 1.26/
115 Ks)? Among the multitude of factors to weigh are age (D-train is young), their 3-year stats (eerily similar) and strikeouts (Willis outpaced
Buehrle: ’07, 146-115; ’06, 160-98; ’05, 170-149). All of this has to be considered along with the fact that each of these pitchers has
experienced a total environment change… Dontrelle to MoTown, Buehrle to Disneyland. Evaluating the offenses supporting these pitchers is
largely intuitive (and should be considered for win estimations – A lottery sized win for Dontrelle owners for sure), but the fielding defenses
supporting these pitchers is the x-factor we’re considering here today. Team defense statistics are so controversial and largely ignored on
baseball telecasts that few analysts could accurately quantify rankings. Until now.
We have not added a new metric to the universe, but we do think there is comfort in quantity. In order to benefit from the efforts of others, below
is a compilation of rankings taken from a variety of different sources. Utilizing MLB.com’s ‘Fielding Percentage’ and ‘DER’ statistics along with
Hardballtimes.com’s ‘RZR’ and ‘OZO’ statistics, we have ranked the 30 teams in each of the four statistics and then composited the resulting
numbers. Below are the 2007 team defense rankings (in most cases, team defense, being the sum of contributions of 9 players, is less likely
to fluctuate than individual statistics on a yearly basis):
TEAM Overall Rank TEAM Overall Rank TEAM Overall Rank
TOR 1 WAS 11 SEA 21
COL 1 ARI 12 PIT 22
NYM 3 BOS 13 CLE 23
SFG 4 STL 14 LAD 24
SDP 5 BAL 15 CIN 25
ATL 6 KCR 16 MIL 26
DET 7 NYY 17 LAA 26
CHC 7 HOU 18 CHW 28
OAK 9 TEX 19 FLO 29
PHI 10 MIN 20 TAM 30
Therefore, when you are up late (as I am, writing this) creating your own player ranking lists, complete with piles of statistical data and your own
handwritten notes, keep this chart handy. When you come to Willis and Buehrle (or dare I say Santana and Peavy), note that Buehrle is going
from one terrible defense to another, while Willis will now benefit from a top-tier defense instead of a defense as a bad as the Mets late
season collapse. Oh -- by the way, Buehrle is, of course, not pitching in front of the 2007 Angels. They will be without Orlando Cabrera’s sure-
handedness up the middle and consequently could be even worse defensively in 2008. Which presents the next question: can we estimate
which of these teams will improve and which will deteriorate in 2008 due to major changes in their defensive personnel. The next article will
provide the next layer, focusing on a view of the major defensive changes in the Majors and the necessary modifications one would have to
assume to the above chart.
Thanks to mlb.com and hardballtimes.com for their statistics. Their provided definitions for the statistics looked at for this article are as follows:
DER: The percentage of balls put into play that are turned into outs.
Fielding Percentage: Putouts divided by putouts plus errors
RZR: Revised Zone Rating, the proportion of balls hit into a fielder's zone that he successfully converted into an out.
OZO: Out Of Zone, the total number of outs made by a fielder on balls hit outside of his zone.
And you can stop flip-flopping Santana and Peavy… definitely Santana all the way. Similar pitcher’s parks and Santana will be coming to a
much better defense. (Just in case you were still undecided.)
|
|
