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If you are a follower of the Statcast/Baseball Savant folks, then you know they've been teasing the release of their infield defense metrics for months now. They are very close to public release, I believe it will be this week, and they've even been tweeting out some tidbits to get people interested. Without divulging my methods, since I suspect it will render my methods no longer usable, I have gotten my hands on most of the data (note: I haven't hacked anybody, everything's on the up and up). I only have complete data for 2019 but have some info about Sox players in prior years. So who wants to hear about the Sox??? Just like the outfield defense, you have two basic metrics: Outs Above Average (OAA) and a percentage added. OAA is a counting stat, like RBI, and is therefore sensitive to playing time and number of chances. The percentage stat is more like batting average and lets you more easily compare players with different amounts of playing time. On outs above average, out of 218 qualified infielders... Moncada ranked #51 (+5 OAA) Yolmer #82 (+2 OAA) Tim #104 (-1 OAA) Abreu #142 (-3 OAA) On percentage added, out of 218 qualified infielders... Moncada ranked #51 (yes, exactly the same as OAA; 2% added) Yolmer #86 (1%) Tim #104 (0%) Abreu #142 (-1%) So almost exactly the same in their cases. The differences in rankings for OAA and success rate added are mostly at the very top and bottom. By position... Among 3B, Moncada ranked #9 out of 53 3B in OAA and #7 in percentage added. Among 2B, Yolmer ranked #19 out of 71 2B in OAA and #21 in percentage added. Among 1B, Abreu ranked #34 out of 40 1B in OAA and #26 in percentage added. Among SS, Tim ranked #29 out of 54 SS in OAA and #29 in percentage added. Quick Sox highlights: Tim didn't do as badly as we feared. I can add that in 2018, he ranked in the 87th percentile among SS, much better. He was in the 66th percentile in 2017. If he cleans up the errors, he's going to be a real asset like we all hoped. He has demonstrated a consistent strength moving to his left over the years per these numbers. Last year his problem was coming in on balls. Yoan's defense was rated above average by UZR and below average by DRS, so some of us weren't sure where he stood. This suggests he is indeed a strong defender at 3B. Great! Also of note: In 2018, his 2B defense ranked in the 1st percentile, meaning he was the worst or close to the worst infield defender in MLB by these metrics. Abreu isn't good, but he's not horrible either (at least when it comes to fielding balls; this doesn't factor in catching thrown balls AFAIK). Other metrics were overrating Yolmer it would appear, although he has been by no means bad. Statcast indicates he struggles going to his right. Other info for non-Sox players: Best OAA in MLB: Javier Baez (+19) Arenado (+17) Andrelton Simmons (+16) Nick Ahmed (+16) Trevor Story (+15) Matt Chapman (+14) Paul DeJong (+13) Matt Olson (+12; by far the highest 1B) Jose Iglesias (+12) Worst OAA in MLB: Vlad Guerrero Jr. (-16) Jorge Polanco (-16) Fernando Tatis Jr. (-13) Didi Gregorius (-13) Jonathan Villar (-12) Tim Beckham (-9) Kevin Newman (-8) Gleyber Torres (-7) Best % added: Isiah Kiner-Falefa (8%) Tony Kemp (7%) Cory Spangenberg (6%) Andrelton Simmons (6%) Jeff McNeil (5%) Marwin Gonzalez (5%) Matt Olson (5%), Javier Baez (5%) Worst % added: Chad Pinder (-11%) Vlad Jr. (-8%) Luke Voit (-7%) Didi Gregorius (-6%) Fernando Tatis Jr. (-5%) Tim Beckham (-5%) Ryon Healy (-5%) Also, Marcus Semien was well below average, though not horrible, this year and was no different than the past two years, in contrast to the story told by UZR/DRS.

I saw this coming. I don't know why I'm still surprised when people who use the internet don't actually do just a tiny bit of research . It's not like you need a vast amount of knowledge to check what you are claiming . Google Steve Cishek, Baseball Reference, click on the link provided,scroll down to Splits , pitching , then click on either a year or career Yes he does worse against LHH but the stats are good just not as good against RHH. Not really directed at you of course. You pointed out the BAA for 2019 and career. Also the 3 batter rule is not really a 3 batter rule. A starting pitcher might go 5 .2 innings . The reliever brought in can either pitch .1 inning because he is pitching to the end of the half inning and then can be taken out or continue to pitch into the next half inning where he then has to pitch to however many hitters that he did not face in the previous .1 of an inning. So If he came in with 1 out to go , walked a guy then got the final out , he faced 2 hitters and then, if not taken out, would have to face at least one more hitter at the start of his next inning. He could get that hitter out and be done, The next pitcher can get the next 2 hitters out in a row and therefore not face 3 hitters but still be done because he pitched to the end of the half inning if the manager so chooses.

Like all the LH batters that have a .229 BAA in Cishek’s career? (.216 last season)

I want them to DFA Covey because I would cry tears of joy if he never pitched for the Sox again.

Wow - Renteria is now Girardi, Hinch, and Francona all rolled into one. How did the Sox get so lucky?

Theo has a World Series and how many playoff appearances? What does Hahn have since he started? A .450 winning percentage, no playoff appearances, and two offseason free agency championships? Maybe the next five years will include a ton of success, but there’s really no reason for any praise for Hahn until the White Sox have some semblance of success on the field. Until then, the numbers are what they are.

Uhhh, Maddon WAS available this offseason, as was Girardi. Both would have been improvements on Renteria.

The Cubs ditched Ricky because Maddon became available. Is there a Maddon out there currently?

You act like I’m the only one who thinks Renteria is a poor manager. Many of his moves were shredded on a game-to-game basis on this very site last season. He made questionable moves on a very frequent basis. Regardless of my opinion or anyone else’s, Renteria led the 2014 Cubs to 73 wins and Theo decided to move on from him. Renteria’s replacement went on to win 97 games in 2015 and then 103 games and the World Series in 2016. But I guess that could all be a coincidence. Meanwhile, only the Sox were interested in Renteria as a manager after two season without a job after the Cubs canned him, most likely because he was cheap. Another coincidence I guess? To me, the bar is making the playoffs this year. I would suspect that is Hahn’s bar as well for 2020.

Moncada is going to have a monster fucking year now that he's got a year under his belt at 3rd. Can see him moving into the top 5 defensive 3B in the game on top of his offensive contributions, inching him closer to MVP level. Thanks for this awesome thread.

I am kind of shocked Zavala has kept a roster spot this long.

Managers. Mean. Nothing.

He is turning 29 tomorrow and has walked the world in the minors. It was likely an easy DFA choice for Hahn.

True but I for one would not want Maddon. I've never liked his managing. Girardi is a different story. He may have been worth it. However if the players support Renteria it's not that big of a deal because the managers primary job in today's game is to work with the players as the game managing really doesnt change the result of many games.

I adored Rise of Skywalker. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, know what's canon and what isn't. I thought it was amazing. People love to hate everything.

Anderson is going to have a good year defensively and then make an error in a wild card game or something and the calls to move him will never stop.

Advanced numbers have always like Anderson, due to his remarkable range, more than traditional defensive metrics. His still needs to cut down on the errors but if he does he's in the 90th+ percentile. His talent is inarguable.

Jeter made highlight plays as well. Careless errors add up.

There's no way Tatis is in the bottom 5. Having watched the majority of his games (or at least the highlights), there were at least 15-20 plays he made last year that only a handful of players in the big leagues could make. He piled up a number of careless errors in the 6-8 weeks before he went down to the back injury, ...especially after they were already out of contention, but between diving for balls in the air and getting additional outs with his arm at first, I'm not buying it.

https://streamable.com/ntge1

Short video, but I thought this was pretty neat. I always liked Burr, hope to see him get back to the majors at some point.

It's a good thing he hit cleanup

Holding it against Maddon for not winning the World Series with the Rays is really pushing it...it's like blaming Francona for not getting the Indians over the hump in 2016. I'm sure they each (still) have their fair share of critics...so it's back to the tired 'ol truism, how many offers would Renteria have from other organizations if they let him go today? I'm sure many teams would put him in a "Buddy Bell-esque" position and hope to leverage his Latin American connections or have him work with the minor leaguers as a roving instructor or Director of Instruction, but can't believe there would be too many managerial spots that he would be considered for.

AJ Reed comes to mind. God was he just horrible in his short Sox stint.

I'm not nuts about RR's bunting escapades and lineup ideas but today is a new day with a whole different arsenal of weapons. RR has been around professional baseball for 40 years. Do we really think we know so much more than he does about the game. I think Ricky may be a pleasant surprise when managing a good team.

Not much. That is way down the priority list.

In-game management means nothing? Wow.

Does a manager: a. Handle the media well? b. Prevent a clubhouse from imploding? if the answer to these questions are yes, then the manager is not an issue.

https://twitter.com/patrickhoward50/status/1215044798165475328?s=21

The knock on Girardi in NY was that he didn't care enough about the Metrics but was a great players coach. It's the same exact knock that's on renteria. I also have no idea how you determine a good manager from a bad manager rankings wise. You can say renteria is at the bottom but it doesnt make it true. AJ Hinch was practically chased out of Arizona - said to be in way over his head and, at the time, was the "worst manager in baseball." Now he's regarded positively.

If ya'll like strand rate, checkout RE24. Basically, it measures how a pitcher changes the run expectancy and runs scored between entering and exiting. For example, if you give up a run after entering with a man on 3rd and 1 out, that is penalized less than entering with a man on 1st and 2 outs, because RE24 takes into account what the expected runs scored of the offense would be. It is still flawed - the expected runs that the model is based on only takes into account what bags are filled and how many outs there are. However, it addresses a problem with strand rate, which is that not all the scenarios of how a RP can enter the game are equal. Since strand rate is usually calculated from a pretty small sample size of outings, it is certainly possible that the degree of difficulty for those outings was demonstrably different. Last year, Steve Cishek was pretty decent with a 6.31 RE24, 46th out of qualifying RPs. This was down from his 3 previous years of 9.24, 14.72, and 10.72. FWIW, RE24 supports the perception that Bummer was a dominant fireman last year: he had an outstanding RE24 of 22.81, second best in the MLB only to Liam Hendrick's 22.89. 22.81 is also the 16th best score for a single season over the last 5 years.

They're catch probabilities - which is the driving force behind all of this - are still far from perfect. I'm not ready to anoint them better yet. They ignore far too many factors in calculating them.

But this isn’t really the argument. You asked what “Maddon” was available for the Sox to replace Renteria with like the Cubs did when they upgraded from him. I gave you two better options — Maddon himself who you are not a fan of and Girardi who you admitted would be an improvement. Now we are having a runaround discussion defending Renteria by saying that managers don’t impact wins and losses that much, that fans don’t know the inside clubhouse reasons for each move a manager makes (i.e. injuries), and that managers have to also consider players’ egos when making decisions. All managers have to deal with these issues, not just Renteria. All of these factors are true but the simple truth is that Renteria is definitely near the bottom of the list as far as good MLB managers goes and there were at least two better options that the Sox could have replaced him with, this offseason alone.

This isnt some be all defensive metric - the others still matter. This is just another defensive metric where Castellanos is awful

People really misuse the shit out of market value on this site.

This isn't a "concern" though. This shows, and it's just one metric, the worst defender in MLB by quite a lot.

They also said Mike Trout was the third best CF in like 2016

In close games last season that were likely decided by Renteria’s decisions, do you think he made more moves that directly led to losses or wins?

Actually 1/22

Cubs ditched Ricky - Sox keepin him so far. Cubs have always taking who runs the club far more seriously even though that worked for them once. We have the only manager in baseball that batter the worst hitter 4th.

I have been a massive fan of Rodon in the bullpen for 2+ years now.

Jeff Passan's unofficial January power rankings have the Twins at 10, and the Sox/Indians somewhere between 11-20. Oddsshark has the Sox at 14, Twins at 11, and the Indians at 13. The Cubs are 12th.

but but but Tim makes errors!!!!! Errors!!!! For the love of god man ERRORS!!!!!!!!!

Even more revealing than the splits, if you examine his "game logs" for last year, you will find that he rarely gave up any runs. There were just a few occasions where he was not effective, but the vast majority of the time, he was lights out. April was his worst month. He made 13 appearances and gave up no runs in 11 of them. However, on 2 occasions, he gave up 3 runs, in each. In total, he made 70 appearances and was unscored upon in all but 13 of them. Aaron Bummer was also scored upon 13 times, in 12 fewer appearances, and he had a terrific season. From my perspective, if a reliever can come in and not give up anything, 82% of the time, I'll take that. In Cishek's 5 previous seasons, his WHIP was right around 1.000. Last year it ballooned up to 1.203. Hopefully, he won't be overused in our pen, as he was the last 2 years.

badler has mt. carmel ss ed howard as the top high school shortstop in the 2020 class.

Never want to see him in Sox uniform. I said last year the rebuild will be when they move on from that guy. Please no!!

Man would I love if Castellanos ended up a WS. Like him over Mazara in RF and EE as DH but with both of them on board, Castellanos is an expensive redundancy.

Lose Nate Savino and pickup Nick Bitsko. Even Steven.

Hawk & Wimpy in their prime were the best!

How you haven’t been suspended yet for blatant trolling is beyond me.