Defensive Ratings

[DBAHO]

Alrighty another thread (yeah I'm trying to get some discussion going in here, it's been a bit quiet).

 

We all know how much KW and Ozzie preach about having a good defense. And considering the inexperience of the backend of our rotation, well our defense needs to be pretty good this season, better than what it was last season.

 

The stats that I'm going to use is Revised Zone Rating, or RZR for short and Plays made out of zone OOZ.

 

RZR is Revised Zone Rating is the proportion of balls hit into a fielder's zone that he successfully converted into an out. OOZ is the total number of outs made by a fielder on balls hit outside of his zone.

 

First of all I'll use Juan Uribe. Now Uribe's been an excellent defensive player for us, but I just want to show the difference he had not only offensively in 2007 compared to past seasons, but how he fielded in 2007.

 

2006 - RZR = .841. OOZ = 40.

2007 - RZR = .796. OOZ = 49.

 

So that's a drop-off of .045 in RZR for Juan.

 

Now let's look at his replacement Orlando Cabrera.

 

2006 - RZR = .778. OOZ = 44.

2007 - RZR = .807. OOZ = 51.

 

I actually thought Cabrera would have a better RZR than that. It's better than Juan's 07 season, but I think it shows that when Juan is at his best defensively, he's elite. Still Cabrera is certainly at least above average, and I'd expect something around a .800 rating for 2008.

 

Now lets have a look at Joe Crede in 2006 and 2007 compared to Josh Fields in 2007.

 

Crede;

2006 - RZR = .760. OOZ = 57.

2007 - RZR = .829. OOZ = 25.

 

Fields;

2007 - RZR = .668. OOZ = 15.

 

So yeah, that's quite a difference. And it's something Josh needs to get better at. I wonder if the change to Fields really would have had a small impact on a pitcher like Danks who really started to struggle after the 1st couple of months of the season? A little correlation maybe?

 

Now lastly, I want to use Nick Swisher (unfortunately I couldn't get this stat for either Owens or Anderson).

 

Swisher;

2007 (CF) - RZR = 878. OOZ = 17.

 

I would figure, .878 is pretty good, especially when you compare it to the above.

 

I never really understood the talk that Swisher is no good in CF (albeite I've never seen him play there). The stats from last season show he was pretty good there, and the Cell is a smaller park than the Oakland Coliseum (so he'd have less field to cover).

 

And his arm would certainly be better than Owens.

 

Hence why I really wanted Quentin in LF and Swisher in CF to start the season. Ain't going to turn out that way though.

 

[BobDylan]

I'm surprised by Cabrera's rating, but it's nothing to lose sleep over.

 

If the White Sox start Uribe at 2B and Anderson in CF, that's some pretty solid leather up the middle of the field. I don't think you can ask for anything better than that in terms of defense. Now if Contreras rebounds and the bullpen can hold a lead with consistency, I'm feeling pretty good about the Sox. Defense, baby.

[jackie hayes]

On Swisher -- I don't think one can draw any definite conclusions without comparing his numbers to other cfs. (Is that wrong?) What's the average for a cf, and what are some examples (say, Andruw Jones, Torii) that would help benchmark those numbers?

 

On Uribe/Cabrera and Crede/Fields, I think that basically agrees with most other stats and eyeball evaluation. Uribe was spectacular, has regressed a good deal, Cabrera's steady, above average but not elite. Fields is below average and far from Crede. A healthy Crede, anyway.

 

On Danks -- I can't imagine Fields helped, but I don't imagine it was a big part of his regression. And I think most of us want Quentin there, IF he's healthy. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

And since we're talking defense, we should note that Anderson is still technically on the team, as pointless as that may be.

[DBAHO]

I remember they did have a RZR up for Anderson previously, but for some reason they took it down, and I think it was over .900 back in 2006.

 

So he is really elite back there. If he could ever become a .260 20HR guy, he would be, really, really valuable in CF for a lot of teams in a Mike Cameron sort of way.

[DBAHO]

I can't find the ratings for Jones or Hunter either, really weird. If anyone can find them (got the rest from Hardball Times), put em up I guess.

 

As a team, the Sox in 2007 had a RZR in the infield of .762 (below the AL average of .776) and an RZR in the outfield of .861 (below the AL average of .870).

 

So they were sub-par defensively in 2007.

[lostfan]

I remember they did have a RZR up for Anderson previously, but for some reason they took it down, and I think it was over .900 back in 2006.

Yeah BA's zone ratings were sky-high, like nearly in record-setting range. I can't recall the exact number. Plus he had that whole thing going where it looked like he would finish the season without committing a single error.

[scenario]

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