The Alex Rios Mystery

[Quin]

Speaking of always having a point...

 

What contradictions? I seriously don't believe I've contradicted myself.

 

But, yes, I had a nice Christmas, hope you did too. Just getting some late-night prep for Sox Weekly tomorrow (well, technically today). Good night, friends.

 

Dang it, WS Weekly is always on when I'm not able to hear it (in California right now)

 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

[Ozzie Ball]

Oh, well since the UZR says so, it must be true. Do you guys even know how UZR, RF, and defensive stats of the like are even measured? You realize none of them accurately measure the speed of the ball off the bat (actually they don't even try to) or the defensive positioning prior to the pitch? These statistics should be looked at and considered, but if you're going to use them as your sole proof of a defensive player's worth, you're going to be misguided much of the time.

 

Companies like Stats Inc. are working on a system using cameras and computers (not people watching on monitors) to precisely measure stuff like this. Baseball has been moving forward with collecting data from this software from Sportsvision that does basically the same thing. Eventually it will be used in every ballpark, and after it is perfected and utilized, we'll have a considerably more accurate measure of defensive abilities.

 

For the time being, UZR is flawed and it's a mistake to use it as a bible of some kind. It should be considered but shouldn't be everything.

 

(Oh, and a happy holiday to everyone.)

Exact batted ball speeds are not calculated, true, nor are they attempted to be calculated, again true, but the issue of batted ball speed is not entirely ignored. There are stringers at every game who break down the speed of every batted ball into one of three categories (hard, medium and soft), this then gives us lots of useful and relevant information that is factored into UZR calculations. I realize that these classifications are not as accurate as exact batted ball speeds, and nor are they trying to be, but they give us a rough idea of batted ball speeds. Getting back to the classifications we know things such as the average ground ball out percentage for balls hit into zone 3 (the area directly behind the first base bag) for "hard" hit balls was 0.639, for "medium" hit balls was 0.883 and for "soft" hit balls was 0.953 (all as of 2003). These figures are then combined with batter handedness to give us a more accurate evaluation of defensive value.

 

Defensive positioning would be a problem if, and only if, UZR was attempting asses defensive ability. It's not. UZR attempts to asses defensive value as compared to league average over a one year period. The best way to asses ability is to use multiple years of UZR data weighted towards the most recent year. Of course multi year data still doesn't take positioning into account, but at some point you just have to hope that the managers/players are smart enough to position themselves so they can reach as many balls that they are expected to reach as possible.

 

For the time being, UZR is flawed and it's a mistake to use it as a bible of some kind. It should be considered but shouldn't be everything.

 

So how do you propose we evaluate defense then? UZR is flawed and can only be given some consideration. You scoff at "people watching on monitors", so I guess opinions formed by watching games on T.V. are out of the equation. So what's left? We need to quantify defense somehow and holding our balls until GAMEf/x arrives is hardly a pro active solution.

[qwerty]

Exact batted ball speeds are not calculated, true, nor are they attempted to be calculated, again true, but the issue of batted ball speed is not entirely ignored. There are stringers at every game who break down the speed of every batted ball into one of three categories (hard, medium and soft), this then gives us lots of useful and relevant information that is factored into UZR calculations. I realize that these classifications are not as accurate as exact batted ball speeds, and nor are they trying to be, but they give us a rough idea of batted ball speeds. Getting back to the classifications we know things such as the average ground ball out percentage for balls hit into zone 3 (the area directly behind the first base bag) for "hard" hit balls was 0.639, for "medium" hit balls was 0.883 and for "soft" hit balls was 0.953 (all as of 2003). These figures are then combined with batter handedness to give us a more accurate evaluation of defensive value.

 

Defensive positioning would be a problem if, and only if, UZR was attempting asses defensive ability. It's not. UZR attempts to asses defensive value as compared to league average over a one year period. The best way to asses ability is to use multiple years of UZR data weighted towards the most recent year. Of course multi year data still doesn't take positioning into account, but at some point you just have to hope that the managers/players are smart enough to position themselves so they can reach as many balls that they are expected to reach as possible.

 

For the time being, UZR is flawed and it's a mistake to use it as a bible of some kind. It should be considered but shouldn't be everything.

 

So how do you propose we evaluate defense then? UZR is flawed and can only be given some consideration. You scoff at "people watching on monitors", so I guess opinions formed by watching games on T.V. are out of the equation. So what's left? We need to quantify defense somehow and holding our balls until GAMEf/x arrives is hardly a pro active solution.

 

You probably don't even know what uzr stands for.

[Ozzie Ball]

I also think it's absurd that because we have access to SABRmetrics, some of us think they have a better idea of how to put together a team than the people who are paid to put together a team. This isn't fantasy baseball, and a real team doesn't work like that.

But at the same time just because someone is paid to put a team together doesn't mean that his opinion is superior to the opinion of the well informed fan. As has been previously mentioned, there are many terrible GM's.

 

Is it just a coincidence that teams are leaning towards sabermetrics more and more? I don't think so. People are starting to look at the Oakland A's and Billy Beane as an example of why sabermetrics don't work, but these people are failing to see the whole picture. The A's were able to put great teams together on a small budget because their methods of evaluation were different to everyone else, they were able to sign the underrated, unappreciated player on the cheap who in turn gave them great value. Now, however, these players are no longer underrated (or at least not to the previous extent), now you have Boston and New York swooping in and snapping these players up. That is why the A's haven't been as competitive of late, it's not because sabermetrics don't work, but rather, because the rest of the field has caught up.

[knightni]

Dang it, WS Weekly is always on when I'm not able to hear it (in California right now)

 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Won't it be on 670thescore.com?

[bmags]

Chris if you could tell me how Dye, Podsednik and Quentin were not a bad defensive outfield trio, I'll concede the point.

[caulfield12]

But at the same time just because someone is paid to put a team together doesn't mean that his opinion is superior to the opinion of the well informed fan. As has been previously mentioned, there are many terrible GM's.

 

Is it just a coincidence that teams are leaning towards sabermetrics more and more? I don't think so. People are starting to look at the Oakland A's and Billy Beane as an example of why sabermetrics don't work, but these people are failing to see the whole picture. The A's were able to put great teams together on a small budget because their methods of evaluation were different to everyone else, they were able to sign the underrated, unappreciated player on the cheap who in turn gave them great value. Now, however, these players are no longer underrated (or at least not to the previous extent), now you have Boston and New York swooping in and snapping these players up. That is why the A's haven't been as competitive of late, it's not because sabermetrics don't work, but rather, because the rest of the field has caught up.

 

Hmmm....always thought it was 75% Hudson, Zito and Mulder.

 

Well, there's some other interesting things that the A's did that other teams have tried to model....like going pretty cheap on closers, changing them quite frequently and trying to get value back in trade whenever possible (Koch, Street, Dotel, etc.)

 

Everyone in baseball has pretty much caught on to the Dan Johnson/Scott Hatteberg theory that you can pay corner outfielders, 1B and DH's significantly less money and still get a benefit investing your money elsewhere on the diamond, namely in the pitching staff, 3B (Chavez), SS (Tejada), CF and also catcher.

 

The biggest problem was making a huge bet on Chavez....and over time, they had to let Giambi, Carlos Hernandez, Swisher, Tejada, Dye, Damon and Beltran, to name just a few, go. After awhile, the Braves' syndrome set in, where they had good enough pitching to get them to the playoffs but not quite enough offense to do any significant damage against the bigger budget teams that were more balanced.

Edited December 26, 2009 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Chris if you could tell me how Dye, Podsednik and Quentin were not a bad defensive outfield trio, I'll concede the point.

 

 

I don't know if it's possible to really quantify what did the most damage....certainly, if you deconstructed all the earned runs, you'd find 75-80% of them were caused by the infield errors, both physical and mental ones that didn't show up in the box scores, or double plays that often weren't completed as well.

 

We could probably point out at least 10 significant areas of weakness in last year's team, and you could have legit arguments about which areas were most debilitating overall.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that one of our better defensive years ever (2005) was the year we won it all...and it's not a coincidence that the Twins teams that have been the most dangerous this decade were the ones that played superior defense as well (actually, it's interesting they traded Gomez because he was certainly their best overall defender, but they must have reached the conclusion he wasn't as valuable on grass going forward as on that carpet).

 

Dye has always been a myth defensively, he has horrible set-up mechanics on throws (usually throwing flat-footed or from his heels going backwards instead of charging into the ball like you're taught from Little League on) and very rarely threw out anyone while with the White Sox. His height allowed him to snag some balls that would have gone over the fence, but he was barely adequate out there the last 2-3 seasons. He probably had the worst range of any RF in the majors as well, I'm hard-pressed to think of someone any more limited in this area. How many balls have we seen drop down the line or over 1B or into foul territory that would have been caught by a "normal" MLB RFer? That said, there's no argument he earned his money until the final two months of 2009 and that he was perhaps the best "value" sign ever by KW (after the frigid start in 2005).

 

Pods was better than in the past, Quentin was obviously much more limited physically...overall, it was close to a disaster everywhere on the field except for 1B.

 

Even the highly-touted Nix was never GREAT at 2B, and he was barely adequate at SS and 3B.

 

Except for Teahen, at least going into this year they have the potential to be league-average or better at every position except for 3B and C, and AJ brings so much to the table, it's not reflected in CS/SBA numbers, not to mention our history of pitchers like Contreras, Floyd, Jenks and Garcia that let opposing baserunners run at will on them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[iamshack]

I think one of the biggest strengths of UZR and sabrmetrics in general, is assessing the things that occur on a baseball field that are most difficult to assess with the naked eye.

 

Outfield defense is one of those. I think human nature and the way we watch baseball games on television makes outfield defense more difficult to assess because we witness a player running at what appears to be full speed, and professional outfielders usually catch the balls they get to. Because television producers like to zoom-in on the action, the viewer does not usually get a great sense of the route an outfielder takes to reach (or not reach) the ball. Therefore, most plays in the outfield are either balls that are caught or not caught, and I think many of us naturally seem to think balls that were not caught were hits, and would not have been caught by most any outfielder.

 

What UZR does is point out which outfielders are poor because they take bad routes or don't get to balls that they should, and therefore it measures something that we as fans watching on television have a really difficult time quantifying ourselves.

 

I think that's why Mr. Rongey and some others will claim that the outfield defense didn't cost us much, because in their minds, maybe even subconsciously, they are not remembering all the balls that guys like Dye/Pods/Q should have caught but didn't ever get to. But if you watch enough Mariners games, you'll see a much higher level of balls reached than in our outfield.

[bmags]

I'm starting to burp up puke remembering that trio playing defense. And then straight up puking remembering our good defensive outfielders offense.

[ThunderBolt]

You probably don't even know what uzr stands for.

It’s Ultimate Zone Rating and while the math behind it isn’t perfect it’s a lot more intuitive then a lot of people seem to think. Sabermetrics isn’t about a bunch of people holed up without a TV doing algebra in their basements. It’s about people who watch the game, and look deeper into it then the average fan. Hell, UZR and the fielding bible come from people who watch EVERY defensive play, and categorize it into statistical “zones.” It’s not like they ignore the action on the field if anything they add a heck of a lot more importance to it.

[Jordan4life_2007]

It’s Ultimate Zone Rating and while the math behind it isn’t perfect it’s a lot more intuitive then a lot of people seem to think. Sabermetrics isn’t about a bunch of people holed up without a TV doing algebra in their basements. It’s about people who watch the game, and look deeper into it then the average fan. Hell, UZR and the fielding bible come from people who watch EVERY defensive play, and categorize it into statistical “zones.” It’s not like they ignore the action on the field if anything they add a heck of a lot more importance to it.

 

I think Q was being just a bit sarcastic.

 

And I can admit that I pretty much brushed off Sabermetrics at first when they started coming more and more to the forefront (I noticed this around 2004). As you said, it looked to me to be a bunch of nerdy guys who probably never had a GF in their lives, who had taken refuge in their basements. The thing that struck me about Sabermetrics at first is that they for the most part require you to really think. And being a brotha, I don't like to think. lol. At least not when it comes to sports. At first I just had no clue how these metrics were formulated. And even when I would try and get an explanation, I still couldn't fully grasp them. That was until I discovered fangraphs. That is one addicting ass site. And the writers over there do an excellent job of explaining in detail how these metrics work. Now there's a part of me that will always be an old school kinda fan. I mean s***, the manager of my favorite baseball team probably can't even spell Sabermetrics. But Saber stats are becoming more and more a part of how organizations are run and how players are evaluated. That's just fact. And I think the game in general is better off because of this.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Jordan4life

[Ranger]

I think the bold part above is exactly what SoxAce was getting at with the "I'm always right" thing a few posts back. Now, even though he and I pretty much agree with you, I don't know that the stat people around here would exactly put together worse teams. Just because people are paid to do something does not mean they do it well. There are plenty of coaches and GM's out there are quite frankly terrible. Does it mean that because they are paid their opinions are worth more than a well-informed fan? I don't think so. I'm not saying that specifically Kenny is a bad GM because I think he's one of the best in the business, but just because he is the one paid to make the decisions does not mean that his decisions are necessarily the best ones.

 

Also, regardless of UZR etc. it is pretty obvious to the eye that Dye and Podsednik aren't very good in the field. Quentin with his injured foot looked pretty terrible out there as well. Was it the biggest problem with the team? That's debatable, but it was definitely up there.

 

Yes, some GM's are not very good, but they aren't very good when compared to other GM's. It's almost always the case that a "bad" GM is just not very good when having to operate within the framework of MLB economics and the free market. I would figure that even the worst GM in the Majors understands the market better than any of us do. Hell, most people should be able to put a pretty good team together without having to deal with the contraints of payroll or having the human element of dealing with other GM's with their own payroll issues and their own pressures. Sure, I believe some guys that get those jobs are in over their heads, but there is almost always a reason they are where they are.

 

Exact batted ball speeds are not calculated, true, nor are they attempted to be calculated, again true, but the issue of batted ball speed is not entirely ignored. There are stringers at every game who break down the speed of every batted ball into one of three categories (hard, medium, and soft), this then gives us lots of useful and relevant information that is factored into UZR calculations. I realize that these classifications are not as accurate as exact batted ball speeds, and nor are they trying to be, but they give us a rough idea of batted ball speeds. Getting back to the classifications we know things such as the average ground ball out percentage for balls hit into zone 3 (the area directly behind the first base bag) for "hard" hit balls was 0.639, for "medium" hit balls was 0.883 and for "soft" hit balls was 0.953 (all as of 2003). These figures are then combined with batter handedness to give us a more accurate evaluation of defensive value.

 

Defensive positioning would be a problem if, and only if, UZR was attempting asses defensive ability. It's not. UZR attempts to asses defensive value as compared to league average over a one year period. The best way to asses ability is to use multiple years of UZR data weighted towards the most recent year. Of course multi year data still doesn't take positioning into account, but at some point you just have to hope that the managers/players are smart enough to position themselves so they can reach as many balls that they are expected to reach as possible.

 

For the time being, UZR is flawed and it's a mistake to use it as a bible of some kind. It should be considered but shouldn't be everything.

 

So how do you propose we evaluate defense then? UZR is flawed and can only be given some consideration. You scoff at "people watching on monitors", so I guess opinions formed by watching games on T.V. are out of the equation. So what's left? We need to quantify defense somehow and holding our balls until GAMEf/x arrives is hardly a pro active solution.

 

Basically, you're agreeing that UZR is flawed and that Sportsvision's program should give us some real accuracy. You're admitting that UZR doesn't give us the full story, which is exactly what I'm saying. I didn't say, and I'm not saying, that it should be ignored. It should be considered, it shouldn't be everything. It's helpful, but there isn't yet a defensive statistic that can stand alone (like we have with offense and OPS).

 

Sportsvision and STATS will have systems that can accurately measure ball speed so we don't have to rely on UZR which has an element of subjectivity. The problem with having an individual declare a soft, medium, or hard-hit ball is that the subjectivity of that decision ultimately influences the final number. Therefore, it can be a disputable

 

But at the same time just because someone is paid to put a team together doesn't mean that his opinion is superior to the opinion of the well informed fan. As has been previously mentioned, there are many terrible GM's.

 

Is it just a coincidence that teams are leaning towards sabermetrics more and more? I don't think so. People are starting to look at the Oakland A's and Billy Beane as an example of why sabermetrics don't work, but these people are failing to see the whole picture. The A's were able to put great teams together on a small budget because their methods of evaluation were different to everyone else, they were able to sign the underrated, unappreciated player on the cheap who in turn gave them great value. Now, however, these players are no longer underrated (or at least not to the previous extent), now you have Boston and New York swooping in and snapping these players up. That is why the A's haven't been as competitive of late, it's not because sabermetrics don't work, but rather, because the rest of the field has caught up.

 

Of course, there's a good reason to use SABR, but there is also a very good reason that they still rely heavily on scouting and obeservation, too. Teams don't dismiss a player simply because they don't like his UZR. We can't quantify everything.

 

 

I don't know if it's possible to really quantify what did the most damage....certainly, if you deconstructed all the earned runs, you'd find 75-80% of them were caused by the infield errors, both physical and mental ones that didn't show up in the box scores, or double plays that often weren't completed as well.

 

We could probably point out at least 10 significant areas of weakness in last year's team, and you could have legit arguments about which areas were most debilitating overall.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that one of our better defensive years ever (2005) was the year we won it all...and it's not a coincidence that the Twins teams that have been the most dangerous this decade were the ones that played superior defense as well (actually, it's interesting they traded Gomez because he was certainly their best overall defender, but they must have reached the conclusion he wasn't as valuable on grass going forward as on that carpet).

 

Dye has always been a myth defensively, he has horrible set-up mechanics on throws (usually throwing flat-footed or from his heels going backwards instead of charging into the ball like you're taught from Little League on) and very rarely threw out anyone while with the White Sox. His height allowed him to snag some balls that would have gone over the fence, but he was barely adequate out there the last 2-3 seasons. He probably had the worst range of any RF in the majors as well, I'm hard-pressed to think of someone any more limited in this area. How many balls have we seen drop down the line or over 1B or into foul territory that would have been caught by a "normal" MLB RFer? That said, there's no argument he earned his money until the final two months of 2009 and that he was perhaps the best "value" sign ever by KW (after the frigid start in 2005).

 

Pods was better than in the past, Quentin was obviously much more limited physically...overall, it was close to a disaster everywhere on the field except for 1B.

 

Even the highly-touted Nix was never GREAT at 2B, and he was barely adequate at SS and 3B.

 

 

 

Except for Teahen, at least going into this year they have the potential to be league-average or better at every position except for 3B and C, and AJ brings so much to the table, it's not reflected in CS/SBA numbers, not to mention our history of pitchers like Contreras, Floyd, Jenks and Garcia that let opposing baserunners run at will on them.

 

First, I think Teahen absolutely has the ability to play average defense at 3B. That's not out of the question.

 

Also, it's a mistake to define an outfielder's ability based on assists because, as you know, some of the best arms in the outfield sometiems don't throw many runners out. Because of reputation, guys eventually stop trying to run on them.

 

I agree with you, though, that the infield was responsible for up to 80% of the unearned runs, which is what I've been saying. The infield killed them last year.

 

I think Q was being just a bit sarcastic.

 

He was definitely trying to be a smartass instead of actually contributing to the discussion.

[scotty22hotty]

Sabermetrically, Nick Swisher is an OBP stud worth around $15M and Javier Vazquez is an SO ace worth $22M a year...

 

So were these guys just mismanaged?

 

Hopefully Ozzie knows how to handle Rios in '10.

[Dick Allen]

Does UZR ever take into account the first baseman saving the other infielder's ass on a play? Ramirez had a UZR of 2.4 I believe last year. If Frank Thomas was the White Sox first baseman, he easily would have had at least 15 more errors maybe 20 or 25 if he made the same throws. Would his UZR still be 2.4? I'm not being a smart ass, I don't know the answer. I would imagine a first baseman that is good defensively would probably increase every other infielder's UZR.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Dick Allen

[Ozzie Ball]

Sabermetrically, Nick Swisher is an OBP stud worth around $15M and Javier Vazquez is an SO ace worth $22M a year...

 

So were these guys just mismanaged?

 

Hopefully Ozzie knows how to handle Rios in '10.

Vazquez wasn't a great fit here. A flyball pitcher with a small home ballpark and some bad outfield defenses. That doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me. He was also somewhat unlucky during his down years of '06 and '08 when he posted two of the three highest BABIP's of his career at .321 and .328 respectively (his career mark is .309). He also had the two lowest strand rates of his career since 1999 at 65.8% and 68.3% compared to his average during that time frame of about 72/73%.

 

Vazquez is a strange pitcher though. Advanced statistics would tell you that he's a 3.60 ERA pitcher on talent, yet here he is after 2500 career IP with an ERA of 4.19. Is it really possible for a pitcher to be that unlucky for that amount of time?

 

I guess there are always going to be outliers.

 

As for Swisher he just had a down year. It happens. Luck wasn't on his side with a .251 BABIP compared to his career .278 BABIP and an expected BABIP (based on his speed, power, contact and batted ball data) in '07 of .299. But luck aside his BB%, K% and power were all below his career averages.

 

I have no doubts that Swisher would have returned to his career averages (or thereabouts) if he had stayed with the team for '09 and his performance with the Yankees shows that he wasn't a player on the decline. I have the same expectations of Alex Rios next year (returning to his career norms, that is).

Edited December 26, 2009 by Ozzie Ball

[Ozzie Ball]

Does UZR ever take into account the first baseman saving the other infielder's ass on a play? Ramirez had a UZR of 2.4 I believe last year. If Frank Thomas was the White Sox first baseman, he easily would have had at least 15 more errors maybe 20 or 25 if he made the same throws. Would his UZR still be 2.4? I'm not being a smart ass, I don't know the answer. I would imagine a first baseman that is good defensively would probably increase every other infielder's UZR.

As far as I'm aware this is not tracked by UZR, although if you want a truly accurate measure of a players defensive ability then it certainly would need to be tracked. If Ramirez had made a lot more throwing errors due to having a worse receiver at 1B (Thomas being a good example), then his ErrR would have been lower resulting in his UZR being lower. But again, UZR is a measure of defensive value, not ability. Your last point would also be correct. A good receiver at 1B would raise the UZR of his fellow infielders by lowering their error totals.

[Ranger]

Does UZR ever take into account the first baseman saving the other infielder's ass on a play? Ramirez had a UZR of 2.4 I believe last year. If Frank Thomas was the White Sox first baseman, he easily would have had at least 15 more errors maybe 20 or 25 if he made the same throws. Would his UZR still be 2.4? I'm not being a smart ass, I don't know the answer. I would imagine a first baseman that is good defensively would probably increase every other infielder's UZR.

 

It is not factored in, and if you look at the methodology it really can't be. You're right, Ramirez had a short-hopping issue in the first few months of the season. He has a strong enough arm to make the throws, but he wasn't getting them there.

 

 

Vazquez wasn't a great fit here. A flyball pitcher with a small home ballpark and some bad outfield defenses. That doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me. He was also somewhat unlucky during his down years of '06 and '08 when he posted two of the three highest BABIP's of his career at .321 and .328 respectively (his career mark is .309). He also had the two lowest strand rates of his career since 1999 at 65.8% and 68.3% compared to his average during that time frame of about 72/73%.

 

Vazquez is a strange pitcher though. Advanced statistics would tell you that he's a 3.60 ERA pitcher on talent, yet here he is after 2500 career IP with an ERA of 4.19. Is it really possible for a pitcher to be that unlucky for that amount of time?

 

I guess there are always going to be outliers.

 

As for Swisher he just had a down year. It happens. Luck wasn't on his side with a .251 BABIP compared to his career .278 BABIP and an expected BABIP (based on his speed, power, contact and batted ball data) in '07 of .299. But luck aside his BB%, K% and power were all below his career averages.

 

I have no doubts that Swisher would have returned to his career averages (or thereabouts) if he had stayed with the team for '09 and his performance with the Yankees shows that he wasn't a player on the decline. I have the same expectations of Alex Rios next year (returning to his career norms, that is).

 

It may have turned out that neither of them were great team fits here, though Swisher was supposed to be. Vazquez just didn't even seem to fit in this city with the way he carried himself compared to what fans expect of him. He's incredibly talented, though, and they missed him in the rotation last year.

[bmags]

And again, unearned runs are more common in the infield than outfield. You have to be straight up Soriano awful to accumulate errors in the outfield. Did we have a lot of mistakes with the Fields-Ramirez-Getz lineup, yes, that led to a lot of noticeable runs given up that shouldn't have.

 

BUt our outfield doesnt get errors for not being able to make a play they should. Dye can run about 5 ft. in front of him before a ducksnort lands. Pods runs like a deer in the headlights, and Quentins foot prevented him from getting to balls as well. So, I'd say OF defense was definitely a problem. Just because they don't get unearned runs attributed to them often doesnt mean they were good or even average.

[Ranger]

And again, unearned runs are more common in the infield than outfield. You have to be straight up Soriano awful to accumulate errors in the outfield. Did we have a lot of mistakes with the Fields-Ramirez-Getz lineup, yes, that led to a lot of noticeable runs given up that shouldn't have.

 

BUt our outfield doesnt get errors for not being able to make a play they should. Dye can run about 5 ft. in front of him before a ducksnort lands. Pods runs like a deer in the headlights, and Quentins foot prevented him from getting to balls as well. So, I'd say OF defense was definitely a problem. Just because they don't get unearned runs attributed to them often doesnt mean they were good or even average.

 

I didn't say they were good, I just said I don't think it killed them last year.

[Balta1701]

I didn't say they were good, I just said I don't think it killed them last year.

Lots of things could be said hurt the Sox, I'm not sure I can label 1 and say "this killed them", perhaps aside from Quentin's injury. Jenks has a better season, are they a playoff team, probably not. Dye doesn't stink in the 2nd half, are they a playoff team, probably not. The Sox have a better defense, are they a playoff team, probably not. 2 or 3 of those start happening...are they a playoff team, probably.

[Springfield Soxfan]

We had high hopes for Rios when he came to get us some hitting and it didn't happen, he can't totally wear the collar for last year.

[chw42]

I didn't say they were good, I just said I don't think it killed them last year.

 

It depends on your definition of "killing".

 

The Sox had one of the worst outfield defenses in baseball last year.

 

Pods, Quentin, and Dye were all negatives in UZR, with Dye being a -20.

 

When you're a -20, there's no need to explain why Dye was an absolutely horrendous outfielder.

 

Pods, as bad as he looked, isn't as bad as some people here think he is. Some here probably think he's worse than Dye, which is obviously not the case. Pods isn't good, but he's not horrendous either.

 

Quentin was a below average outfielder due to his foot problems last year, I think we can cut him a little slack.

 

Wise, given his small amount of playing time, was probably our best defensive outfielder last year. He was even better than Anderson.

 

Rios was slightly above average in CF (although UZR did not say this).

 

Kotsay didn't play much, but when he did, he was mediocre.

 

So basically, you have three guys who were negative in value, one mediocre in a small sample size, and three above average in a combined medium sample size.

 

The overall UZR of these White Sox outfielders last year was -29.4.

 

I don't care how flawed UZR might be, but if your outfielders supposedly cost your pitchers 29.4 runs last year, that's killing the team. When your outfield defense costs you 3 win shares (it would have been about 4.5 if Wise wasn't here), you need to correct that.

 

Now, with the current defensive outfield alignment, we can expect something a whole lot better.

 

Rios can be at least an average center fielder, if not an above average one. Pierre is an above average left fielder. Quentin, if healthy, can be a slightly below average right fielder. All three combined can possibly post a UZR around 0-5 together. That's a huge improvement from last year. You also have Jones and Kotsay on the bench who can play the outfield. Those two together should yield a 0 UZR if not a slightly negative one.

 

So basically, you've improved your outfield defense by 3-4 wins. That in itself could be the difference between a great team and a good one.

 

 

[bmags]

and, when Wise is batting, I imagine the runs saved is negated, amirite fans? Go sox.

[Balta1701]

It depends on your definition of "killing".

...

 

So basically, you've improved your outfield defense by 3-4 wins. That in itself could be the difference between a great team and a good one.

The White Sox lost the division last year by 7 games and were farther back in the Wild Card. Your own numbers suggest that the OF defense hurt us, but it didn't kill us. Those games could have made it closer, but not put us in front.