Best / Worst 2015

[Eminor3rd]

Another thing that bothers me is it seems like the good CFer's generally have higher defensive value than corner OFer's. Again maybe it's something I see rather than a fact. But a CFer can run gap to gap at full speed while corner OFer's must temper their approach to balls hit down the line because of the chance of colliding with walls. This tempered approach is necessary unless you have no regard for your body yet corner OF's can't get those ridiculously high defensive ratings as much as CFer's do. Alex Gordon was about the highest you'll see in 2014 for a corner. Heyward in 2012, 2014 and 2015 was pretty high also.

 

When someone like Trout moves from CF to a corner doesn't it seem like their defensive rating always goes down yet they are the same player with the same speed and abilities. I know being strong up the middle is essential in baseball like it's always been so a truly gifted defensive CFer has more inherent value built into the position just like SS does. Again playing a corner means you can't run as fast or must slow down when approaching walls but is that something that is taken into consideration ?

 

The defensive numbers just tell us about what plays they make. They don't care how the player went about making the plays.

 

As this Statcast stuff continues to develop, we'll be able to develop a much richer idea of what each player does well and poorly and I think it will contribute substantially to our notion of what actually makes a good defender at each position. For now though, we just count what they managed to pull off or not and give it a run value.