Neal Huntington Spins Pirates' Defense
by MarkInDallas on Apr 7, 2010 4:43 PM EDT
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PrintI just listened to Rocco's interview with Neal Huntington on Monday in his opening day lead up. There were some comments on Rocco's question on defensive downgrades that were kind of strange and I thought I'd put them to the test to see how far off his comments might be.
The gist of what he said was they weren't too worried about the defense because:
1) Adam LaRoche was a below average 1B defensively and so will be Clement, so not too much lost there.
2) Aki was better defensively than Freddy in 2008 - the last time both played a full season.
3) Garrett Jones is more athletic and potentially a better defender than Moss.
4) Ronny Cedeno was above average defensively for the Mariners, but a little below average for the Pirates, but that shows he can be above average.
5) Lastings Milledge was rated as one of the top defenders in MLB from the time he started with the Pirates last year.
6) NH said he feels they can offset some of the defensive downgrades with positioning.
My take on these statements is that many of them are just plain false or misleading. Especially in the context of the overall question, which was the downgrade in defense from 09.
Note that Rocco and NH were specifically referring to UZR when talking about these numbers, so it wasn't so much that NH was saying they have a different system that rates the players (even though I'm sure they do have a different proprietary system).
#1 - The problem with all of this reasoning is the amount of positive or negative. You can't just say Adam was below average and Clement will also be below average, so who cares?
Adam was rated -.5 runs below average UZR in 2009. .5 runs over the course of the season is basically nothing. Now, he was -8.1 runs in 2008, but +6.7 in 2007. UZR does fluctuate with performance as do offensive stats and is subject to luck, etc. But in general, Adam is a very inconsistent player, and it's known that he has had concentration problems in the field. But, you really can't say that he has been a "below average" 1B defensively. He's basically average.
On the other hand, the very best we can hope for is that Clement becomes an average defensive player. He's much more likely to be rated -10 UZR this year, and hopefully no worse than that.
The point is, -.5 and -10 are not the same below average. So, that's disingenuous to present it that way.
#2 - Comparing Aki's 2008 with Freddy Sanchez's as their true talent level is just plain wrong. Sanchez had a shoulder injury in 2008 which severely hampered his ability in the field. Even still, he ended the year with only a -1.8 UZR! He was almost an average defender even with an injury that I didn't think he should be playing with. He could barely throw the ball to 1B from the normal 2B position sometimes. Sanchez's 2007 and 2009 have him at +11.5 UZR/150 as his true talent level when healthy. Aki's 2 years at 2B have him at about +1.8 UZR/150. So, it's clear that here is another 10 run downgrade on defense. Despite Freddy's 2006 batting title, Aki has been the better and more consistent hitter between the two, however, which has offset the defensive difference between the two, making them practically worth the exact same amount in terms of wins.
#3 - It's possible that Jones could be a nice defender in RF, and we've certainly seen some improvements there just in one game (course it's just one game). And, I also believe Brandon Moss was over-rated as a defender. Still, the 2009 numbers rated Jones a -8 UZR/150 and Moss a +10. That's an 18 run difference - close to 2 wins. This is actually one category I think Jones can close the gap - not all the way though.
#4 - Cedeno's 2009 time with the Mariners was the only stretch of more than 15 games that he has played in any season or stop where he was rated above average in UZR/150. So, you can't say his +6.8 in 40 games there means anything, when averaged with his -13.1 in Pirate garb comes out near his career average of -4 or -5. As Wilson is solidly +15 (last year +20), that's a full 2 win downgrade on defense. Unfortunately, this is one position where the extra offense won't offset the downgrade.
#5 - Lastings Milledge indeed was rated one the better defenders in his time with the Pirates last year. There's a huge debate among many whether those numbers were accurate (I believe them) and also whether Nyjer's numbers are accurate (I also believe them). None the less, we're talking about downgrades in defense, and the drop from Nyjer's +27 to Milledge's +16 is still about 10 runs or 1 win. Last year, Nyjer hit so well after the trade that there was no way Milledge could make up for that difference with the bat. This year, I believe he will, but this will be something to watch certainly.
#6 - This is probably the most ridiculous statement of the whole interview. Wouldn't the best positioning help ALL defenders no matter what their skill level? This is a huge fallacy and it's hard to hear it coming from Huntington. There is no way you can position a player and hide him from losing you runs. Unless you hide him in the dugout, of course.
----------------------------------
So, here's my rundown on defensive wins lost this year:
Adam to Clement = -1 win
Freddy to Aki = -1 win
Moss to Jones = -2 wins
Wilson to Cedeno = -2 wins
Nyjer to Milledge = -1 win
--------------------------------
TOTAL = - 7 wins defensively from 2009 starters.
I really would have liked Huntington to just say, Yeah, we're going to be worse defensively, but we're going to score more runs and that will make up for it. Plus, we feel our defenders can improve and narrow the gap.
We'll see how things play out.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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Seeing as how Freddy Sanchez is out again with another shoulder injury, and considering his history of extremely slow healing, it’s likely Iwamura will be an upgrade over what Sanchez would have done for the Pirates in 2010.
I don't think that's the point at all
The question is how this team’s defense will compare with last season’s, and the answer, as best as we can forecast, is that it will be as many as 7 runs worse. The fact that, if we still had Sanchez, it would also be somewhat worse, is neither here nor there.
I wish I hadn’t read this immediately after writing something quite optimistic on the team meeting thread.
by JRoth95 on Apr 7, 2010 4:58 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Yeah, I’m not arguing at all that we should have kept Freddy or any one of the old players. I’m just saying, 70 runs difference is pretty substantial, and the team will have to hit a lot better to overcome that difference.
The problem is, you can’t just use one year’s stats (or in the case of many of these guys, part of one year’s). The guy who invented the system says you need at least two full years. And it’s not just a question of projecting the next year—you need more than one year’s stats to guard against inaccuracies in that one year. That is, you need corroboration that Morgan, for instance, really did save the Pirates 27 runs and that the 2009 data weren’t skewed somehow. Your method is instructive (there’s no question the Pirates’ defense will be weaker), but it’s not valid at the point where you’re actually tabulating wins and runs.
by WTM on Apr 7, 2010 6:48 PM EDT up reply actions
I’ll say it’s especially not valid to say the Pirates will be 7 wins worse than 2009 on defense mostly because this is an estimation of starting lineups only. Jack Wilson did not actually save the Pirates 20 runs in the field in 2009, because he wasn’t ON the field for 150 games in 2009. Nor was Freddy Sanchez nor Nyjer Morgan. This is just a theoretical number that shows the theoretical skill levels of these players in the best case scenario where no one gets hurt.
In real terms, the total UZR of all 2Bs we played (Freddy 3.9], Ramon[.9],Cruz [-.1],Bix [-.5] and DY [-6.6]) was -2.4. So, we have to look at all the possible 2Bs this year and see if the sum total will be better than that. Certainly, it won’t actually be 10 runs worse than that unless DY is getting major playing time.
Total UZR in 2009:
1B: 1.9.7 from Cutch)
2B: -2.4
3B: 1.7 (5.3 from Andy)
SS: +5.7
LF: +20
CF: +5 (
RF: +1.8
So, when you look at things in this light, the picture gets a lot brighter and more manageable. Depending on how playing time ends up being divided, with an expected improvement from Cutch, it seems they probably would not be near a total 70 runs below the actual defense from last year.
I've been over this before...
but I strongly suspect…understanding how UZR is calculated…that Morgan and Milledge both had UZR values much higher than would be expected. This is because of the infamous “no triples” outfield alignment.
Both of them would catch more balls “outside the zone” because they lined up almost outside the “normal” zones of a LF. Any spray chart of hitting will show that most batters will hit many more balls toward the gap than down the line. The Pirates coaching staff is playing the law of averages that they are picking up more outs with smaller gaps between the OFs than they are giving up hits down the line.
This is NOT to say that Milledge (and Morgan before him) is a BAD outfielder. Just that this particular stat may over-exaggerate his skill level. But the skill difference between Milledge and Morgan is probably reasonable (Morgan about 1 defensive win better).
Right
Comparing absolute skill levels, you need to be apples vs. apples, and look at guys who’ve both played the same positioning. But I don’t think it’s a false value relative to the league; the value is coming from the positioning as well as from the player’s talents, but it’s real value (it’s not as if UZR is so dumb that it wouldn’t notice an outsize number of down-the-line flies dropping in).
Also, there are clearly plenty of LFs who wouldn’t be able to pull this positioning off; you need to be able to move right fast in order to not get killed on shots into the corner.
There are two problems for the no-triples hypothesis
First is that in any outfield positioning, the job of the CF is to catch anything he can reach. So the number of balls the LF would take away from the CF would be negligible. There would be less balls dropping between the LF and CF, but the ones that would have dropped (and are now caught) would be split in responsibility between the LF and CF. However, the ones that drop to the foul line side would be fully the LF’s responsibility. So, the no-triples defense would have to prevent fully twice the number of balls falling in the gap as now drop near the foul line. That is just to make it even-steven for the left fielder. Does that seem reasonable? If it were that effective, wouldn’t it be obvious to all other teams?
Secondly, Nyjer Morgan then went to DC and put up a +40 UZR/150 in CF, which BTW perfectly jives with his career average there (of course, it’s still a small sample size).
If the CF is going to catch anything he can get to...
how is he going to “pick up” responsibility for MORE balls with this alignment? HIS position isn’t changing. He’s going to catch about the same amount as he always was. If anything…he’s going to catch LESS balls because the LF is now going to get a few at the edges of the CF area that he couldn’t reach with standard positioning. The “zones” are FIXED, they do NOT move with outfielder position. The ONLY difference in the zones is the outer boundary (fence, wall).
Evidently, the Pirates coaching staff feels that it is a positive benefit to go with their alignment. All I am saying is that this particular statistic, the way it is constructed, produces output that is non-standard because of the positioning.
If the goal is to have the highest UZR, then everyone would be using the positioning. The goal is to win baseball games. If the positioning actually could be proven to win baseball games, everyone would be using it, and that isn’t happening.
A career average UZR/150 for Morgan in CF?? Morgan started a whopping 41 games in CF for the Pirates in parts of 3 season. And 46 in DC…that’s about half a season.
It's possible that the approach isn't optimal for other teams...
…because their parks are configured differently than ours, and that if they all played in copies of PNC Park, they’d use the shift too.
Would we not see the other teams configure their fielders similarly when they play in Pittsburgh?? I don’t recall other teams doing it. And, from my limited ability to see road games (listen to more of them), the Pirates seem to use the alignment both at home and on the road (at least I have heard the announcers mention it enough).
Players need reps to adjust to the new positioning.
So it would be worth it for a home stadium, but probably not a road one.
That’s probably also why the Pirate stick with it in road games. It may be slightly sub-optimal for those games, but it’s less disruptive to the players’ ability to field at home by having them do one thing rather than flipping back and forth. Kind of like how Ron Gardenhire uses a set lineup order even when he’s giving a starter a rest day.
In theory, anyhow.
As another example of the same sort of thing...
…consider the “Coors hangover” that suppresses offense for Colorado players in their first few games on a road trip, even above and beyond what you’d expect from the park effects.
You may be misunderstanding what I mean by responsibility.
In real terms, the CF’s job is to catch everything he can – you are correct.
But when balls drop between the CF and the corner OFs, the negative score that they get in UZR is divided between the CF and the corner according to the average amount of balls that are caught in that zone in the league. They are each docked according to their percentage of “responsibility”.
So, let’s say with “normal” positioning, there are 10 balls that fall between the CF and LF in a particular zone, and balls caught in that zone are usually caught 50/50 between the CF and LF. Let’s say with the no-triples defense, 4 of those balls are caught. This saves both the CF and the LF half of the demerits from those would be hits. So, the CF gets +2 and the LF gets +2.
Now, let’s say the no-triples defense also causes 4 extra balls to fall in for hits near the line of the LF. Since 100% of balls caught in that zone are caught by the LF, and 0% by the CF, the LF gets ALL the demerits from those balls dropping. So, the LF gets -4.
In this scenario, which is logically true if the no-triples defense is a wash, the total effect on UZR for the LF would be -2, and for the CF +2.
Now, if the no-triples defense actually costs only half as much down the line as it saves in the gap (+4 in the gap and -2 down the line), then the effect for the LF would be +0.
That’s why I’m saying the no-triples defense would have to save an enormous amount of runs for it to be beneficial in the UZR stat of the LF. More likely, it is actually detrimental to them, even if it saves runs on the whole.
If the positioning actually could be proven to win baseball games, everyone would be using it, and that isn’t happening. Sorta rebuttal
The everyone would be doing it comment ASSUMES INTELLIGENCE OF ALL PEOPLE. That I think is a flaw. Heck, back in the old days batting average was given so much emphasis that a .300 hitter with no power would be seen as an amazing player even if he didn’t walk. a .296/.326/.398 player can be considered a pretty good hitter, (Manny Sanguillen’s career stats, catcher, but still). I’m sure there are TONS of examples throughout baseball history of the majority of people getting it wrong on an issue. The term “conventional wisdom” was created as a perjorative term, and baseball bears that out. Just because something is right, doesn’t mean everyone knows it, especially in baseball.
One note on positioning, Neil Huntington admitted personally to me that the team believed Nate McClouth should play shallow because they believed he had a skill at chasing balls behind him, MAYBE, (not surely, but maybe), his UZR increase when he moved to the Braves had something to do with changing his positioning?
You make a good point
I do believe that the positioning would have to been obviously better for people to adopt it league wide. I think it probably has a positive effect, but it’s hard to say it is overwhelmingly obvious at this point.
Nate was actually positive in CF for the Pirates in 2009 before the trade with a UZR/150 of +11. They may have decided that it was a mistake to have him play so shallow in 2008.
Furthermore
Unlike some of the other advanced stats, which basically slice and dice already-available data (unless I’m mistaken, OPS+ could have been calculated just as readily in 1940 as today, albeit more laboriously), UZR and plus/minus rely on careful video analysis of every single hit in all of baseball. This simply wasn’t available in the past, with the result that mediocre fielders who seemed impressive got great reputations; indeed, this still happens among non-seamheads (coughMcLouthGGcough).
Point being, if you’re just relying on the impressions of people who move around from game to game, and none of whom see more than 1/8 of all games played (and none of whom see equal samples of all players), then you simply don’t have the data to judge something like the no-triples defense. We’re talking about something that’s worth maybe a couple wins per season (because, again, it only works with reasonably good OFs, who are already fairly good at preventing runs in a standard alignment) – who could see that subtle a difference (one run saved per 8 games) with their naked eyes? Especially when it’s so much more common sensical to space your fielders about evenly?
You're correct about OPS+.
Branch Rickey was, unsurprisingly, kind of at the forefront of such things. Here‘s an article he wrote for LIFE magazine in the ’50s, where he’s talking about how he uses stats like OBP and isolated power.
Rickey was always looking for that little extra edge. Kind of the baseball equivalent of the old-school bar fighter who hid a razor blade in the brim of his hat, just in case…
1) Possibly true. There aren’t any good measures of the hands component of 1B defense, and Clement’s sample there is so small that the range numbers are pretty much meaningless at this point. Given the absence of evidence, I’d be inclined to give the FO the benefit of the doubt on this one.
2) Somewhat misleading, for the reasons that Mark states. Both players are problematic to assess going forward, due to injuries in 2009.
3) Jones’s numbers up to this point emphatically do not support the conclusion that he’s a better defender than Moss. Jones does seem to have the physical tools to be a better defender than he is, but given that he hasn’t acquired the necessary skills up to this point despite years of effort, it seems doubtful that he ever will.
4) 2009 shows that Cedeno CAN be above average, but not necessarily that it’s particularly likely that he will be. He’s in a spot that’s similar to Jones: Tools that suggest untapped defensive ability, and a performance record that suggests otherwise.
5) True. Milledge did make some high-profile mistakes at times, but the overall quality of his play seemed very good, and he seems to be deriving benefit from the extra outfield instruction. I have no trouble believing that he can be an above-average LF glove in 2010.
6) Positioning doesn’t necessarily affect all players uniformly, given that they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, and various configurations may fit together in a more complementary fashion than others. I’ll buy that there’s some room for optimization via positioning in the defense, but I think they may be overstating the magnitude of the effect.
Didn't someone just come out
And say that Adam’s scoops were the best (or just behind the best) in the league? Given that a 1B fields 10X more throws than hits, there’s at least as much value in hands as in “range.” You’d like to think that Clement’s catching background will translate to competence at this aspect of 1B pretty quickly, but it’s also the aspect where there’s the most ground to make up wrt LaRoche. Unless you don’t buy that rating.
Dammit
Feel like I saw it just in the last 5 days.
Anyway, I think that I’m not on a limb in saying that LaRoche has a rep for good hands, which is key to the point I was making above. Clement’s natural strength as a 1B – receiving thrown balls – at best leaves him a bit behind LaRoche (who was a good receiver with much more experience), while LaRoche’s weakness (fielding hit balls) is likely to be Clement’s as well. Even if Clement acclimates quickly, it’s almost inevitable that you’re losing D relative to Adam.
Scoops
Dejan and Biertempfel both mentioned it last Thursday, citing STATS Inc. Tango also had a short post about it.
Looks like...
…this was the ultimate source.
Without knowing how they calculate/assess scoops, or even the full range of player outcomes, I’m not sure how to evaluate that datum.
Nice work, people
I’m not so much worried about methodology (it’s not as if “scoops” are an esoteric concept at 1B; my big question is whether it includes bad throws not in the dirt, or exclusively dirty balls), as I am in wondering about year-to-year changes. If this list looked about the same for 2008, then I’m treating it as meaningful on some level; but if it gets significantly scrambled, then it may simply be a noisy stat that doesn’t tell you much.
Regarding positioning
As I said above, I think the Pirates’ positioning of the LF and CF is clever, and gets extra value out of any fast LF. It’s much less clear that the Pirates will be able to come up with more clever positioning to optimize the strengths and weaknesses of their other fielders.
BTW, did anyone else think that Jones was playing awfully deep on Monday? I was at field level (awesome scalped ticket), so I didn’t have the best view, but several times I looked out and was shocked at how deep he was. OTOH, he failed to flag a couple deep shots, and he made those 2 very mice plays coming in, so perhaps it’s entirely intentional – they recognize that he has the speed to come in but lacks the instincts to go back, so they push him 10 or 20 feet deeper than orthodox positioning.
Or not. I’m asking.
You can play some tricks with IF postioning, too.
Like the Yankees covering for Jeter’s weakness on balls to his left.
Jones looked better coming forward than going back to me as well. But it’s just one game, and therefore not necessarily representative.
Projecting a 70 run swing on defense is a little hard to believe. Matt Bandi took a shot at comparing 2009 defense to 2010 and came away with a projected 32 run difference. Check it out.
This deserves more attention...
There are little things here and there you can quibble with in that link, but that is essentially the process you should try for this. Also note that even if we brought back the exact same squad from 2009 we’d more likely than not come in below the numbers from 2009 thanks to regression to the mean.
The career numbers are more important than the one-season sample. The difference between Iwamura and Sanchez for their career at 2nd is .5 wins, and Wilson – Cedeno is 1 win. Adam LaRoche at -5 vs. Clement at -5 is a 0 win difference. Jones – Moss is 2 wins, and Milledge – Morgan is 4 wins (Oops!).
-.5
-1
0
-2
-4
That’s -7.5 wins over 150 games between the two groups, which is misleading for several reasons but we’ll go with it anyway.
If we assmue the Milledge-Morgan difference will only be 2 runs due to Milledge’s improvements, then the difference for the starting lineups over 150 games is- 5.5 wins. I think this shows a better picture, because the career numbers are more important (with the subjective exception of Milledge because of his age and massive improvements
That 5.5 wins...
is still an awful lot of offense and pitching to pick up, especially with few faces changing.
Well, two of the most favorable in that respect are Jones vs. Moss, and Adam LaRoche’s April-July vs. Clement.
by Adam Reynolds on Apr 7, 2010 6:08 PM EDT up reply actions
We had Jones for half the season already last year. If he produces at the rate he did last year, he’d make up maybe 2.5 of those wins. Of course, that will require him to hit 40+ HR. Figure that LaRoche got maybe 40% of his WAR with the Pirates (since his time with Atlanta was much better, although fewer games)…that would give him about 1 WAR. So Clement will need to be at least a +2 WAR player. Which is reachable.
Remember, though, that just gets us back to where we were last year.
that may be...
fangraphs (the first place I looked this evening) didn’t have it broken down by teams.
You have to hit “Show Partial Seasons”.
by Adam Reynolds on Apr 7, 2010 8:53 PM EDT up reply actions
I fail to see...
1. As Vlad said, the information about 1st basemen isn’t very advanced. Laroche wasn’t much on range, and neither is Clement, to what degree is to be determined. Laroche’s picks were very good, but that is what I am concerned least about Clement.
2. I fail to see how Freddy is 10 runs better defensively than Iwamura no matter the situation. Maybe 5 runs, but 10 seems ridiculous.
3. Jones vs. Moss is a big downgrade, how much I don’t really know, but I would think it is closer to 1 win than 2.
4. Agreed about Wilson to Cedeno. I think Crosby is better than Cedeno offensively and defensively.
5. I don’t buy that Nyjer is a +27 fielder, and I don’t buy that Milledge is +16, both seem closer to +15 and +5. But 1 win sounds alright.
FWIW, is it possible that McCutchen, Laroche, and Doumit improve their defense as well (especially McCutchen)?
Nice job, Mark—there are a lot of dubious statements in there, and when you listen to NH actually say this stuff, he’s jumping back and forth so quickly it’s hard to tell what he’s saying. That’s not like him. I don’t mean to speculate, but it sounds like he’s uncomfortable saying them.
You’re more charitable with regard to his Jones/Moss comparison than I would be.
1) OK, Clement’s defense is supposedly pretty bad, so I guess -10 runs is as good a guess as any. Kind of hard to say without seeing more of him at 1B. -1 win,
2) Isn’t the real 09/10 comparison Iwamura vs Freddy Sanchez AND Delwyn Young? Sanchez was +4 runs in 85 games at 2B and DY was -6.6 runs in 53 games, so the 09 Pirates “Regular 2B” was -2.6 runs. Iwamura should be able to do better than that. Call it +.5 win.
3) Alright, I guess. Not really convinced that Moss is truly a +10 glove out there, but the numbers are what they are. -2 wins.
4) Would rather use career numbers to compare Wilson and Cedeno to take care of the sample size issues. That gives us -1 win. Crosby will play some too, and he’s just about as good as Wilson with the glove. Call it -.75.
5) Agree with element1286 that both Morgan and Milledge will regress some this year. -1 win.
6) Yeah, kind of a dumb statement.
That gives us -4.25 wins on defense compared to last year. Interestingly, the Pirates had the 7th best team UZR last year, but were 14th in Defensive Efficiency Rating, so UZR may have overstated our defensive prowess last year.
You could just as easily say that DER understated our defensive prowess instead…it seems like you are implicitly assuming that DER is correct and that the UZR must be flawed and not vice versa…
DER is just the percentage of balls in play that turn into outs.
It can’t be “wrong”. It is what it is, just like a player’s batting average is the percentage of AB that turn into hits.
Now, if you want to try and say that our DER is not representative of our defensive skill, for whatever reason, that’s a separate thing…
And most of those positive stats (UZR, DER) were mainly because of the defense in the first half of the season. The Pirates actually ranked 24th in DER from the trade deadline to the end of the season according to Baseball Prospectus.
Mercifully, we're going to get some of that back, though.
Delwyn Young wasn’t our only problem, but he was a pretty significant defensive hole in and of himself.
Not to mention
Jones should improve just based on more MLB experience (everyone says MLB is faster than AAA, right? Stands to reason that there’ll be at least some learning curve for all but the best), plus (we hope) not being moved around the field so much. I’m not expecting a radical turnaround, but Jones ’10 vs. Jones ’09 should be worth, I dunno, 5-10 runs? Andy should also look better just by playing 6 months at the level he did for ~4 months last year.
Not saying it’s all sunshine and lollipops – and I think Mark is right that NH is more or less full of it – but there should be some natural improvements that reduce the projected ugliness.
I don't know that I'd count on any improvement from Jones...
…though I certainly wouldn’t complain if we got it.
i wouldnt be surprised
if he learnt to measure fly balls better. It seemed to me over the 2 games that everytime he had a ball hit in his direction (a fly ball, i think he judges balls hit below head height pretty well), there was some hesitation/uncertainty in his step. He hasn’t played OF a lot, and I would think there’s a decent chance that might go away with reps at the position. His skills themselves may not improve that much.
by skills
I mean the stuff that makes one an above average-very good defender- I know its kind of a blanket statement, but hopefully you understand what I mean.
He's got almost 300 career games there...
…between the majors and the minors. You’re right about the uncertainty, but I think it’s less a function of him being unfamiliar with the position, and more a function of him just not reacting well on balls in the air.
I’m not saying it can’t happen, or that I wouldn’t like it if it did happen, just that I don’t expect it to happen.
Just to be clear
My premise isn’t that Jones will continue to improve his defense in the way that NyjMo did. I just meant that his 2009 defense included an acclimation period (I simply don’t see how any non-exceptional player could play his first month in the bigs as well as he can play several months later – butterflies, new backgrounds, different lighting, better hitters, no familiarity with pitchers or hitters, etc. Unless you think that not a single one of those factors has any impact at all, then there’s inevitable effects, ones that should only be bigger for worse defenders), whereas 2010 shouldn’t. Plus, he shouldn’t be shifting back and forth to 1B as much (boy was today ugly), which should be worth a bit as well.
In short, his RF play in 2010 may be very similar to his RF play in September 2009; I just think that his overall RF play in 2009 was brought down by his acclimation + position switching. Not a big effect, but visible. Although I suppose that, given year-to-year swings in UZR, it may get swamped by general variation.
Since I think his RF play was still pretty awful in September 2009...
…for me it’s a distinction without a difference.
umm
Let say your down big and the shoddy defense gives up runs does really matter. In other words how do you get from total minus runs to actual losses the might accrue. I think as you become better as a team and play in close games bad range and suspect defense comes into play more. Now clutch defense is what you really want.
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