Fangraphs continues to become the stat site for sabermetric player stats. Today they announce the addition of MGL’s UZR fielding system which is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated fielding systems available.
UZR has been largely unavailable for the last several seasons because MGL has been consulting for big league teams. He’s posted leaders and trailers the last few years, but now the full data set is available. The only difference is that this set uses Baseball Info Solutions data instead of STATS Inc.
You can find them on the player pages and leader boards on Fangraphs site. But I thought I would drop in a few of interest here. These are runs per 150 games.
Jack Wilson: 06: -2.8, 07: 12.7, 08: 2.2
Adam Everett: 06: 24.9, 07: 24.4, 08: 10.0
Cesar Izturis: 06: -10.8, 07: -2.5, 08: 12.5
Edgar Renteria: 06: 2.1, 07: -2.2, 08: 1.1
Interesting, but as with most other fielding measures it’s a rather blunt instrument. I think of fielding skills as just those: skills, and they would be apparent whether a person’s UZR is -10, 0 or +10 from year to year. Results don’t always tell the story. Otherwise, are we to believe Cesar Izturis had terrible fielding skills three seasons ago, but then acquired them this past season?
I think UZR is yet another measure that can be used directionally, in conjunction with other fielding measures, to confirm the existence of skills already observed over time. Good numbers, just not proof positive.
Ramon Santiago was in the negative, Renteria in the positive. I don’t really believe that, but it is further support for those who think Santiago’s defense isn’t as good as it’s cracked up to be.
Punto was surprisingly good, I’ll take him or Everett on the cheap with Santiago.
This is amazing. So, so stoked.