Category Archives: Defense

A statistical look at defense as it relates to the Detroit Tigers.

2007 Season, Defense

Two Tigers win Gold Gloves, but not the right two

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Ivan Rodriguez and Placido Polanco were honored today as MLB announced the Gold Glove winners. For Pudge it was his 13th while it was Polanco’s first. But were they the most deserving Tigers? Rob Neyer took a look at the inherent biases or trends in the voting. A couple of these helped the Tigers (previous winner, fielding percentage, offensive contribution), and a couple hurt the Tigers.

Pudge Rodriguez

We’ll start with Pudge Rodriguez who saw his caught stealing rate drop to 30.9%. That was still a little above average in 2007 when base stealers in the AL were successful 73.2% of the time, but hardly Gold Glove worthy. Kenji Johjima gunned down 46.5% of would be base stealers. Even dubious stats like passed balls didn’t favor Rodriguez as he was charged with 7 while Johjima was charged with 5 in 54 more innings. And that isn’t even inclusive of the numerous wild pitches which could have been scored either way. Then throw in 6 errors and the picture is bleak for Pudge who won the award entirely off his reputation.

Placido Polanco

Moving to Placido Polanco, his win was certainly defensible. While errors and fielding percentage is a flawed stat, making it though a season without an error is still a remarkable achievement. While the error that was charged to Polanco and later assigned to Marcus Thames is certainly debatable, it was the only instance that I can recall where the streak was helped by the scorer. Throw in Polanco’s .341 batting average and it is easy to see why he would garner votes. But in looking at other metrics he lagged his peers.

Looking at +/- in the The Bill James Handbook 2008, Polanco was a respectable +10. That trailed Aaron Hill (+22), Mark Ellis (+19), and Robinson Cano (+17) considerably. If you don’t like +/- those same 3 appear as the best (but in a different order) using UZR as well. Polanco rates a little better using Revised Zone Rating, but he still is sandwiched between Ellis and Hill and made over 100 fewer plays than Ellis and nearly 150 fewer plays than Hill.

I like Polanco and am happy to see him receive some recognition. But the evidence just doesn’t show him as the best fielding 2nd baseman in the AL.

Brandon Inge

Now it’s time to stir the pot with some Brandon Inge controversy. Adrian Beltre took home the hardware for third basemen this year. Beltre is an excellent defender so this isn’t a bad choice at all. The trouble is, as Neyer pointed out, the award was a year late. Beltre should have won it in 2006. This year Brandon Inge beat him in UZR (+12 versus +5). Inge also beat him in +/- as Brandon amassed a +22, second only to Pedro Feliz. Nick Punto was next closest in the AL at +10 while Beltre was a solid +7. Inge was 2nd in the AL in RZR behind Mike Lowell and in total made 45 more plays on balls in his zone than any other AL third sacker. Beltre bests him only in plays on balls made out of his zone, 64 to 63. But even in fielding percentage where Inge typically gets dinged, he posted a .959 to Beltre’s .958.

Brandon Inge was deserving of the award this year, and it wasn’t a 1 year fluke. Looking at the 3 year +/- numbers only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adam Everett, and Pedro Feliz have a better rate than Inge.

Curtis Granderson

This one is the hardest to figure. Granderson seemed to do many of the things that help you win gold gloves.

Solid offensive season? Check. He was top 10 in slugging, OPS, Runs, Total Bases, and Triples. Plus he had that whole quad-20 thing which was arbitrary, but still remarkable and attention gathering.
Winning team? Check. The Tigers were in contention all year and received plenty of attention.
Highlight plays? Check. His homer rob of Wily Mo Pena was the #2 web gem. Plus he had some high profile diving catches including a triple/run saving catch on Sunday night baseball and a game saving catch in an August pennant race tilt against the Indians.

Not that any of the above are legitimate reasons for winning, but they do seem to resonate well with voters.

As for his actual case, he had the highest RZR in the American League regardless of position.

Looking at +/- he was second only to Coco Crisp (also a deserving candidate) at +21 just behind Crisp’s +22. Gold Glove winner Ichiro was at +4 and other winners Grady Sizemore and Torii Hunter weren’t in the top 10. (the annual only lists the top ten and bottom 5 at each position.

Looking at UZR, Sizemore rates well at +26 leading AL centerfielders with Granderson second at +18 (Crisp and Dejesus tied for 3rd at +13). Meanwhile Ichiro was -14.

If you’re skeptical of the advanced metrics, that is understandable. When some players rate inconsistently across them it is hard to know where the truth lies. But Granderson rated at or near the top across the board, which is more than can be said for the other fielders except for Crisp.

I’m not overly upset with the results. The Gold Gloves have long been flawed awards. But when someone describes a player as a gold glover it is important to note whether they are using the generic term for a very good defender, or whether they are actually toting someone’s hardware. The former probably carries more weight even if the latter carries more prestige.

2007 Season, Defense

Defense shaky early

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This is more an observation than a concern at this point, but the Tigers defense just hasn’t looked good in the early going.

The Tigers pitching staff received many accolades for keeping runs off the board last year. But the stat-minded folks pointed to the the lower strike out numbers and wondered how they were getting it done. A great deal of the credit deserved to go to the defense which led the AL in defensive efficiency (the rate at which balls in play were converted to outs).

However, in two games I’ve already seen a couple pop-flies fall in between the outfielders and infielders. I’ve seen Magglio Ordonez battle the wind and lose. I’ve seen 2 runners steal off of Pudge Rodriguez. I’ve seen a couple wild pitches, that didn’t look that wild, sneak past Pudge. I also saw Pudge not try for a likely double play on a foul pop-up. I’ve seen Brandon Inge fumble a routine ground ball and make 2 bad throws that were rescued by Placido Polanco and Sean Casey.

I’m not worried at this point, but more disappointed. The team played so crisp right out of the gate last year, seeing the lack of communication and execution is a little disheartening.

Not everything has been bad though. Carlos Guillen has played exceptionally well with a handful of “wow” type plays already under his belt.

I know it’s only 2 games, and the wind was definitely a factor, but if the pitchers hope to replicate their success from last year they’ll need help from a stalwart defense.

2006 Season, Defense, Pitching

Making their own luck

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In my last post I pointed out that Kenny Rogers, Nate Robertson, and Justin Verlander were the beneficiaries of some combination of good defense and good luck. Basically I was trying to point out that while all 3 had solid seasons, there were some breaks that were beyond their control that went their way. But I as thought a little more, specifically about gold glover Rogers, how much did the pitchers help their own cause?

Fortunately, Pinto has already published the individual PMR numbers for pitchers. By subtracting the pitcher’s contribution from the total team’s defense when he was on the mound, we can see who was leaning on the guys behind him the most.

The order of the list gets shuffled. Kenny Rogers accounted for a third of the plays above expected. And Justin Verlander had pretty much neutral defense behind him. Meanwhile, Nate Robertson got the most help.

In the comments to the other post Brian questioned why some pitchers consistently exceed or lag their fielding independent stats. The pitcher’s ability to help his own cause may – emphasis on may – in some cases be a part of the reason.

2006 Season, Defense, Pitching, Statistics

Luck of the Pitcher

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I think it is pretty common knowledge at this point, that in large part the Tigers pitchers results exceeded their performance last year. If you subscribe to the DiPS theory, that pitchers have limited ability to control whether balls in play turn into hits, then in general the Tigers pitchers got by without striking out a lot of guys because the defense was so good behind them. Part of me wondered it the pitchers still deserved some of the credit. That perhaps they were allowing more “fieldable” balls, thus having better defense behind them.

Well David Pinto at Baseball Musings has answered the question.
Continue reading Luck of the Pitcher →

Defense, Minors, Tiger History

Quick Links

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We’re over the hump of the offseason and news is flowing now. So these link posts might get to be more frequent.

On another note, if anybody makes it down to TigerFest and would like to share their experiences drop me a line. I screwed up and waited too long for tickets so the boy and I are missing out.

2007 Season, Defense, Fan Experience, Former Tigers, Pitching

Midweek Linking

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Defense, Offense, Players, Statistics

The problem with Sean Casey

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When Sean Casey was resgined I indicated I didn’t like the deal, but never really elaborated. My issue is that as nice a guy as Sean Casey is, he just isn’t very good.

Offensively Casey is at best an average hitter. His OPS+ since 2002 looks like this (OPS+ indexes a players OPS against the league average. 100 means the player is average, values above 100 mean above average)

Year	OPS+
2002	78
2003	98
2004	142
2005	104
2006	87

Over the last 5 seasons Casey has had 1 good year, 2 average years, and 2 bad years. Even if Casey can regain his earlier form, that merely means he is an average offensive player at a position where considerable offense is expected.

So for the sake of argument let’s assume that Casey gets back to be a league average hitter. That puts him slightly below average at his position. But what about defense? Continue reading The problem with Sean Casey →

2006 Season, Defense, Tiger History

Off Day Linking and Site News

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  • It appears that comment spam problem is taken care of. It wasn’t a specific attack on me, but Akismet, which is a service that does spam filtering went down. The tide has been stemmed so no need to register for now
  • Tiger blogger night is one week from Tuesday. Big Al will be joining the ranks and I received emails from a couple readers as well. If you’re interested in joining us, we are sitting in mezzanine section 212 row 1.
  • Greg Eno draws parallels between the upcoming series, and a labor day series against the Yankees from 1961.
  • Baseball stat guru Tom Tango (aka TangoTiger) and author of The Book is conducting his annual Fan Scouting Report. In past years the Tigers have been underrepresented in the polling. With a little more interest this year, there might be more response. (Hat Tip Tiger Tales)
  • Kurt broke down the Tigers recent string of losses. It just goes to show there are many ways to lose a game.
  • While I disagree with Pat Caputo on a regular basis, we’re on the same page in terms of Neifi Perez. While other local writers are still defending the move and Leyland’s decision to play him everyday, it’s nice to see one member of the media see what everyone else is seeing.
2006 Season, Defense, Offense, Players

Verlander, Granderson, Maybin and More

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Justin Verlander Thwarts Running Game

One of my favorite baseball columns is Dave Studemund’s “Ten Things I Didn’t Know Last Week” piece he writes for Hardball Times. This week’s column highlights just how hard it is to run on Justin Verlander. We know about his lightning quick pick-off move that has gunned down 5 victims. You may not know that only 1 base has successfully been stolen off of Verlander. What may be even more impressive is that only 4 runners have tried. So he has more pickoffs than attempted steals, which my intuition tells me is rare. What makes it all the more incredible is that he is doing it right handed. Those numbers are what you expect from the top southpaws.

Curtis is the clutchiest

Another tidbit from the same column points to a blog that looks at WPA data from Fangraphs and regular batting data to determine who has been “clutch” this year. It essentially looks at what a batter’s line would typically contribute in terms of wins, and compares it to WPA wins.

For the Tigers Curtis Granderson has contributed 1.462 wins more than his batting line would indicate making him the clutchiest Tiger so far. At -1.2 Chris Shelton has been least clutch. In a strange twist, Placido Polanco has been the second clutchest Tiger. While his WPA total is only .329 wins, his overall poor offensive contributions are good for -.618 wins. So Polanco is making the most of the offense he has provided.

Cameron Maybin likes the opposite field

The website FirstInning.com has batted ball charts for minor league players. I took a look at Cameron Maybin’s and noticed some interesting trends.

First, he pulls the ball less than the average right handed hitter, and less than he hits it to right field. On balls hit in the air, only 7% have gone to left or left center while 15% have gone to right or right center.

Second, he is really putting his speed to work. He is hitting .422 on ground balls hit to the left side where the average right hander hits .258. In Maybin’s case that is an additional 7 hits more than the typical player.

Third, the man hasn’t bunted yet this year.

The Tigers don’t need a position player

Nate Silver wrote a very interesting piece at Baseball Prospectus that took a look at the big 3 bats available (Bobby Abreu, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee) and the 7 teams that would have a shot at acquiring them. The piece is premium so I’ll just give you cliff notes (but really a subscription to BP is something you should consider).

Silver looked at what the incremental gain would be of adding said player over what that player would be replacing. The Tigers are expected to get more production from Monroe/Thames/Young than any of the other contenders are getting in their current situations. This means that while any of the 3 would be an upgrade, it would be less of an upgrade for the Tigers (who are actually getting slightly above average production).

Second, he took a look to see which teams had the most to gain in terms of securing a playoff spot. Because the Tigers are already at 95% to make the playoffs, the incremental value of adding anyone is pretty small.

The bottom line is that from this analysis the Tigers have very little to gain by acquiring one of these players – at least in terms of making it to the playoffs.

Now this is just one analysis and is dependent on players performing like they would be expected to perform, and it doesn’t take into account the psychological aspects of adding or not adding to a team. But it is interesting nonetheless.

2006 Season, Defense, Pitching, Trade Rumors

Links and stuff

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Between anniversaries, and attending Tiger games, and work, I’ve got a pile of links to power through:

  • The Baseball Crank took a look at the Tigers pitching. He found that through the 29th, the Tigers were in some rare company. In terms of the Tigers ratio of ERA to league average ERA they stood as the 6th best of all time.
  • The Sporting Brews has taken a very indepth and thoughtful look at the Tigers pitchers success, and how much is impacted by defense. It is well worth the read. The whole seperation of pitching and defense is always fascinating to me. As has been well documented, for the season the Tigers have played excellent defense. Some say it is luck, some say it is skill. In any case the pitchers benefit. But the big mystery is whether the defense has just been better on its own, or are the pitchers throwing more fieldable balls and whether or not this is even a skill.
  • Things are going so well for the Tigers this year, the national media even saying don’t worry about a couple of tough games. Tom Verducci says the Tigers are still for real, and they even get a mention on the cover of today’s Sports Illustrated.
  • Buster Olney has really been pushing the idea of Barry Bonds as a Tiger. He’s listed Detroit and the Yankees as the top two likely destinations for Barry next year. Now he’s speculating that an in season trade may make sense for both parties. I just really don’t see it. Now if the Giants would let him go as just a massive salary dump, looking for minimal stuff in return…I’d think about it. Of course it’s not my money. It would be a left handed bat, with no long term commitment. As for signing him next year? I’d be very disappointed if Bonds was their target.
Contracts, Defense, Statistics, Uncategorized

Quick Hits

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Some brief notes an links as I prepare to have 14 preschoolers over for a birthday party tomorrow…

Monroe Re-ups

The Detroit Tigers avoided arbitration hearings completely this year with Craig Monroe now under contract. He signed for one year and $2.8 million. A fair deal all around, and the two sides essentially split the difference from their initial offers.

Defensive Wrap-Ups

I’ve been doing quite a bit of defensive comparisons lately, and using a bunch of metrics. Coincidentally there were a couple of articles today summarizing the various measures. Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts did a piece for SI outlining the quest for the perfect defensive measure.

In the same vein, David Gassko of the Hardball Times compared the various metrics in articles located here and here. (via Baseball Musings)

Granderson goes home

A nice article about Curtis Granderson visiting his middle school alma mater.

Tiger Stadium rotting and rocking

With Tiger Stadium playing host to Bud Bowl (a big party/concert) over Super Bowl weekend there have been a couple articles about it’s current state. ESPN had a long piece about the Stadium, and the lack of events held since the final game.

The Bud Bowl is one proposal that the city did approve. Rottach said Detroit is charging Anheuser-Busch $40,000 to rent the stadium. More important than the money, though, was the thoroughness of Anheuser-Busch’s proposal, which included a commitment to return the stadium to the exact specifications it had before.

Earlier in the week the Free Press ran a story, complete with pictures, about how run down the stadium had become. It included a picture of a tree growing in the stands, and part of a wall crumbling.

detroit, detroit tigers, baseball, tiger stadium

Defense, Players, Statistics, Uncategorized

Shelton Game

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Remember when it seemed like Chris Shelton didn’t have a position? In fact one local columnist didn’t include Shelton in last year’s Top 10 Tiger prospects because:

Shelton does not have a position and is unathletic. Last season, when he did get to play in the major leagues and rehab assignment at Toledo, he did not sting the ball. He hit well in arizona, but the caliber of competition was down this year.

Well it turns out that Shelton can play first base. According to PMR, he was a pretty average fielder last year, and given his offensive production, average defense is quite sufficient. (While he made more outs than expected, he fell in the middle of the pack). What’s more is that he was a superior defender compared to Carlos Pena.

Player InPlay Actual Outs Predicted Outs DER Predicted DER Difference
Chris B Shelton 2337 152 146.52 0.065 0.063 0.00234
Carlos Pena 1363 98 105.67 0.072 0.078 -0.00563

Similar to what I did in the Granderson/Logan comparison post, the numbers were interesting enough that I wanted to compare range stats between the two.

Category Pena Shelton
Innings 429.1 738.1
Zone Rating .798 .857
Range Factor 9.50 10.21
FRAA -2 0

Shelton comes out on top is every category. I’m not sure if everyone was just flat wrong in Shelton’s ability, or if he improved his game through a ton of hard work, but the results are encouraging. Now what isn’t included in first basemen range is the footwork around the bag. I’m not sure how it could even be quantified, but just from watching that seems to be an area where Pena excels.

While I still want to see Pena get at-bats, it is becoming more and more difficult to find reasons to take Shelton out of the lineup.
detroit tigers, chris shelton, carlos pena, baseball