A glance at defense
posted in 2007 season, Analysis |As The Hardball Times released an update of its zone ratings (definition), which is just one of several defensive metrics out there, I thought I’d look to see how some Tigers starters are doing. Just a quick primer, the stat measures how many balls a player gets to inside a defined area by their position. Further, higher number is better. It’s hard to put into perspective how much better the image of their defense looks, but this is just one way to glance and compare.
- 1st base, Sean Casey, near the bottom of the majors. Cleveland’s Casey Blake is about average, if you want to compare.
- 2nd base, Placido Polanco is in the upper 10 of the majors.
- 3rd base, Brandon Inge ranks seventh at third base.
- SS, Carlos Guillen is seventh from the bottom. Derek Jeter is nearly at the bottom. Make what you will of that one!
- OF, Curtis Granderson is second at CF, behind Ichiro; Magglio Ordonez, RF, middle to upper third ranking; and there’s no everyday left fielder to speak of.
Just from the perspective of what I observe, I think those rankings look pretty much on.
Also, Pudge Rodriguez has let by quite a few wild pitches and passed balls that he would have gotten to in past years. His percentage of runners caught stealing is half what it was last year — or the rest of his career.
Another ranking is for the team: defensive efficiency. That’s the number of batted balls turned into outs. If 8 batted balls are turned into outs, it’s .800. Average is about .700.
The Tigers were near the best in baseball in 2006. In 2007, they have .6995, which ranks them 19th.
From my perspective, this makes sense too. I think you can tell the defense isn’t as good. Guillen is making too many blunders at second short (oops). I’m not real happy with Casey’s play at first. Inge is good, but makes errors at third. And the outfield, outside of Granderson, is not very impressive. I think Magglio Ordonez is playing better defense, but it doesn’t strike me as a strong point of the team.
Conclusion: While we look at the pitchers and say they’re not doing as well this year — pretty clear that is true — they’re not getting as much help as they did last year either. The defense has to step up, too. Cam Maybin adjusting to left field faster would help this, but let’s remember the kid is 20 and learning a new position in the majors, even if it’s similar to his natural center field. So it’s pretty clear this is the defense dealt to the Tigers pitches this year. They’ll just have to make the best of it.
Sphere It
When catchers get old, they crash fast. Pudge is definitely on that trajectory.
I’m hearing rumors that Tigers are looking to pick up a bat…any new news?
Isn’t there a stat - uh, DERA that is defense adjusted ERA? I have no illusions about the Tigers pitchers this season, but using that stat we could say more definitively how much is pitching being wacky and scary and how much is the defensive playing of everyone else.
Yeah the Tigers are mostly looking at Piazza to pick up for mostly DH since they are not sure whether or not Sheffield will be back for the rest of the season. They were also reportedly looking at Sosa.
As a follower of the A’s — and fantasy baseball — I’m not really sure why they’d want Piazza. Sosa, sure, maybe.
Sosa strikes out too much for my taste. Piazza at least puts the ball in play. Plus, in the Tigers lineup, Piazza might get more protection if he hit third ahead of Magglio, and if he sees good pitches, he’s likely to spike his average and OBP.
Putting my baseball prospectus subscription to good use, here’s the DERAs for the past two years for the Tiger’s starters.
Verlander: 2006: 3.78 2007: 3.88
Bonderman: 2006: 4.28 2007: 4.97
Robertson: 2006: 4.17 2007: 4.88
The definition of DERA:
DERA
Defense-adjusted ERA. Not to be confused with Voros McCracken’s Defense-Neutral ERA. Based on the PRAA, DERA is intended to be a defense-independent version of the NRA. As with that statistic, 4.50 is average. Note that if DERA is higher than NRA, you can safely assume he pitched in front of an above-average defense.
And since it depends on NRA:
Normalized Runs Allowed. “Normalized runs” have the same win value, against a league average of 4.5 and a pythagorean exponent of 2, as the player’s actual runs allowed did when measured against his league average.
So even with a under performing defense, the pitching appears to have gotten worse. That doesn’t even consider the replacement of 2006 Kenny Rogers (DERA 4.22) with 2007 Andrew Miller (DERA 5.04) and Chad Durbin (4.69).
Yes, the pitching is definitely worse. More walks, fewer strikeouts. I’m not sure about home run totals off the top of my head.
kurt, Thanks for the update.
In regards to the question about fielding independent pitching, the Tigers had an ERA (3.84) much lower than their FIP ERA (4.33) in 2006. This is an indication that their ERA was enhanced by good fielding support. This year, their ERA (4.76) is similar to their FIP ERA (4.71). So, while their pitching is worse this year, some of the increase in ERA could be due to inferior defense.
Lee
yeah I’m thinking a move will be made soon. they gotta do something
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