Defense?

[The Rick]

Jerk or not, I'd say that your assessment of Markakis' fielding is a) biased b) based on watching him mostly on TV where you can't see him "off ball", as Buck would say, and see things like positioning and first step, and c) taking admitted flaws and blowing them out of proportion. You seem to think Nick is an above average RF with average to above range. The Numbers show him to be a below average RF with very poor range. The numbers certainly may be flawed but not so much as to make up that extreme of a difference IMO. I don't slavishly adhere to them, but as I have said many times before, when all three systems, Rtot, UZR, and FB are in agreement, I take that as a general indication of the player's level of ability. Really, what is the % of times they grossly mischaracterize players fielding? How often do they have a player in the top 10 at their position, who should be in the bottom 10 and vice versa?

Yes you do. That much is clearer than day.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yes you do. That much is clearer than day.

That's not really fair. He can also mindlessly extrapolate that Jay Gibbons was better skilled than Nick Markakis.

[crawjo]

Yes you're right about this, but that is because Nick and PA are not really Greek but from Krypton and PA has his cache of kryptonite (worth millions of shekels) buried in the mysterious RF corner at OPACY. Consequently the young Nick(beautiful when he is hot) endowed with super powers, is rendered weaker the closer he gets to that corner. When he plays away from OPACY he is the super star we would expect him to be. The real down side of all of this, is Kryptonians have a normal life expectancy of 200 years, so we are stuck with PA for another 120 .

Look, Nick Markakis is one of my all-time favorite Orioles. I don't mean to bash him but the last few years I don't think his range has been particularly good. People on this board want to imagine that he's the reincarnation of Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente, but he has limited range. Not Bobby Abreu with the Yankees limited, but below average based on my experience watching him play for the last few years, and watching countless games in my life, both in person and on television. I think I know how to judge a good right fielder and Markakis is not one, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but my point in posting here is that my impressions of his fielding are NOT based on numbers but on personal observation.

Edit: Or maybe you agree with my position. I can't keep track anymore.

[crawjo]

You have no basis to say that the numbers are not flawed enough to make an extreme difference. Even if the numbers say he was below average, we *know* that short porches with high walls tend to distort in-play stats, and we have no way of knowing that our park adjustments are good enough to compensate for this difference.

One example: Nick plays a ball that bounces off the wall about 3-4 feet above the ground. Because Nick is in 3 dimensions, we have no way of knowing that, even if he had positioned himself flush against the wall, he would have a serious play on the ball, because the trajectory of the ball might have been such that Nick might not have had a serious play on the ball without risking injury.

It's extremely naive and arrogant to think that just because you can't think of a way that the stats are flawed, that they must be nearly perfect. I have no doubt that UZR/FB are very good stats; certainly a major improvement in defensive stats compared to what we have had in the past, but that does not mean that they work for everyone.

I'm not sure if the wall plays that much into what these numbers are saying. The one thing I've noticed with Markakis is he does not catch many balls hit up the alley. I'm talking about that area just to the left of the wall (if you are facing the wall) where it starts to jut out a little bit. I think the groundskeepers are back there. Anyway, my subjective opinion here is that he gets to fewer of those balls hit in that area than opposing right fielders playing at OPACY do.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Look, Nick Markakis is one of my all-time favorite Orioles. I don't mean to bash him but the last few years I don't think his range has been particularly good. People on this board want to imagine that he's the reincarnation of Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente, but he has limited range. Not Bobby Abreu with the Yankees limited, but below average based on my experience watching him play for the last few years, and watching countless games in my life, both in person and on television. I think I know how to judge a good right fielder and Markakis is not one, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but my point in posting here is that my impressions of his fielding are NOT based on numbers but on personal observation.

I agree with you. Do you think the park/wall may be a reason why his numbers (objective data) are far better on the road than at home? Or perhaps he doesn't play OPACY as well as he should ?

[El Gordo]

Look, Nick Markakis is one of my all-time favorite Orioles. I don't mean to bash him but the last few years I don't think his range has been particularly good. People on this board want to imagine that he's the reincarnation of Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente, but he has limited range. Not Bobby Abreu with the Yankees limited, but below average based on my experience watching him play for the last few years, and watching countless games in my life, both in person and on television. I think I know how to judge a good right fielder and Markakis is not one, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but my point in posting here is that my impressions of his fielding are NOT based on numbers but on personal observation.

Edit: Or maybe you agree with my position. I can't keep track anymore.

I agree with you. I think he is exactly as the numbers repersent him, about a -4 RS. Good arm +6, and poosr range -10. His arm might be a tad better or worse, and his range as well, but generally that is how I see him.

[El Gordo]

I agree with you. Do you think the park/wall may be a reason why his numbers (objective data) are far better on the road than at home? Or perhaps he doesn't play OPACY as well as he should ?[/QUOTE]As he once did in 2008.

[El Gordo]

Yes you do. That much is clearer than day.

No I use them as a general indicator when they agree on a player.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I agree with you. Do you think the park/wall may be a reason why his numbers (objective data) are far better on the road than at home? Or perhaps he doesn't play OPACY as well as he should ?[/QUOTE]As he once did in 2008.

Ok, so why he is he significantly better (well above average) away? Could he learn to play better in OPACY? Would most outfielders have difficulty in OPACY or do you think it's more isolated to his skills?

[El Gordo]

Ok, so why he is he significantly better (well above average) away? Could he learn to play better in OPACY? Would most outfielders have difficulty in OPACY or do you think it's more isolated to his skills?

I have given you my explaination for this and you have dismissed it, so I am not going to bother to reapeat it. For clarity, the wall I am refering to is the score board. As for Gibbon,. He is the only other RF that we have home away UZR splits for. While his numbers are a SSS in comparison to Nicks, they indicate thet he never had the same problem with OPACy that Nick as had. If Nick could play OPACY RF well in 2008, and equally to his away numbers in 2009, why do you suppose his 2010 splits would be an indication of park factors? If he compensated for them in 2008 why couldn't he compensate for them in 2010?

[CA-ORIOLE]

I have given you my explaination for this and you have dismissed it, so I am not going to bother to reapeat it. For clarity, the wall I am refering to is the score board. As for Gibbon,. He is the only other RF that we have home away UZR splits for. While his numbers are a SSS in comparison to Nicks, they indicate thet he never had the same problem with OPACy that Nick as had. If Nick could play OPACY RF well in 2008, and equally to his away numbers in 2009, why do you suppose his 2010 splits would be an indication of park factors? If he compensated for them in 2008 why couldn't he compensate for them in 2010?

Yeah if the answer is Gibbons UZR/splits, I do dismiss it. The splits/sample size for Nick are far more compelling. Doesn't mean you're not right, but absent of data on others performance at OPACY I am skeptical of the degree of accuracy on this one. What were his 2008/2009/2010 splits?

[El Gordo]

Yeah if the answer is Gibbons UZR/splits, I do dismiss it. The splits/sample size for Nick are far more compelling. Doesn't mean you're not right, but absent of data on others performance at OPACY I am skeptical of the degree of accuracy on this one. What were his 2008/2009/2010 splits?

I think you are so involved in demonstrating how right you are, and how much you think you know, that you really aren't reading what I am saying. That doesn't seem to be unusual for you, and I am tired of this tedious pissing contest. Go pat yourself on the back and continue to delude yourself.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I think you are so involved in demonstrating how right you are, and how much you think you know, that you really aren't reading what I am saying. That doesn't seem to be unusual for you, and I am tired of this tedious pissing contest. Go pat yourself on the back and continue to delude yourself.

LOL. Ever consider it's you who aren't considering what other people are saying? For example, what other people, besides myself.... are saying to you ....... and not to me.

Seriously, you're upset because I think that Nick's away splts are more compelling than Gibbon's UZR sample in RF? I even couched that by stating "I'm not saying you're not right".

The below statement deserved your response. Seriously?

Yeah if the answer is Gibbons UZR/splits, I do dismiss it. The splits/sample size for Nick are far more compelling. Doesn't mean you're not right, but absent of data on others performance at OPACY I am skeptical of the degree of accuracy on this one. What were his 2008/2009/2010 splits?

[The Rick]

I think you are so involved in demonstrating how right you are, and how much you think you know, that you really aren't reading what I am saying. That doesn't seem to be unusual for you, and I am tired of this tedious pissing contest. Go pat yourself on the back and continue to delude yourself.

Wow. On the bright side, I needed a good laugh.

Also, Not sure why you fellas can't fix this whole QUOTE error non-sense, lol. It's driving me crazy.

[crawjo]

I agree with you. Do you think the park/wall may be a reason why his numbers (objective data) are far better on the road than at home? Or perhaps he doesn't play OPACY as well as he should ?

I don't know much about the numbers in question...I think UZR and the like are very useful tools but there are definitely problems with them. My view on Markakis in OPACY is that the wall is not his problem. I think he's below average on balls hit in front of him and also on balls hit up the alleys. His lateral movement is not that special. Now it could be that he's getting hammered by the system more at OPACY because he could be overcompensating for the wall, although one would think that with the wall there you could play a bit more shallow and cut off more singles hit in front of you. But Markakis doesn't do this well and this may be why he is worse at OPACY. Perhaps he is playing too deep? I have no idea, I'm just speculating.

But tonight watching the Brewers-Cardinals game, in the late innings (the seventh I think) Nyjer Morgan made a catch in right field on a ball hit down the line. He made it look practically routine but I don't think an average right fielder would have gotten to that ball. Markakis would not have reached it. Of course Morgan is a natural center fielder who had been moved to right for defensive purposes late in the game, but I think it's instructive nonetheless to see what a fielder with better range can reach. Balls that you see hit during the regular season that Markakis (or Jones) seem to come up just short on are balls that very well could be caught by other fielders in the league.