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As JJ Hardy Struggles at ST Will Orioles Reconsider A Trade?

section18

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Frobby Hangout Grand Counsel

Frobby

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Would you be satisfied if he falls in that range if he were a 3B? In other words, would "his bat play at 3B"?

It wouldn't play that well at 3B IMO, but I'm not in the camp that would move Hardy to 3B while he is with the O's. He's not going to go from being one of the best defensive shortstops in the league to being below average in the next two years while he is under contract with us. I expect Hardy and Machado to give us superb defense on the left side on the infield the next two years, leaving things just as they are. Whether we keep Hardy beyond that depends on a lot of factors, but I don't see any scenario where he can no longer be a good SS and we decide to move him to 3B.

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El Gordo Hangout Grand Counsel

El Gordo

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I guess I meant below average arm for a starting SS. There are indeed a ton of Casilla types with weak arms who will see scattered innings at SS.

Regarding his range, total plays isn't really indicative of range. Total plays will be heavily influenced by context, might even say that's more representative of context than the actual player's performance. WAR is the primary stat used to show Hardy's defense makes him valuable despite his offense, and the principal range-related feeder of WAR is Range Runs. Despite leading all MLB SS's in innings last season, Hardy only ranked 14th in range runs. In 2011, he was 15th in innings and 22nd in range runs.

With that said, despite the arm/range he's still an elite defensive SS mainly due to his ability to complete large quantities of plays with an extremely minimal number of errors. My point is that this strength is largely skill-based and less dependent on tools than arm/range. I haven't done any kind of analysis, but it stands to reason that a player with this balance of strengths/weaknesses is significantly less likely to be influenced (defensively) by physical decline than a player with an opposite balance.

I'm using the FB numbers. For them he made 7 more plays to the left and right than the average ML SS. That tells me his range is not mediocre. Their best SS last year was Brendan Ryan. His numbers were +8 to his right, +1 straight on, +11 to his left. Compare that to Hardy's +7, +3, +7 and I'd say Hardy's range is a lot closer to the best than average.
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BobDylanBundy Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

BobDylanBundy

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I'm using the FB numbers. For them he made 7 more plays to the left and right than the average ML SS. That tells me his range is not mediocre. Their best SS last year was Brendan Ryan. His numbers were +8 to his right, +1 straight on, +11 to his left. Compare that to Hardy's +7, +3, +7 and I'd say Hardy's range is a lot closer to the best than average.

Sorry still not buying it. Plus/minus is the same system that says: Yunel Escobar and Mike Aviles are better fielding shortstops than J.J. Hardy, the Orioles have the worst defensive OF in the majors, and Giancarlo Stanton is possibly the greatest fielding RF in the game today.

I suspect the wacky outcomes are mostly due to the difficulty multipliers applied to the actual stats. For example, you can't expect hundreds of different "video scouts" (aka minimum wage interns) to time video recordings down to a tenth of a second with any kind of consistency. And with the bucketing methods this system uses, in some instances measuring a single play as 4.4 seconds instead of 4.5 seconds would have a ripple effect on the plus/minus stats across the majors. I can follow the logic in trying to assign difficulty levels, but the amount of precision required for this particular method leaves too much room for human error... and that's exactly what shows up in the results.

Drop the subjective difficulty multipliers and the overly simplistic position factors (which are basically pulled out of thin air), and what are you left with? Just a variation of the range runs rankings I mentioned above. There's still room for human error in the hoard of defensive stats based on zones, but there's only one subjective measurement instead of four and the consequence of being 'slightly wrong' is significantly reduced.

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Can_of_corn Hangout Grand Counsel

Can_of_corn

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Just a little piece of stat from a FanGraphs piece on Joey Votto:

The average BABIP for the top 10% of pull hitters (minimum 100 balls in play) was .273 in 2012. The top 10% of opposite-field hitters? They had a .308 BABIP. Already, without checking the handedness of the batter, we have some evidence that the opposite-field approach helps balls fall into play.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/joey-votto-on-hitting/

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section18 All-Star

section18

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I hope he can rebound at the plate this season for a lot of reasons. Let's hope that DD and Buck make a decision to trade him a year too early instead of a year too late. He definitely has trade value and we have a few guys in camp that will give us a higher OBP. Yes! His defense has value to us. Does DD gamble and wait until next year or decide to move him now?

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Tx Oriole Hangout Grand Counsel

Tx Oriole

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I hope he can rebound at the plate this season for a lot of reasons. Let's hope that DD and Buck make a decision to trade him a year too early instead of a year too late. He definitely has trade value and we have a few guys in camp that will give us a higher OBP. Yes! His defense has value to us. Does DD gamble and wait until next year or decide to move him now?

I don't see trading him. I believe having good defense is better than his hitting. I keep Hardy.

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waroriole Hangout Grand Counsel

waroriole

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Does an opposite field approach reduce power (statisitcally speaking ISO?)

Feel free to use either real numbers or your intuition to make an argument.

Just using intuition, I would imagine it does. A lot more HR are pulled than to opposite field. Also, looking at the stereotypical pull hitter, you see a lot of power; and opposite field hitters, are typically leadoff slap the ball around guys.

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