Statcast Lab: How Much Impact Does a Great-fielding Outfielder Have?

[Can_of_corn]

I'd have posted this in the O's talk section but it didn't seem relevant.

http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/statcast-lab-how-much-impact-great-fielding-outfielder-have

But for fielders, we don?t have that situation at all. A fielder can get a bunch of balls hit right at him for easy outs, or he can get a bunch of balls that even Willie Mays might have problems with. It?s like crediting Barry Bonds with an out instead of an IBB, because he didn?t get a hit. We need to be able to understand the quality of opportunities for our fielders.

Opportunity Space for a RF

Great defensive RF

Poor defensive RF

[Hallas]

I love this analysis. The fact that it gives us a statistically significant sample much faster makes the data like 10x more useful. It's really frustrating when the most accurate defensive data requires 2+ years to normalize. Injuries. aging etc. all make that data really noisy.

[Frobby]

I'd love to see a graphic like that for every outfielder. It makes it much easier to believe any metric that is derived from it.