Outfield defense

[Frobby]

Interesting article about how bad outfield defense hurt certain pitchers.    The Orioles were 28th in outfield defensive runs saved, 30th in outs above average, 29th in outfield defensive efficiency.    As measured by difference between wOBA and expected wOBA (xwOBA), Bundy was 8th (.138), Hess 25th (.078), Cashner 31st (.066) and Cobb 44th (.055).   So, improving the OF defense is a big priority.

https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/2018s-worst-outfield-defenses-and-what-they-mean-for-pitchers-in-2019/

[Natty]

Mancini belongs at 1B. Jones had limited range and a candy arm. Santander is  not a good fielder. Mullins made some rookie mistakes on hits to CF. Rickard sometimes had trouble taking the right path to the ball and yet he is fast. Now we are looking at Hays, Diaz, and Young...

[interloper]

15 minutes ago, Natty said:

Mancini belongs at 1B. Jones had limited range and a candy arm. Santander is  not a good fielder. Mullins made some rookie mistakes on hits to CF. Rickard sometimes had trouble taking the right path to the ball and yet he is fast. Now we are looking at Hays, Diaz, and Young...

I dunno about that. 

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, Natty said:

Jones had limited range and a candy arm.

 

1 minute ago, interloper said:

I dunno about that. 

Candy arm might be too strong, but last year Jones’ arm was nowhere near what it once was.

[Natty]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

I dunno about that. 

I cant even remember the last time Jones making a decent throw to get an attempted assist at any base... He merely threw to the cutoff man. 

[Natty]

I will say this about Jonesy...He made the greatest catch I've ever seen him make last year in RF on a line drive. Totally stretched out horizontal dive. I couldn't believe my eyes.  

[Frobby]

Just now, Natty said:

I will say this about Jonesy...He made the greatest catch I've ever seen him make last year in RF on a line drive. Totally stretched out horizontal dive. I couldn't believe my eyes.  

I didn’t see it, but would ask this question: would a fast outfielder have had to dive for it at all?   Jones has always been capable of making very athletic plays, and looks good out there doing it.    But he’s slow now, even for a corner OF.

[HowAboutThat]

It’s all over now, but I often wonder why Buck not only insisted that his OF was fine, but never did anything to improve it. I wonder if his ego made it impossible for him to admit problems even to himself, and yet I never got a sense of hubris from him the way I felt it from Dan.

I really hope the new guys are honest, at least with themselves.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think the article could have been written and sourced better.  Clearly the .138 delta between wOBA and xwOBA isn't overall, it's just on flyballs (?), or maybe flyballs in play?  It's not clear from the article or the data on Baseball Savant.  Overall Bundy's wOBA trailed his xwOBA by about .040 points.  Some of the data in the tables is clearly a typo -  Cashner clearly didn't have a .660 difference between real and expected, and Hess' .750 is barely even possible.

The takeaway could have been summed up in sentence or two: Some teams had bad outfield defense and it made the following pitchers look worse than they probably were.  The included tables show this, kind of, but we should have proof-read better.

[DrungoHazewood]

25 minutes ago, Natty said:

I will say this about Jonesy...He made the greatest catch I've ever seen him make last year in RF on a line drive. Totally stretched out horizontal dive. I couldn't believe my eyes.  

That's the thing about great plays: you can make them whether your range is that of a banana slug (or Derek Jeter), or if you're Kevin Kiermaier and you just ran a quarter-mile to get to the ball.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think the article could have been written and sourced better.  Clearly the .138 delta between wOBA and xwOBA isn't overall, it's just on flyballs (?), or maybe flyballs in play?  It's not clear from the article or the data on Baseball Savant.  Overall Bundy's wOBA trailed his xwOBA by about .040 points. Some of the data in the tables is clearly a typo -  Cashner clearly didn't have a .660 difference between real and expected, and Hess' .750 is barely even possible.

The takeaway could have been summed up in sentence or two: Some teams had bad outfield defense and it made the following pitchers look worse than they probably were.  The included tables show this, kind of, but we should have proof-read better.

I just assumed he dropped a zero (which I added back in my post).   I agree, that was sloppy.   The point about the wOBA/xwOBA numbers being specifically related to fly balls or fly balls in play is a good question too.    

[interloper]

50 minutes ago, Philip said:

It’s all over now, but I often wonder why Buck not only insisted that his OF was fine, but never did anything to improve it. I wonder if his ego made it impossible for him to admit problems even to himself, and yet I never got a sense of hubris from him the way I felt it from Dan.

I really hope the new guys are honest, at least with themselves.

Data makes sure you're honest, and these guys like data.

[DrungoHazewood]

56 minutes ago, Frobby said:

 The point about the wOBA/xwOBA numbers being specifically related to fly balls or fly balls in play is a good question too.    

Especially in Bundy's case, since he led the league in homers allowed so there's a decent difference between his total FBs and FBIP.  Some metrics treat all flyballs the same and deviations from average HR/FB rate as luck, or largely luck.  I don't know if that has a good basis in truth or not.

[sportsfan8703]

It doesn’t look like Trumbo will be ready by OD. So that puts Mancini at DH. Basically the whole OF is up for grabs right now with Rickard being the only definite to make the team. We’ll see how much we worry about the service clock game, but other than that the OF defense should be better by default. Only Stewart in a COF spot would be a concern. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

1 minute ago, sportsfan8703 said:

It doesn’t look like Trumbo will be ready by OD. So that puts Mancini at DH. Basically the whole OF is up for grabs right now with Rickard being the only definite to make the team. We’ll see how much we worry about the service clock game, but other than that the OF defense should be better by default. Only Stewart in a COF spot would be a concern. 

Personally, I think Santander may be the biggest beneficiary of Trumbo not being ready for OD.  I think Stewart would have made the team, now I think Santander is the 25th guy of sorts.