Question about right vs left

[HowAboutThat]

The corner outfield spots are not quite interchangeable, but I am unclear as to why leftfield is considered defensively less difficult. RF has to throw to second, third and home, LF the same but everything is a bit closer to left, correct? So RF needs a strong and accurate arm? What else?

I don’t know whether Stewart’s defense is meaningfully different than Mountcastle’s defense, But I’m curious as to why Stewart is in right field tonight and Mountcastle is at first, and I’m wondering if a fundamental difference between the two positions would be the reason? Or something else?

Edited September 15, 2020 by Philip

[luismatos4prez]

Right fielder has to throw to third base while left fielder doesn't have to throw to first base so your right fielder should have the stronger arm.

Stewart's never played first base and Mountcastle has played it a bunch. I think that's all it is.

[HowAboutThat]

8 minutes ago, luismatos4prez said:

Right fielder has to throw to third base while left fielder doesn't have to throw to first base so your right fielder should have the stronger arm.

Stewart's never played first base and Mountcastle has played it a bunch. I think that's all it is.

I knew about the arm part: LF never has to throw to first, well, almost never. Any other significant differences? If Mc is at first, I’m wondering why Stewart remains in RF instead of shifting to LF and letting a superior defender in Hays handle right?

[Frobby]

56 minutes ago, Philip said:

I knew about the arm part: LF never has to throw to first, well, almost never. Any other significant differences? If Mc is at first, I’m wondering why Stewart remains in RF instead of shifting to LF and letting a superior defender in Hays handle right?

At OPACY, the LF has to cover more ground than the RF.    Ben McDonald pointed out last night that Brady Anderson played LF while Ben was on the O’s for that reason.   But, some managers still prefer to have the stronger arm in RF.

[Aristotelian]

I always thought RF was less difficult. That is where Trumbo played. You need a stronger arm to throw to third. I think RH batters hit fewer balls to RF so if you want to hide someone you hide them there.

[DrungoHazewood]

There are more RH batters by about 55/45.  So you'd think there would be a few more balls hit to LF than RF.

Looking over the past decade it looks like RFers out-hit LFers by maybe 25 points of OPS.  To, you could infer that LF has slightly higher defensive responsibilities because it's harder to find an equal hitter who can also cover with the glove.  But that may not be strictly true if managers just default to putting their worst defensive outfielder in LF, and better all-around players want to play right because it's seen as slightly more prestigious.

Also the standard defensive spectrum and generally accepted positional adjustments have RF ahead of LF.

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

 

Also the standard defensive spectrum and generally accepted positional adjustments have RF ahead of LF.

Does that mean that Stewart is Considered a better defender ATM than MC?

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Philip said:

Does that mean that Stewart is Considered a better defender ATM than MC?

Who is MC?

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Who is MC?

I'm guessing Mountcastle.

[Tony-OH]

22 hours ago, Frobby said:

At OPACY, the LF has to cover more ground than the RF.    Ben McDonald pointed out last night that Brady Anderson played LF while Ben was on the O’s for that reason.   But, some managers still prefer to have the stronger arm in RF.

This. The thought probably was that Mountcastle is much quicker than Stewart and can presumably cover more ground.

Mountcastle though has shown to be very tentative on balls hit to him in the air or on the ground down the line or in the gap and doesn't have the arm strength to make up for it. 

While Mountcastle has good foot speed when on the way, his statcast reaction -1.1 ft and burst -2.9 ft have shown him to be very tentative in getting after balls. He has ran good routes though giving him a plus +.8 ft advantage. Overall he has a very poor -3.3ft/sec ratings and has been worth -1% catch pct and -1 OAA in his limited time out there. Based off 2019 leaderboards (2020 is not available yet), Only Melky Cabrera -4.2 (28.5 ft covered per sec) is worse than Mountcastle among qualifiers and Mountcastle 27.9 feet covered is by far the worse in the major league with Cabrera being second at 28.5 ft per second. This might be a big reason why he's taking ground balls at 1B again. 

I was right about Stewart improving from his awful -4.2 avg last year. He's still below average but at -1.7 and his 30.4 feet covered is still better than Mountcastle.

Basically by statcast numbers, Mountcastle is the worse or at the very least, among the worse defensive outfielders for covering distance in MLB. It also suggests he has not used the same footspeed when running the bases as he does in the outfield.

 

 

[Can_of_corn]

23 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

This. The thought probably was that Mountcastle is much quicker than Stewart and can presumably cover more ground.

Mountcastle though has shown to be very tentative on balls hit to him in the air or on the ground down the line or in the gap and doesn't have the arm strength to make up for it. 

While Mountcastle has good foot speed when on the way, his statcast reaction -1.1 ft and burst -2.9 ft have shown him to be very tentative in getting after balls. He has ran good routes though giving him a plus +.8 ft advantage. Overall he has a very poor -3.3ft/sec ratings and has been worth -1% catch pct and -1 OAA in his limited time out there. Based off 2019 leaderboards (2020 is not available yet), Only Melky Cabrera -4.2 (28.5 ft covered per sec) is worse than Mountcastle among qualifiers and Mountcastle 27.9 feet covered is by far the worse in the major league with Cabrera being second at 28.5 ft per second. This might be a big reason why he's taking ground balls at 1B again. 

I was right about Stewart improving from his awful -4.2 avg last year. He's still below average but at -1.7 and his 30.4 feet covered is still better than Mountcastle.

Basically by statcast numbers, Mountcastle is the worse or at the very least, among the worse defensive outfielders for covering distance in MLB. It also suggests he has not used the same footspeed when running the bases as he does in the outfield.

 

 

You really think they are going to use a couple-three weeks worth of data to make a change like that?

 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

This. The thought probably was that Mountcastle is much quicker than Stewart and can presumably cover more ground.

Mountcastle though has shown to be very tentative on balls hit to him in the air or on the ground down the line or in the gap and doesn't have the arm strength to make up for it. 

While Mountcastle has good foot speed when on the way, his statcast reaction -1.1 ft and burst -2.9 ft have shown him to be very tentative in getting after balls. He has ran good routes though giving him a plus +.8 ft advantage. Overall he has a very poor -3.3ft/sec ratings and has been worth -1% catch pct and -1 OAA in his limited time out there. Based off 2019 leaderboards (2020 is not available yet), Only Melky Cabrera -4.2 (28.5 ft covered per sec) is worse than Mountcastle among qualifiers and Mountcastle 27.9 feet covered is by far the worse in the major league with Cabrera being second at 28.5 ft per second. This might be a big reason why he's taking ground balls at 1B again. 

I was right about Stewart improving from his awful -4.2 avg last year. He's still below average but at -1.7 and his 30.4 feet covered is still better than Mountcastle.

Basically by statcast numbers, Mountcastle is the worse or at the very least, among the worse defensive outfielders for covering distance in MLB. It also suggests he has not used the same footspeed when running the bases as he does in the outfield.

Probably should have let him stay in Bowie a bit longer to practice his jumps.    

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Probably should have let him stay in Bowie a bit longer to practice his jumps.    

More seriously, I expect his jumps will improve with experience.   But it’s something to watch.    

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

More seriously, I expect his jumps will improve with experience.   But it’s something to watch.    

I haven't seen anything where I was surprised he couldn't get to a ball but maybe I've missed some.

Still an extremely small sample size to try and parse data out of.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I haven't seen anything where I was surprised he couldn't get to a ball but maybe I've missed some.

Still an extremely small sample size to try and parse data out of.

I haven’t seen any big problems either, but I’m sure I haven’t seen more than 30% of his chances.