Mateo League Leader in Defensive WAR

[eddie83]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure it does.

You yourself said it, mild injuries can sap athleticism.  Heck, mental state can sap it.

That steep in one year?  I mean if a guy puts on 20 pounds or is hurt sure. 
 

Defense without a doubt regresses with age. I just think you would see more high and lows from one year to another with hitting than fielding. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, eddie83 said:

That steep in one year?  I mean if a guy puts on 20 pounds or is hurt sure. 
 

Defense without a doubt regresses with age. I just think you would see more high and lows from one year to another with hitting than fielding. 

This is my take and I might be wrong, so get ready folks that love to correct me.

I don't think it takes many missed plays in the outfield to tank a ranking from one season to the next.

Even a Trumbo makes almost all the plays he is supposed to make.

 

[Jammer7]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure it does.

You yourself said it, mild injuries can sap athleticism.  Heck, mental state can sap it.

Absolutely. Look at what happened to Hays and Santander last year with their leg/ankle injuries. The mental state, especially the past few years, is an issue. I will add that preparation, nutrition and fitness are also factors here. I marvel at the consistency of some players. They may not be the “most talented” player at their positions, but you know what you will get from them each year. 

[eddie83]

In 08 Markakis RF/9 was 2.26. League was 2.15 RF/9.  
 

Year before he was 2.03 RF/9 and year after he was 2.00 RF/9. In 2010 he was back up to 2.18. 

[eddie83]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is my take and I might be wrong, so get ready folks that love to correct me.

I don't think it takes many missed plays in the outfield to tank a ranking from one season to the next.

Even a Trumbo makes almost all the plays he is supposed to make.

 

Ok. I mean it makes some sense. I would be very curious about this. 
 

On a separate player but same topic I recall Wieters defensive numbers regressing in 2013. I didn’t see it myself. 
 

Now clearly after his injury he was not the same.  

[eddie83]

5 minutes ago, Jammer7 said:

Absolutely. Look at what happened to Hays and Santander last year with their leg/ankle injuries. The mental state, especially the past few years, is an issue. I will add that preparation, nutrition and fitness are also factors here. I marvel at the consistency of some players. They may not be the “most talented” player at their positions, but you know what you will get from them each year. 

Sure but specific to Nick he posted everyday. Now maybe he did look slower that year. Been too many years to recall.
 

I just think in general an OF ability to get to a ball doesn’t flop around from year to year. It’s not like an infielder who gets the yips. I can see infielders slumping easier than an OF. Now maybe I’m wrong. 
 

My overall point is to the accuracy of the numbers and whether or not some years the calculation just doesn’t add up. 

[Jammer7]

1 minute ago, eddie83 said:

Sure but specific to Nick he posted everyday. Now maybe he did look slower that year. Been too many years to recall.
 

I just think in general an OF ability to get to a ball doesn’t flop around from year to year. It’s not like an infielder who gets the yips. I can see infielders slumping easier than an OF. Now maybe I’m wrong. 
 

My overall point is to the accuracy of the numbers and whether or not some years the calculation just doesn’t add up. 

I don’t disagree with you completely. I will add that Nick was a very good player, remarkably consistent. He did post up every day. With that, he was likely injured much more than we will ever know. These guys regularly play banged up nearly all season. Some have a better ability to do this than others. Veteran leaders are counted on to “post up” as you said. Tape that ankle, get treatment on that sore quad or shoulder, and get out there. Here’s a cortisone shot. It’s a subjective factor.

The numbers don’t lie. They have to be interpreted. However, well-trained eyes have to be part of the equation as well. It is fascinating to me when the eyes don’t match the numbers. Projections and expected improvement or growth can be a mirage of sorts, but it is one of the more fun things about baseball for me. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is my take and I might be wrong, so get ready folks that love to correct me.

I don't think it takes many missed plays in the outfield to tank a ranking from one season to the next.

Even a Trumbo makes almost all the plays he is supposed to make.

 

Bingo.   The vast majority of defensive plays are routine and can be made 99% of the time by most players who play that position.   So a few missed plays can affect your numbers greatly.   Also, in the outfield just getting a bad read off the bat for a split second greatly affects your ability to get to non-routine balls.  That can happen no matter how athletic you are.  So a few good/bad reads in a season can turn a plus into a minus.

 

[Sports Guy]

38 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Bingo.   The vast majority of defensive plays are routine and can be made 99% of the time by most players who play that position.   So a few missed plays can affect your numbers greatly.   Also, in the outfield just getting a bad read off the bat for a split second greatly affects your ability to get to non-routine balls.  That can happen no matter how athletic you are.  So a few good/bad reads in a season can turn a plus into a minus.

 

And btw, this is also why eyes lie.  When watching on TV, you usually don’t see the initial first few seconds of the fielder doing what he needs to do.  You see the tail end of things.  It’s hard for us to know, with our eyes, how well they are at first when you don’t actually see it.  

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, eddie83 said:

Because athleticism doesn’t go into a slump. Your range should not fall off a cliff out of nowhere. If you lose a step it’s more gradual. Now it’s possible someone is playing hurt one year. 

I think both injuries and mental state and motivation can have substantial impacts.  Aging and physical conditioning, too.  Not so much today, but in the past it was common for a player to show up to spring training 20 pounds overweight and try to lose it in March.  

Look at someone like Dave Parker, who was a very good right fielder as a younger player.  But put on a lot of weight and started using drugs and became a negative fielder with little range in fairly short order.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And btw, this is also why eyes lie.  When watching on TV, you usually don’t see the initial first few seconds of the fielder doing what he needs to do.  You see the tail end of things.  It’s hard for us to know, with our eyes, how well they are at first when you don’t actually see it.  

I guess it's possible to go to the park night after night and just concentrate on the positioning and jumps of a few players.  But even then you're only watching a small number of players so you have a limited set of information to compare that to. And almost nobody actually does that.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is my take and I might be wrong, so get ready folks that love to correct me.

I don't think it takes many missed plays in the outfield to tank a ranking from one season to the next.

Even a Trumbo makes almost all the plays he is supposed to make.

 

In 2016 Mark Trumbo had a RF of 1.99.  Nick Markakis had a 2.12.  Mookie Betts a 2.34. In a general, non-adjusted sense Trumbo made 85% of the plays Betts made.  

If you'd had Mark Trumbo race Mookie Betts in the 100m dash in 2016 Betts would have lapped him.  Yes, I know 100m is a quarter of a lap but Betts would have run all the way around the track and still beat Trumbo in his first 100 m. That's 15%.

[eddie83]

11 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I guess it's possible to go to the park night after night and just concentrate on the positioning and jumps of a few players.  But even then you're only watching a small number of players so you have a limited set of information to compare that to. And almost nobody actually does that.

How much do ballparks matter?  
 

We are about 1/3 into the season. Hays did play more LF last year than RF. That said his defensive numbers are down all over. Last night he dove for a ball that popped out of his glove. Common sense says he is playing more shallow last year and gets there easier. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I bet @DrungoHazewoodcan speak to this better than any of us can, but I don't understand the Hernandez quandary, either.  I know he played 1B different than others, he'd charge bunts and the Mets defensive rotation was different than any other team because of what he was able to do as a defender.

I'm sure if this was Eddie Murray we were talking about we'd be a bit more up in arms about how he got shafted by dWAR and that anyone who was able to watch him play would say he was a better defender than the defensive metrics say.

I think Hernandez was a great defensive first baseman, and Eddie was very good.  But if either of them had been great defensive baseball players they'd have been center fielders or shortstops.

Hernandez was hurt by being left-handed. There's a bias against lefty fielders, in that Hernandez wasn't allowed to play 2B/SS/3B (probably for fairly good reason), so he couldn't have the defensive value of a similarly-talented righty.  As good as he was at first, it's basically playing third without the requirement for an arm.  1B/3B have the fewest meaningful plays on the diamond, but at first that's masked in the PO numbers by hundreds of times you catch a routine ball letter high on a throw from someone else.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

How much do ballparks matter?  
 

We are about 1/3 into the season. Hays did play more LF last year than RF. That said his defensive numbers are down all over. Last night he dove for a ball that popped out of his glove. Common sense says he is playing more shallow last year and gets there easier. 

Some.  I think it's pretty well documented that LF in Fenway depresses putouts.  Richie Ashburn the most impressive PO totals of any CFer ever, and while he was very good a lot of that was park illusion because Shibe Park was 468' to center. Also Robin Roberts was a big flyball pitcher.

I think Statcast is better at accounting for park than TZ and similar.