Rutschman vs Witt

[Moose Milligan]

Are SG and RZNJ doing that thing again?

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

Are SG and RZNJ doing that thing again?

Sigh....yes.

[Tony-OH]

17 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Are SG and RZNJ doing that thing again?

Not anymore today. I'm giving breaks. Tired of this BS.

[DrungoHazewood]

34 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

No it doesn’t but, normally speaking, effort and practice does equal defense and if you can combine that with athleticism, you should be ok.

https://www.prospectslive.com/scoutingreports/bobby-witt-jr
 

They like his defense.

 

https://www.royalsreview.com/platform/amp/2022/8/10/23206867/it-is-time-to-talk-about-bobby-witt-jr-s-defense

Good breakdown here and references multiple outlets saying he’s a good defender.

I don't know what to tell you, but DRS, OAA, and UZR all have him as a well below average fielder this year.  And it's really hard to tease anything meaningful out of traditional minor league fielding data, but his minor league range factor at short was even lower than his MLB.

Completely a guess, but it sounds like he's really athletic and toolsy and looks good, but just it just hasn't translated to a lot of outs.

The Statcast breakdowns make it look like he's okay going in and back on balls, but really lacking in lateral range.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't know what to tell you, but DRS, OAA, and UZR all have him as a well below average fielder this year.  And it's really hard to tease anything meaningful out of traditional minor league fielding data, but his minor league range factor at short was even lower than his MLB.

Completely a guess, but it sounds like he's really athletic and toolsy and looks good, but just it just hasn't translated to a lot of outs.

The Statcast breakdowns make it look like he's okay going in and back on balls, but really lacking in lateral range.

Sounds like a candidate to move to CF.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sounds like a candidate to move to CF.

A move to the outfield would not at all surprise me.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't know what to tell you, but DRS, OAA, and UZR all have him as a well below average fielder this year.  And it's really hard to tease anything meaningful out of traditional minor league fielding data, but his minor league range factor at short was even lower than his MLB.

Completely a guess, but it sounds like he's really athletic and toolsy and looks good, but just it just hasn't translated to a lot of outs.

The Statcast breakdowns make it look like he's okay going in and back on balls, but really lacking in lateral range.

I think what SG is saying is that Witt may have had a bad defensive season but with his tools he shouldn’t be an inherently bad defender down the road.  I’ll cut Witt some slack because he’s a rookie who spent a shorter than normal amount of time in the minors.  Most infielders come to the majors only after 3 years or so of working out the kinks in the minors.   (Counterpoint: Manny Machado, who was awesome from day one despite limited MiL time and virtually none at 3B.)  But, we’ll see if he improves next year.  And, we’ll see where Henderson ends up and how he does.  

[MarCakes21]

Do modern day voters look at WAR or are they still using things like batting average, RBIs and HRs, as well as overall team record to determine ROY?  Has anyone looked at the past few years ROY to see how these align?

[Moose Milligan]

9 minutes ago, MarCakes21 said:

Do modern day voters look at WAR or are they still using things like batting average, RBIs and HRs, as well as overall team record to determine ROY?  Has anyone looked at the past few years ROY to see how these align?

Pretty sure it's a WAR race at this point.  

[eddie83]

If Witt had all of these flaws you would have thought he would not have been ranked so high. Number one prospect in some places and he can’t handle SS? 

[DrungoHazewood]

23 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think what SG is saying is that Witt may have had a bad defensive season but with his tools he shouldn’t be an inherently bad defender down the road.  I’ll cut Witt some slack because he’s a rookie who spent a shorter than normal amount of time in the minors.  Most infielders come to the majors only after 3 years or so of working out the kinks in the minors.   (Counterpoint: Manny Machado, who was awesome from day one despite limited MiL time and virtually none at 3B.)  But, we’ll see if he improves next year.  And, we’ll see where Henderson ends up and how he does.  

Counter-counter point: there's a lot more down than up in a player's defensive career.  Everyone is unique, but I'd say 80-90% of players are better defenders at 22 than 28 and almost everyone is better at 28 than 35.

I bet if we had Statcast tracking for everything from Little League through the Majors we'd see that defense peaks at 20 or 22.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

If Witt had all of these flaws you would have thought he would not have been ranked so high. Number one prospect in some places and he can’t handle SS? 

I think everyone expected Witt's defense to be better than we have seen this season.

[Moose Milligan]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think everyone expected Witt's defense to be better than we have seen this season.

Not upset about it, screw that guy.  

[Tony-OH]

46 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think what SG is saying is that Witt may have had a bad defensive season but with his tools he shouldn’t be an inherently bad defender down the road.  I’ll cut Witt some slack because he’s a rookie who spent a shorter than normal amount of time in the minors.  Most infielders come to the majors only after 3 years or so of working out the kinks in the minors.   (Counterpoint: Manny Machado, who was awesome from day one despite limited MiL time and virtually none at 3B.)  But, we’ll see if he improves next year.  And, we’ll see where Henderson ends up and how he does.  

It will be interesting to follow Witt's defensive development. I'm actually curious to know if toolsy prospects have come up and had really bad defensive numbers across the spectrum then suddenly got better with experience. If statcast is suggesting his lateral movement may not be good now, I'm skeptical that a 6-1, 200 pound 22-year old is going to get quicker. 

He'll be an interesting use case to use when our prospects come up and we get statcast data on them.

[Tony-OH]

24 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Counter-counter point: there's a lot more down than up in a player's defensive career.  Everyone is unique, but I'd say 80-90% of players are better defenders at 22 than 28 and almost everyone is better at 28 than 35.

I bet if we had Statcast tracking for everything from Little League through the Majors we'd see that defense peaks at 20 or 22.

That's an interesting point and one that I really can't significantly argue with, but my gut feeling would say the peak is more around 22-25 defensively and speed wise. We've seen players show better burst speeds in the outfield from one year to the next, even improving as they gain experience dealing with upper decks in the outfield, but it would be an interesting subject to study. 

Too bad MLB refuses to gives us access to minor league statcast data.