2023 Defense Thread

[ChuckS]

28 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

It was a 55% catch rate which is a 4 Star catch. 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=4f3180a3-1434-4aac-8620-20c7a3a9782c

Surprisingly, it was his second best catch of the season. This one in Chicago that he made look almost routine was only 50% catch rate.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=2efce0cf-3c6e-42ce-bd80-bdf7ba76a08f

Does this catch probability take into account how close he was to the wall, and the fact that many other outfielders may have Trumbo'd that one a bit?

Edited May 3, 2023 by ChuckS

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

It was a 55% catch rate which is a 4 Star catch. 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=4f3180a3-1434-4aac-8620-20c7a3a9782c

Surprisingly, it was his second best catch of the season. This one in Chicago that he made look almost routine was only 50% catch rate.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=2efce0cf-3c6e-42ce-bd80-bdf7ba76a08f

How do you navigate to that page?  Also, I’m looking at it and still don’t see the catch probability.  Where is it?

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, ChuckS said:

Does this catch probability take into account how close he was to the wall, and the fact that many other outfielders may have Trumbo'd that one a bit?

I do not think catch probability takes the wall into consideration. Trust me, I agree with you that his near wall catch looked much harder than the one of him coming in, but they take positioning of the outfielder, and the distance and time in the air of the ball to determine the XBA and catch % rate. While a good metric, I do think it needs tweaking to include the wall.

[interloper]

It takes serious balls to sprint and dive towards a wall at full speed, and then also make the play. That might be Ced's best catch I've seen from him. 

I think he could have gotten an even better jump, too.

Edited May 3, 2023 by interloper

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

So last night it was mentioned that the Orioles are the worse defensive team in the majors which is surprising to many of us in the game thread. I looked up the OAA and sure enough the Orioles are bad, with only the Rockies (-16) worse than the -13 Orioles.

So who are the offenders so far this season?

Well, pretty much everyone is worse this season then they were last year. Third base has been a disaster between Urias and Henderson as they've been a ridiculous -8 OAA between them. It's worth noting that Urias has been worth 1 OAA at 2B. Obviously Gunnar had a nice play last night, but with Mateo just killing it, it's probably time to keep Henderson focused at 3B accept when Mateo needs a day off.

Urias has been really solid at 2B and should start picking up playing time there. Frazier's lack of arm strength has really shown up on several plays including a few DPs that the runner was barely safe despite the quick turn by Frazier.

Santander has turned things around after a slow start in RF but Hays has been bad everywhere. He's been -2 OAA in LF with -4% success added and -1 OAA with -14% added in RF. 

I'll update these at the end of the month to see if they improve. I expect Gunnar to improve once he settles into 3B everyday.

 

This is quite worrisome. We were about average last year, but it seems like defense is supposed to be a point of emphasis. Hopefully just a bad month as most of our guys have the skillsets to be good defenders. 

Just watching the Royals outfielders bumble around yesterday made me appreciate our defense although they are apparently outperforming our group. 

The list appears not to include catchers. Eye test says Adley is above average there. 

[Tony-OH]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

How do you navigate to that page?  Also, I’m looking at it and still don’t see the catch probability.  Where is it?

Goto outfielder's page. Goto Fielding. Scroll down to you get to this picture.

You can click on each dot to see the play. The dark Green is a 5-Star catch, and goes down one for every lighter shade. 

[Sports Guy]

 

[LA2]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

 

Perfect power throw. Congrats to Kyle!

[Spy Fox]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

 

Apparently the Orioles' hardest thrown outfield assist in 8 years.

 

[Aristotelian]

Wow he was even falling away literally. I don't think he got 100% on that throw. Is 99 out of his hand or over the whole distance? It would seem you will get higher numbers on short throws like that due to the ball slowing down at the end of longer throws. Still impressive!

[Moose Milligan]

Raise your hand if you had Dariel Alvarez as having one of the fastest statcast assists. 
 

I still don’t believe we have the worst defense in the majors. I don’t think it’s great or even good, but I don’t watch this team every night and I’m think that I’m watching the worst defense in MLB. 
 

That said, the outfield defense was terrible in the first series, Gunnar is having issues, I feel that Mateo has recently made a couple errors on plays he should routinely make and every time I see a ball hit to right field, I wonder if Santander can get there. 

These have all been individual moments (except for wondering every night about Santander) but I don’t head into every game dreading our defense. 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Moose Milligan

[eddie83]

17 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Raise your hand if you had Dariel Alvarez as having one of the fastest statcast assists. 
 

I still don’t believe we have the worst defense in the majors. I don’t think it’s great or even good, but I don’t want this team every night and I’m think that I’m watching the worst defense in MLB. 
 

That said, the outfield defense was terrible in the first series, Gunnar is having issues, I feel that Mateo has recently made a couple errors on plays he should routinely make and every time I see a ball hit to right field, I wonder if Santander can get there. 

These have all been individual moments (except for wondering every night about Santander) but I don’t head into every game dreading our defense. 

I think you summarized things well here. 
 

Baseball-reference has the Orioles 11th in defensive efficiency. 
 

Other metrics on that site

Rtot 6th

Rdrs 14th

I would expect our numbers to improve through the rest of the season. 

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Raise your hand if you had Dariel Alvarez as having one of the fastest statcast assists. 
 

I still don’t believe we have the worst defense in the majors. I don’t think it’s great or even good, but I don’t watch this team every night and I’m think that I’m watching the worst defense in MLB. 
 

That said, the outfield defense was terrible in the first series, Gunnar is having issues, I feel that Mateo has recently made a couple errors on plays he should routinely make and every time I see a ball hit to right field, I wonder if Santander can get there. 

These have all been individual moments (except for wondering every night about Santander) but I don’t head into every game dreading our defense. 

I'd say our outfield defense is probably below average, at least as long as we play Santander in the field, but it's not Trumbo/Delmon Young level bad. I think the infield defense is solid. 

[emmett16]

It seems like we have the tools to fix the D problem.  It will be interesting to see how these metrics look at the halfway point.  

[interloper]

Overall it feels like the defense is trending upwards, especially in the OF. Gunnar is a rookie, it is what it is. Urias still passes the eye test to me. Mateo is awesome. Frazier is solid. Mounty could use some work, but plenty of teams have crappy defensive 1B and Mounty makes some plays every now and then. He seems to have his scoops back under control at least.