after thinking...a while, i think i have to give this a shot. i've come to the realization that i spend entirely too much time looking up useless information about baseball to not get at least something productive out of it.
*i'm pretty sure it was looking up gene tenace's career lines vs. pitchers page that made me realize it. he had a .312OBP lifetime against nolan ryan despite being 2/32 (with one hr). tenace's ability to draw a walk was cartoonish. his career batting average was .241 with an on base percentage of .388. add in that he won a ring with the cardinals in '82, made a cameo appearance in an episode of the simpsons, and his given name is an exponentially more badass "fury", i think i have a new favorite player.
my biggest problem with writing and the reason i've never been able to do it before is format. quite simply i detest the idea of it. but lately i've become infatuated with joe posnanski's blog. joe is an immensely talented writer and his site is about the only blog i've ever read that captures his random thoughts, remains coherent, and truly feels like a conversation with a friend. i have the utmost respect for him and hope to carry some of that here. my hope is to use this as an outlet for my baseball ramblings. god knows i need somewhere to combine my love of the game, its players, statistics, and our fearless leader darren daulton.
anyways, lately all i've been able to think about is how undervalued defense still is. it's undervalued on all levels; by the average fan, by the metric community, and by major league teams.
*evidence 1a
evidence 1b
evidence 1c
evidence 1d
raul ibanez receives 3 year 30 million deal, in his age 37 season. ibanez will benefit from being able to hide in the smaller park in philadelphia, but that's not really a point in his favor. according to justin's total runs, he was worth -17 runs above replacement. when looking at the outfield market this year, it appears the phillies have made a gross misstep considering similar players (big bat/bad d) have either signed for a short-term's pittance (burrell) or are still available (adam dunn, ken griffey, bobby abreu, garret anderson, moises alou).
i know that this is a transition that will eventually happen as defensive statistics become a) more reliable, and b) get their deserved exposure on mainstream stat sites. defensive statistics have really come a long way in a very short time period. as recent as 5 years ago about the only fielding statistic available was errors. while conventional and simple, there is a glaring hole in the error stat. by reaching the ball, the player at least did something positive. what about the balls a player did not get to that he should have? play by play metrics like john dewan's +/- system, ultimate zone rating, and revised zone rating solved this problem and have finally quantified defense, showing that a run saved is truly as good as a run earned.
*my question is what is preventing these new statistics from hitting the mainstream? i think a bit of it has to do with the culture of fantasy sports, but there is also a natural tendency to ignore defense. in a simplistic sense, you can't score or negate runs while playing defense, making it difficult to quantify value the same way you can quantify offense.
several "sabr" teams are starting to take advantage of the defense market inefficiency. the shining example of this was the 2008 tampa bay rays who improved from 941 runs allowed in 2007 to 671 in '08 with virtually the same pitching personnel. the example next year will more than likely be the seattle mariners under new gm jack zduriencik. they replace richie sexson at first with some combination of russell branyan (who came up as a third baseman and moves to the right in the positional scale) and chris shelton, both of whom certainly can't be worse. the outfield is where the real change will happen. the aforementioned raul ibanez gets replaced, ichiro moves back to rf full-time, and defensive whiz franklin gutierrez takes cf. gutierrez was worth 21 runs above replacement defensively last year (per justin's total runs formula). if the m's decide to go with some sort of platoon in left field involving endy chavez they could see even more defensive gain and quite possibly the best defensive outfield unit in the majors. the mariners aren't the only defensive-minded team out there, the red sox, blue jays, athletics, cubs, royals, and cardinals have shown a strong tendency towards cheap defensive investments (marco scutaro/john mcdonald-tor, cesar izturis-stl, jack hannahan/rajai davis-oak, coco crisp-kc). all of these players were underrated by the market and came cheaply.
*scutaro per justin's formula was morth 35 runs above replacement (20 fielding, 11 batting, 3.4 for positional adjustment). to put that in perspective it's better than vlad guerrero, derek jeter, carlos guillen, and miguel cabrera did last year.)
the shift in the market has cost slugging first basemen and outfielders millions of dollars this offseason. a pat burrell or adam dunn-type slugger goes for 10+ million/multiyears a year or two ago, but now are settling for one year deals because teams now realize that a defensive liability can severely limit overall production.
darren to follow...
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