Saturday, September 28, 2019

Fielding Is Debatable: What A Shock!

So America's go-to sports page for your Greenland soccer reports ran a piece today reporting that it's hard to say if the Yankees' fielding this year has been better or worse than it was last year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/sports/baseball/yankees-defense.html

Here are the key lines, before the reams of statistical mush that follow:

one aspect of the Yankees’ play this season has been trickier to evaluate: their defense. Depending on which metrics you choose out of the ever-expanding world of advanced analytics, Yankees fielders have been better than last year, or maybe worse, but probably close to average in the majors this year...


Of course, it comes down largely to which tools are used for evaluation. If you look at outs above average, the 2019 Yankees have improved over last year’s squad. But other metrics, such as defensive runs saved (D.R.S.), show a downgrade for this season’s team — but only a bit below average. 
And then there are the opinions from the players actually doing the defending. 
“We’re above-average defensively,” said the Yankees’ D.J. LeMahieu, an All-Star multipurpose infielder. “I feel like we make all the plays we should make. And our outfield is really good.”

Well, what a shock.  Different metrics produce different results.  And how dare they ask the players!  Who ya gonna believe?  Them?  Your cheatin' eyes?  Or statistics that don't actually measure anything, just what SHOULD be going on?

I think pretty much all of us who have watched many of the games this year would agree that the Yankees' fielding has been considerably better than last year.  The infield has been better—in part, because of Gio replacing El Matador—the catching has been better—with Sanchez both improved on passed balls and often absent—and even the outfield play has been better.

So what's not to like?  Well, among other things, the article makes out that The Gleyber is a below-average second baseman (nonsense), Didi has lost some range (maybe, but hard to say since he makes so many brilliant plays), and Gio is below average.

Right.

You can't really blame the NY Times for this one.  Even baseball reference's defensive WAR has Gio at -0.1, which means he has been slightly worse than anyone you can bring up from the minors.

Which is everything that's wrong with WAR and fielding stats in general.  Those of us who have watched Gio knows that he has been absolutely brilliant in the field.  He also has a surprisingly high number of errors, with 13.  And not a one of them have really cost us something of worth.

The advanced fielding stats say that, regardless of what actually occurs, x-number of balls should or could be fielded, and the failure to do so makes one a worse fielder.  The actuality of where the balls are (also the title of the under-appreciated sequel to "Where the Boys Are"), doesn't matter.

The fact that, just maybe, your crack shortstop or centerfielder isn't diving for everything in, say, the 8th or 9th of a game like last night's blowout against the Rangers—which they aren't, and which you don't want them to be doing—counts for nothing.

So I would say this:

The Yankees' fielding is considerably better than last year's.
Fielding metrics don't necessarily prove this.
Advanced fielding stats are generally all wet.

16 comments:

  1. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    A load of horseshit. That's horse, not Hoss.

    Advanced stats have done nothing for the game except cover people's asses for their decisions. I remember when ad agencies--where I worked for 40 years or so--started researching creative work. If you scored well, the work aired. It didn't necessarily work, but client marketeers could say, "Well, it tested really well." Asses covered, no instinct or taste or human involvement necessary.

    That's where baseball is now. I think the last new stat of any real value was OBP. Everything since has been something GMs and managers can point to to cover their asses. And a lot of times, they don't actually work. But many asses have been saved. Do we really need a stat that tells us Trout is a lot fucking better than anyone else you could put out there? And do stats on one so-so player after another really show they are slightly better or worse than each other?

    Horseshit.

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  2. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

    " I think the last new stat of any real value was OBP." I'll take OPS, but anything beyond that is carmine hose fans with more days in first circa 2003 or whatever year those assholes wanted to invent a statistic in their favor.

    How about WINS? And CHAMPIONSHIPS?

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  3. The idea of measuring someone's work not by his actions but rather on the basis of some imagined replacement's imagined work is...nuts.

    Not saying traditional stats tell us everything (or, sometimes, anything) but at least they are based more or less on ratios where both the numerator and denominator are provable quantities.

    To take things to the level of comparing players by someone's arbitrary decision of what someone else might theoretically accomplish is ridiculous. It's comparing apples to imaginary apples; it is nuts. In a considerate world it is dismissed as foolishness. Thankfully this seems to be a most considerate region of the world.

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  4. I agree with every single one of you whole heartedly.

    Particularly the we who watch all the games KNOW that the D is better sentiment.

    And Gio is great.

    Doug. K.

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  5. Austria's Only Baseball FanSeptember 28, 2019 at 10:34 PM

    Is no one watching Travesty in Texas?

    We’ve had five on the mound so far (top of the 6th) and Senor Cortes, Jr. just dealt a grand slam, putting the score at 8-1, and now has one out and two on.

    Many months ago, I predicted the Yankees would win 93 (and compared to some other estimates on this site, that was optimistic). I am beginning to think it might have actually been less embarrassing – and healthier – had I been correct.

    Oh – yeah: statistics suck. Pferdscheiße.

    Another run since I started typing - 9-1.

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  6. Austria's Only Baseball FanSeptember 28, 2019 at 10:46 PM

    Of course I mean to say BOTTOM of the 6th.

    So CC is being kept off the mound in this series, but at least Boone is non-committal about the ALDS. Paxton has "discomfort in his left glute."

    And some kid from Scranton is hitting for Gardner, who is responsible for our sole RBI. Must be something statistical.

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  7. Austria's Only Baseball FanSeptember 28, 2019 at 11:07 PM

    OK - enough for me (top of the 8th). Buck Schowalter is spending half an hour discussing THE HISTORY OF THE KIND OF WOOD USED IN BATS SINCE THEY WERE FIRST INVENTED. What tree, what tree... Can't he be a commentator for, say, Baltimore?

    Good morning, y'all.

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  8. If Cessa is on the post season roster I'm going to puke....

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  9. The umps were bullshit.... They screwed severino from the start

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  10. One thing I forgot to include that the Times article was actually pretty insightful on:

    Shifts!

    How the hell do you manage such advanced fielding stats as range, when teams are constantly putting on shifts??

    What is, say, the range of shortstop when he's put into what used to be a second baseman's position—and when the third baseman is assigned to cover the whole left side of the infield?

    This makes a mockery of it all.

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  11. Tonight's performance once again reveals the timidity of the Yanks in not going with Ford and King in the postseason.

    Instead, we will get something like Cessa and Gearrin, and carry 12-13 pitchers, the last 3-4 of whom will be completely ineffectual.

    Yanks have to go bold, or it's pointless.

    ALSO...if Sanchez cannot play two days in a row, he should not be on the roster.

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  12. I couldn't agree more strongly with the sentiments expressed in this entry, with the sole exception of trading the Red Menace for another Chance Adams....we already have a surplus of Chance Adamses. We don't need another Snotty Gray, either....

    This afternoon, my wife & I were out doing some shopping, and I had on the MLB Channel (#89) on Sirius/XM. They were interviewing one of the main hot-shots from Baseball Reference. He was bringing up this sabre-stat, and that sabre-stat, and spewing them all over the woodwork....but when they asked him for predictions for the post-season, he sounded completely unsure of himself. "Well, the Dodgers will almost certainly be in the Series - - unless the Nats heat up, and take them out....the Astros are nearly guaranteed to be their opponents - - except if Severino continues to look as great as he has since coming back - - all very conventional sentiments, delivered rather timidly. I think he realizes that most of his sabre-stats really ARE just a bunch of Pferdsheisse, as our Austrian friend terms it.

    Unless the Yanks get creative, and make up a roster such as advocated above - - with Ford, Mike King, and the like, being part of it - - we may as well just sleepwalk through the ALDS, and let the Twinkies homer their way past us.

    Long may Gio be our 3rd-baseman - - and may Gleyber concentrate a bit more on his fielding. May the General - - who, incidentally, hailed from the state that a certain Marlins team-owner grew up in - - stick around for many more years, and prove as valuable to the Yanks as Jeet was, for a buncha' years!

    and, psssst - - I hear that Giancarlo Scranton just MAY want to opt out of his contract (so sayeth my brother-in-law - - and he oughta' know - - he's a Pirates fan). Just thought I'd pass it along to see if we could get another juju-storm going. Meanwhile, Go, Yanks - - and Hal & Coops - - chenga-te los dos. LB (No J)

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  13. The Master would say that you can make statistics say anything you want...

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  14. I hope and pray nightly that Stanton will want to opt out after next year...but I can't believe it's a reality.

    Unless he really does have a year of years—in which case Coops the Genius will probably meet his demands—there is no way that The Flailer can get what the Yanks are already paying him in the open market. And certainly not for the 8 years he would have remaining on that contract.

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