Is defense really that important in baseball?

[haveacigar]

Not quite true. If a player has a bad fielding percentage for his position, it tells you right away that he has bad hands, or else makes a ton of throwing errors. If he's booting/throwing away the ball that often, I don't think anything else he does defensively is really going to make up for that; he's a poor defensive player.

Unfortunately, the opposite isn't true. A guy can have a great fielding percentage but still not be a good defender if he has the mobility of a cigar store Indian and the throwing arm of a 3-year old girl.

Or, if a player has a bad fielding percentage, it means he is getting to more balls and making tough plays, sometimes going for errors. If a guy's range allows him to make 20 more outs then the other guy, but he makes 3 more errors, he's going to have a lower fielding %. But the 17 extra outs are worth the 3 errors.

Take Brandon Inge for example. His fielding % is probably far lower than Chipper Jones at 3B. He's also a way better fielder.

[haveacigar]

I really really don't like defense, I prefer pitching and hitting and consider them much more important. Your defense can suck huge dick, but if your pitcher is great and striking lots of guys out, it won't matter. Similarly, you can have a shitty pitching staff and awful defense, but have a lineup of big boppers, and win all your games 13-12.

That's why I rank them this way, from most to least important:
1. Hitting
2. Pitching
3. Fielding

And of course, at a very very distant 4th, baserunning

I think most people consider it in order of importance:

Pitching
Hitting
Fielding

Which is why fielding costs way less on the FA market than pitching or hitting.

That said, I can't think of a WS winner lately that was poor defensively.

[rschusta24]

The way I look at it. Of course defense is important but it is not everything. We must remember that a player can't be just judged based on his defense but also his other skills. I don't believe either that defense should be weighed more heavily than offensive numbers either. I don't believe anyone thinks that though. I've just heard a lot of arguments from people, not on here, but people who I talk to and defense seems to start to be the more weighed stat now a days in people's minds and not even thinking of overall offensive production. This is just something I have been thinkin about.

[kenny1234]

That said, I can't think of a WS winner lately that was poor defensively.

The Yankees last year were 20 runs below average, the Red Sox were second last in the league in 2004 (and 35 runs below average) - so I guess it depends on your definition of poor.

[actionjackson]

The way I look at it. Of course defense is important but it is not everything. We must remember that a player can't be just judged based on his defense but also his other skills. I don't believe either that defense should be weighed more heavily than offensive numbers either. I don't believe anyone thinks that though. I've just heard a lot of arguments from people, not on here, but people who I talk to and defense seems to start to be the more weighed stat now a days in people's minds and not even thinking of overall offensive production. This is just something I have been thinkin about.

It's all about balance. That's why WAR is a good starting point for judging players because it at least attempts to quantify them and come up with an overall rating for the player. It's why I'd rather have Matt Holliday than Jason Bay if I were the Red Sox, but at any price? No, and certainly not at the silly price that Scott Boras is hawking his latest client who he can demonstrate to you is the greatest player ever to play the game, if you take the time to read through his snow job presentation. Please Mr. Boras, do us all a favour and save the f**king trees and let the teams do their own evaluations and come to their own conclusions. Your client will be paid what your client is worth, not what you think he's worth. Of course, all Boras has to do is find one idiot GM amongst the thirty and once again his ship will come in. Possibly (still early) teams are starting to come to their senses. If I hear the word collusion I will go postal. Since when is deciding to run a team more efficiently colluding with the other 29 teams? That is beyond the scope of this thread however. Hey metsguy, just how many of those 13-12 type teams have you seen win a World Series? Yeah, thought so.

[haveacigar]

The Yankees last year were 20 runs below average, the Red Sox were second last in the league in 2004 (and 35 runs below average) - so I guess it depends on your definition of poor.

Thanks. I had a feeling I'd be wrong, but I didn't feel like doing any research.

[200tang]

I was gone the whole day and missed out

Anyways, I've skimmed most of the thread and thought I'd throw some stuff out there.

• Defense is very important, however, it isn't THE most important thing to consider, obviously. It's a balance between all aspects of baseball. However, defense is very important and even though defense is starting to finally be valued it's still the least valued and the easiest to pick up on the cheap.
  
• One thing to consider about the correlation between pitchers and defense is take the defense COMPLETELY out of it. What would the pitchers K/9 be? 27/9. Defense affects a lot.
  
• Like everyone has said, it's bad to use just one season of data or ignoring other stats and scouting reports. Hence why the 'stats vs scouts' thing is complete ********. I'm not sure if there are any sabermetricians out there who think stats always tell the complete story. I will say though, that just looking through UZR/Tango's Fan Reports/+/- that they all generally do a good job at ranking players.
  
• Range almost always reigns supreme over other areas of defense (arm,err,DP), however, always keep in mind the position you're looking at and use common sense. Go over to fangraphs and look at Bobby Abreu who acquires almost all of his value in defense through his arm. That +7 with his arm saved him from absolutely terrible, but going forward I would expect that to be maybe a +2 at best.
  
• For players without lots of time in the majors, while some have said you should regress it toward 0, I disagree with that. If they come out of nowhere and put up some crazy +25 or something, then yeah, but if it matches up with scouting reports and Tango's Fan Report it's worth just assuming he's well above average. Take Michael Saunders for example, he put up a +19.6 UZR/150 in 312 innings in LF. Now, while I'm not about to declare him a +19 UZR fielder I will say that having watched him (against Gutierrez/Ichiro/Chavez/Langerhans which helps) and read scouting reports on him that I'd put him at a +8 UZR level. Always use common sense when evaluating players.
  
• Catcher defense is still a long ways away from being quantifiable. DevilFingers has a good article on it though and has done the best job I've seen at trying to quantify what a catcher does.
  
• First base is also another weird position. Some first basemen keep the ball more than others do. Generally you should avoid using UZR at 1B if there's a scouting report from a scout you trust.
  
• UZR DOES have some problems, most notably when a shift is on. Chase Utley gets some bonus to his UZR because Ryan Howard is a pretty terrible fielder. By moving Utley more toward Howard he makes more 'out of range' plays. Utley is still a gold glove fielder, however, but it's worth keeping in mind.
  
• Defensive metrics still have a ways to go and may never be perfect, but you should never just blow them off. Teams like the Red Sox/Rays/Mariners/etc.. wouldn't be using them and having success if they didn't work (Note : These teams DON'T use UZR; they more than likely have a nonpublic stat)

[kenny1234]

I will say though, that just looking through UZR/Tango's Fan Reports/+/- that they all generally do a good job at ranking players.

People talk about the Tango fan report as confirming the statistical results. I just think that the people that visit the Tango site are people that read sabermetric blogs and keep up with the statistics. They then go to Tango's site and parrot back the statistical results. The strong correlation is absolutely meaningless.

As an example, every Blue Jays fan that I know would tell you that Wells is a good to great centerfielder, mainly because he won a gold glove 5 years ago. Statistics say that he isn't, and the Tango fan report agrees with the stats, not with my admittedly anecdotal evidence of fans. The same thing with Jeter in New York - people thought he was better than he is until the data proved them wrong. The fact that he is now a below average shortstop in the Tango fan report is not proof that the stats are good - it is proof that the stats have affected people's opinions of players.

[BBMogulLover21]

Since to my knowledge UZR is not used in BBM and Range Factor is.... is there much of a difference between the two? Im guessing Range Factor is the best available Defensive stat BBM has.

[kenny1234]

Range almost always reigns supreme over other areas of defense (arm,err,DP), however, always keep in mind the position you're looking at and use common sense. Go over to fangraphs and look at Bobby Abreu who acquires almost all of his value in defense through his arm. That +7 with his arm saved him from absolutely terrible, but going forward I would expect that to be maybe a +2 at best.

+7 arm is probably not to be repeated, mainly because it hasn't been that high before - but the bigger question for Abreu is the range. In the last 3 years, his range number has been -3, -29, -15. Given that variation, it is hard to say what he will be like in the field next year.

This also depends on position. Ichiro has played both center and right. In right, his arm is considered roughly average (even if that goes against my intuition) but his range is very good. As a centerfielder his range is about average, but his arm is very good. That makes sense when you consider who makes up the comparison group. But if you are considering him as a centerfielder, it would be wrong to discount the value of his arm just because you prefer range.

[SirKodiak]

I think most people consider it in order of importance:

Pitching
Hitting
Fielding

Which is why fielding costs way less on the FA market than pitching or hitting.

That said, I can't think of a WS winner lately that was poor defensively.

That is how most people see it, but it is probably actually in this order:

1. Hitting
2. Pitching
3. Fielding
4. Baserunning

[KowboyKoop]

That is how most people see it, but it is probably actually in this order:

1. Hitting
2. Pitching
3. Fielding
4. Baserunning

Idiot.


1. Bunting
2. Grit
3. Mentoring
4. Leadership
5. Slap-hitting
6. Stolen bases
7. Quick at-bats to keep your pitcher ready
8. Lots of ass-slapping to show that you enjoy each other at teammates
9. Moustaches
10. Loyalty

-Dayton Moore

[200tang]

discount the value of his arm just because you prefer range.

I didn't mean to make it sound like you should totally discount the arm, but I think generally you're going to go with the guy who has the better range than the better arm even if they grade out about the same in total runs saved.

I also find Bobby Abreu to be a somewhat weird player. He profiles as someone with above average speed, but it doesn't seem to help him at all in the field. Sort of like Jacoby Ellsbury, although I think Ellsbury is better than the crazy bad -18.6 UZR he put up this year, but with that speed you'd figure above average. I understand there's more to fielding than just being fast, but you would imagine they'd at least grade out as average. Really helps show why playing defense isn't EZ MODE.

[200tang]

Three other things; one question and two additions.

• A lot of people will post the examples of UZR and +/- disagreeing on certain players as a reason that the metrics don't work, but I can never understand this. Usually they're pretty close to each other and in the event that they do disagree then you just need to learn how each one comes to it's conclusion. They're not the exact same, hence why they're not named the same, so it makes sense that they aren't always going to agree. For another example, take tRA and FIP. Both good stats that most people use and have no problems with, but let's look at Tom Glavine. He's been a guy who has always been looked at as a meh pitcher from 02-09 according to tRA. The best tRA he's ever put up at the ML level was 4.72. However, if you look at FIP it paints a much different picture. In that same span he's bested his tRA 4 times by .5-1 run, which is quite a bit when talking about pitchers. Rarely do people ever bring up the weird pitchers that these systems disagree on as a reason the metric sucks, so why defense? I think mainly because it's harder to quantify defense, but that's no reason to completely dismiss it.
• Another fun person to look at is Alfonso Soriano. Looking at '07 he compiled a +18.4 UZR, however, looking deeper in to the numbers reveals his entire value was tied in to his arm (14.3). I think a lot of that stemmed from the fact that he was new in LF and people tested his arm a lot.
  
  Getting back to the Ichiro example, I think a lot of people still remember him throwing out Terrence Long at 3B. In recent years it seems fewer and fewer people have been trying to run against Ichiro because of his reputation. While Ichiro may not rack up as many 'kills' as other fielders, I wouldn't be surprised if he's in the top 3 in the league in stopping runners.
• And my question, does UZR on fangraphs include stopping runners from advancing? I read an article about it in the last off-season so I know there's a way to measure it, but I'm just not sure if fangraphs relies solely on kills. Hopefully someone out there knows.

[OregonDuck1989]

Idiot.


1. Bunting
2. Grit
3. Mentoring
4. Leadership
5. Slap-hitting
6. Stolen bases
7. Quick at-bats to keep your pitcher ready
8. Lots of ass-slapping to show that you enjoy each other at teammates
9. Moustaches
10. Loyalty

-Dayton Moore

I'd put a higher priority on mustaches and a lower priority on stolen bases.