Is defense really that important in baseball?

[haveacigar]

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

11: Looking good that one time I was watching

[dps]

I'm going to also assume that better pitching yields better defensive ratings which shouldn't technically be the case?

Why would better pitching yield better defensive ratings? It'd be more of the OPPOSITE. A better defense will yield lower ERA's (and thus better "pitching", though defense obviously wouldn't have an effect on the pitching aspects like walks, home runs allowed and strikeouts).

Not only that, but if you use a defensive metric that uses range factors in any manner, it's likely that better pitching will actually yield worse defensive stats. Why? Becasue, generally, better pitchers will strike out more batters. The more outs the pitchers record by Ks, the fewer plays the position players will be making in the field--and since range factors are just plays made (usually expressed on a per 9 innings basis) that'll lead to lower range factors.

[200tang]

Not only that, but if you use a defensive metric that uses range factors in any manner, it's likely that better pitching will actually yield worse defensive stats. Why? Becasue, generally, better pitchers will strike out more batters. The more outs the pitchers record by Ks, the fewer plays the position players will be making in the field--and since range factors are just plays made (usually expressed on a per 9 innings basis) that'll lead to lower range factors.

Yeah, definitely. Although, it wouldn't make the player 'worse', but more it would give them less opportunities. I assume that's what you meant, but just thought I'd clarify .

Like I said before, too, defense also affects K/9. A crappier defense means more chances for the pitcher to record more strikeouts. Defense and pitching really do go hand in hand.

[200tang]

Not only that, but if you use a defensive metric that uses range factors in any manner, it's likely that better pitching will actually yield worse defensive stats. Why? Becasue, generally, better pitchers will strike out more batters. The more outs the pitchers record by Ks, the fewer plays the position players will be making in the field--and since range factors are just plays made (usually expressed on a per 9 innings basis) that'll lead to lower range factors.

Actually, expanding more on this, I think it depends on the player. A really good player (Gutierrez/Jack Wilson/etc..) probably won't see much of a dip. They're so consistently good that they almost always make those extra plays. Moving down the spectrum we have the 'average' defenders. Average defenders would probably be hurt the most because they go from a negative to a positive UZR year to year. Then we have the absolutely terrible players (Jason Bay/Adam Dunn/etc..), these guys would actually BENEFIT from getting less opportunities. They rarely make good plays so limiting the amount of bad plays they make helps their UZR out.

This is actually a large reason, along with shifts, that teams create their own defensive statistics along with using scouting.

[dps]

Yeah, definitely. Although, it wouldn't make the player 'worse', but more it would give them less opportunities. I assume that's what you meant, but just thought I'd clarify .

I said worse stats; I would have thought that made it clear. How many K's the pitchers get logically shouldn't have any effect of the fielder's defensive abilities. The problem lies in the stats we have available to measure defense. We have more tools to accurately evaluate defense than we used to, but they aren't as good as the tools we have to evaluate hitting and pitching.

[200tang]

How many K's the pitchers get logically shouldn't have any effect of the fielder's defensive abilities.

If you didn't run a defense out there and the only way to get an out was to strike him out, his K/9 would be 27. So, yes, defense DOES have an affect on K's. That's obviously the extreme, but to say it doesn't is incorrect.

[Edit : I should clarify that the effect is probably small on most teams, but the less outs the defense makes the more chances of a strikeout.]

[SirKodiak]

If you didn't run a defense out there and the only way to get an out was to strike him out, his K/9 would be 27. So, yes, defense DOES have an affect on K's. That's obviously the extreme, but to say it doesn't is incorrect.

[Edit : I should clarify that the effect is probably small on most teams, but the less outs the defense makes the more chances of a strikeout.]

One of the reasons K% is superior to K/9

[dickay]

Actually, expanding more on this, I think it depends on the player. A really good player (Gutierrez/Jack Wilson/etc..) probably won't see much of a dip. They're so consistently good that they almost always make those extra plays. Moving down the spectrum we have the 'average' defenders. Average defenders would probably be hurt the most because they go from a negative to a positive UZR year to year. Then we have the absolutely terrible players (Jason Bay/Adam Dunn/etc..), these guys would actually BENEFIT from getting less opportunities. They rarely make good plays so limiting the amount of bad plays they make helps their UZR out.

This is actually a large reason, along with shifts, that teams create their own defensive statistics along with using scouting.

if you have a smaller sample size i don't see how it necessarily makes it worse. yes, errors or mistakes are compounded until a larger sampling is inserted but there are also less opportunities for those errors and mistakes to occur. what i was saying is more that good pitching makes what seems already to be a very large margin of error much larger. I'd be interested to see these "UZR" stats for teams that have had the top five pitching staffs the past few years. If all the top pitching staffs have relatively high UZR's it could mean that defense helps pitching, it could mean that pitching helps defense, OR it could mean that the stats are flawed.

[haveacigar]

if you have a smaller sample size i don't see how it necessarily makes it worse. yes, errors or mistakes are compounded until a larger sampling is inserted but there are also less opportunities for those errors and mistakes to occur. what i was saying is more that good pitching makes what seems already to be a very large margin of error much larger. I'd be interested to see these "UZR" stats for teams that have had the top five pitching staffs the past few years. If all the top pitching staffs have relatively high UZR's it could mean that defense helps pitching, it could mean that pitching helps defense, OR it could mean that the stats are flawed.

Well, it would make it worse for better defenders, because UZR is a counting stat, and fewer chances = less opportunity to get a high score.

[dickay]

Well, it would make it worse for better defenders, because UZR is a counting stat, and fewer chances = less opportunity to get a high score.

that seems like a flaw right there. so a ground ball pitcher is going to make the OF ratings worse theoretically??

[200tang]

that seems like a flaw right there. so a ground ball pitcher is going to make the OF ratings worse theoretically??

Sort of, but luckily I'm not sure if there's any rotation/bullpen out there where this would even be a problem over the course of 3 years of data. Like has been said before, just use common sense when looking at defensive metrics.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...n=2009&month=0

Last year there were only 15 qualified pitchers with a GB% over 50 (5 of them were at 50.X). Unless you have a team of Joel Pineiro's it's not really worth bringing up. Also, if it's anything worth noting (probably not), three of them were on the Cardinals and Colby Rasmus still managed a 13.7 UZR/150, Rick Ankiel 0.8 UZR (Across all three OF positions), Matt Holliday -0.9 UZR (SSS for all three, obviously)

[kenny1234]

that seems like a flaw right there. so a ground ball pitcher is going to make the OF ratings worse theoretically??

I think that the UZR data compares each fielder to how an average fielder would have performed. So, for an average fielder, the pitching staff makes no difference. For everyone else, getting less chances than average would bias the results toward zero. A groundball pitcher will make good outfielders look worse and bad outfielders look better - but I'm really not sure of the overall effect.

[HoustonGM]

if you have a smaller sample size i don't see how it necessarily makes it worse. yes, errors or mistakes are compounded until a larger sampling is inserted but there are also less opportunities for those errors and mistakes to occur. what i was saying is more that good pitching makes what seems already to be a very large margin of error much larger. I'd be interested to see these "UZR" stats for teams that have had the top five pitching staffs the past few years. If all the top pitching staffs have relatively high UZR's it could mean that defense helps pitching, it could mean that pitching helps defense, OR it could mean that the stats are flawed.

And how would you measure the "top pitching staffs"? Using what? ERA? Common sense says that a good defense will lower a team's ERA because they get to more balls and thus, less hits. I do not understand what you're trying to get at here.

[haveacigar]

And how would you measure the "top pitching staffs"? Using what? ERA? Common sense says that a good defense will lower a team's ERA because they get to more balls and thus, less hits. I do not understand what you're trying to get at here.

I see what he's trying to do, but unfortunately it's circular. You can't separate defense and pitching when they both significantly influence each other.

[dickay]

I see what he's trying to do, but unfortunately it's circular. You can't separate defense and pitching when they both significantly influence each other.

well, maybe i went about it the wrong way. HGM was stating that a handful of teams improved pretty much solely because of their defense. I said its kind of short sighted to put it all, or even most towards defense IMO and then got into the line that their pitching had a big part of it. yes it turns circular i guess, but basically this thread has proved what I had suspected. That these newage defensive stats have significant margin error and are still not a very accurate measure of a players defensive ability.