skyking162

Here’s an article from a great fielding-analysis blog about the value of OF throwing arms. Here are the runs prevented compared to average on a per-season basis over the years 2002-2005.

Ten Best Outfielder Arms
Name Runs Saved
1 . Edmonds Jim 8.718
2 . Jones Jacque 8.659
3 . Taveras Willy 8.074
4 . Johnson Kelly 7.772
5 . Sullivan Cory 7.372
6 . Chavez Endy 6.524
7 . Guerrero Vladimir 6.197
8 . Hidalgo Richard 6.181
9 . Hunter Torii 5.974
10 . Walker Larry 5.852

Ten Worst Outfielder Arms
Name Runs Cost
1 . Brown Emil -16.783
2 . Pierre Juan -10.769
3 . Lawton Matt -9.428
4 . Sanchez Alex -7.793
5 . Holliday Matthew -7.341
6 . Crawford Carl -7.111
7 . DeJesus David -6.996
8 . Williams Bernie -6.785
9 . White Rondell -6.559
10 . Magee Wendell -5.973

Emil Brown’s out of control. But even ignoring him, the difference between a great throwing arm and a bad one is 20 runs per season — that’s two wins and the difference between David Wright and Derek Jeter at the plate. All from an ARM.

The researchers also make available a spreadsheet with data for all players from 2002-2005. Here are some interesting tidbits:

• Johnny Damon’s right at league-average, surprisingly
• The best 2002 arm belonged to Chipper Jones, saving 18 runs in 534 opportunities. Vlad was second at 17 runs.
• The best two single seasons by far were Aaron Rowand in 2005 (26 runs!) and Ichiro in 2004 (23 runs!)
• On the bottom of the scale a few players posted seasons in the -18 runs range: Juan Pierre, Alex Sanchez, Reed Johnson, Damon Hollins, and Emil Brown.
• Andruw Jones ranks as the 11th best arm overall in the period.
• Jermaine Dye, who I’ve always heard has a great arm, comes in at -4 runs per season, barely better than Shannon Stewart.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 11:08 am and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.