Here’s a nice anecdote for those who have yet to embrace the importance of fielding. From Bull Durham:
Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There’s 6 months in a season, that’s about 25
weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp… you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes… you get a dying quail, just one
more dying quail a week… and you’re in Yankee Stadium.
The difference between hitting .250 and .300 is one hit per week. What’s the difference between a good shortstop and a mediocre one? It’s got to be at least one play per week, doesn’t it? And one play per week is the difference between a hit and an out. It’s the difference between hitting .250 and .300.
So we could really just ignore fielding stats and slap 50 points onto Omar Vizquel’s batting average. Instead of a .246 hitter, he’s now a .296 hitter, even at age forty.
And it works for crappy fielders, too. Ryan Braun? He becomes a .274 hitter with a .320 OBP. Does THAT scream rookie of the year?
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Nice. :)
December 20th, 2007 at 9:50 am
like that one.
oh….and i know its not baseball….but check this out
http://www.cougarblue.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,26/func,view/id,161260/catid,5/
December 21st, 2007 at 1:03 am
Sky, I think you could do a whole lot more with this idea. THT lists total balls in and out of zone, so you could figure out someone’s new “batting average”…..
I’m lazy, so I’ll try to do just one (using derek jeter):
.322 BA (206/639), 300 plays/386 BIZ
So his BA goes down to .187…. hhhmmm, he’s not THAT bad defensively. I just realized how stupid that was… this analysis implies that everyone’s defense hurts them… Use some kind of plays above average instead (which I dont have)
December 21st, 2007 at 1:12 am
okay, assuming no calculator errors, the average zone rating for short stops was about .814 (only balls in zone). So an .814 RZR with 386 chances (jeter again) would equal 314 plays. Jeter made 300 plays on the nose, so he’s 14 plays below average…. Subtract 14 hits from his BA, and you get a .300 average (down from .322). Assuming that ground balls go for singles only, his slugging drops to .430. I’m not sure if this is accurate or not, but it seems relatively reasonable.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:39 am
I’m even lazier…The Fielding Bible says that Jeter fielded 34 fewer balls than the average fielder. That drops his average to .269 and his slugging down to .399. Decidedly mediocre!
December 21st, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Dan, I like it. Definitely need to go the relative-to-average route, as the denominator of zone rating is pretty subjective and has nothing to do with at-bats. I have all the BIS data from THT in a spreadsheet, so running the calculations for every player should be easy. I’ll probably use out-of-zone plays, too, like Justin’s runs conversion. Any ideas on how to adjust SLG other than assuming all hits are singles? I’ll take a loook at Dial’s work.
December 21st, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Well I used THT because, again, I’m lazy. I realize that there are major limitations to the data, and BIS would be better. And I think you could only really do slugging% using ZR data, because I believe it only uses ground balls, whereas some of the other systems use all types of batted balls.
December 21st, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I just re-read my comment and realized something stupid in it….. You can almost certainly find out slugging % from other data types. What I meant to say was that slugging% the way I adjusted it was using only singles because that’s what RZR really would represent for middle infielders.