Like I did with offensive value, here are the tiers of players based on my estimates of their defensive value. If you haven’t yet, check out the Top 10 and Top 25 lists.
I’m actually going to run two lists — first listing total defense, including position. Then I’ll list the players who score highest relative to their own position. Why? Albert Pujols is a terrific fielder relative to other first baseman, but he’s barely above average compared to everyone else. Both pieces of information are interesting.
There are many many more players who provide at least half a win of defensive value — I’m only listing players who have a case for being a Top 50 overall player based on their offense (i.e. no Omar Vizquels).
Total Defensive Value (wins above average):
2.0
Curtis Granderson, Mark Ellis, and Troy Tulowitzki.
1.5
Chase Utley, Grady Sizemore, Joe Mauer, Carlos Beltran, Aaron Rowand, Rafael Furcal, Dioner Navarro, and Orlando Hudson.
1.0
Brian McCann, Jose Reyes, Rick Ankiel, BJ Upton, Russell Martin, Geovany Soto, Scott Rolen, Adrian Beltre, Ichiro Suzuki, David DeJesus, Ryan Zimmerman, Jimmy Rollins, Brandon Phillips, and Shane Victorino.
.5
Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones, David Wright, Josh Hamilton, Brian Roberts, Evan Longoria, Alfonso Soriano, Brian Giles, Troy Glaus, Miguel Tejada, Johnny Damon, and Kosuke Fukudome.
Fielding Relative to Position (wins above average)
2.0
Mark Ellis
1.5
Curtis Granderson, Troy Tulowitzki, Chase Utley, Orlando Cabrera, and Albert Pujols.
1.0
Grady Sizemore, Carlos Beltran, Aaron Rowand, Rafael Furcal, Scott Rolen, Adrian Beltre, Ryan Zimmerman, Brandon Phillips, Alfonso Soriano, Brian Giles, Johnny Damon, Kosuke Fukudome, Mark Teixeira, Kevin Youkilis, and Casey Kotchman.
.5
Joe Mauer, Dioner Navarro, Jose Reyes, Rick Ankiel, BJ Upton, Ichiro Suzuki, David DeJesus, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Chipper Jones, David Wright, Brian Roberts, Evan Longoria, Troy Glaus, Matt Holliday, Alex Rios, Adrian Gonzalez, and Derrek Lee.
Have I really missed the boat on anyone?
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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.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
What are you using to get the catcher info? And kind of stemming off that, how far apart are Yadier and Dioner?
Is Ankiel is even average in center, other than his arm?
Where would you place the following (obviously a couple are having down years offensively):
P. Polanco, JJ Hardy, Y. Escobar, J. Crede, C. Crawford, A. Kearns
August 4th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I didn’t rank too many catchers and it was mostly based on reputation. If I wanted in-season catcher data (or any data for any position), I’d head over to Justin’s site (full-fledged post coming up on his numbers): http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2008/07/2008-total-value-measures-through-july.html
I haven’t looked at Ankiel’s arm, and yeah, he’s about average.
I didn’t rank any of those players. Yunel is having the best 2008, but it’s his first year. Last year Austin Kearn’s was a top-ten corner outfielder, I believe. Polanco’s league-average in the field now, I believe. Hardy’s, well, good now, bad last year. Crede’s hit ok this year, but has lost much of his fielding talent. All these guys are probably on the cusp of the top 75, some more like 100-125. I know that’s vague, but my guess isn’t much better than anyone else’s.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I might have missed this… what are you basing defensive value on?
August 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Dan, I looked at past seasons of UZR, BIS ZR, and STATS ZR in addition to 2008 combined BIS and STATS ZR. Nothing too scientific went on, just a mental averaging and regressing of available data.