skyking162

Both Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins have earned national attention for their sparkling 20-20-20-20 seasons (20 homeruns, 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 stolen bases). Both hit leadoff for their respective teams and both scored a lot of runs. But Rollins is an MVP candidate while Granderson is still labeled as a future star. Is that fair? Is Rollins really the better hitter? Let’s take a look at how their 2007 seasons actually stack up against each other.

Here are some raw numbers:

Name          G   PA    BA   OBP   SLG  wOBA  RBI  RUN  SB
Rollins     162  778  .296  .345  .531  .367   94  139  41
Granderson  158  676  .302  .361  .552  .381   74  122  26

Both players played every day, although Jimmy was taken out less often and gained some plate appearances thanks to the awesome Phillies’ lineup. Rollins also stole more bases and scored and drove in more runs than Granderson.

Granderson’s advantage is in the rate stats, where he got on base more frequently and posted a higher slugging percentage. wOBA is weighted on-base average, a statistic that measures a player’s overall production per plate appearance, and is measured on the OBP scale (.330 is average, .400 is really really good). wOBA is a more accurate cousin of the OPS family.

Playing more often is generally a good thing, but Rollins also piled up some hurtful numbers with all that playing time:

Name        CS  GDP  Out
Rollins      6   11  522
Granderson   1    3  432

Rollins’ five more caught stealings mostly neutralize his stole base advantage of 15. Rollins also grounded into eight more double-plays than Granderson, “helping” him accumulate a league-leading 522 outs. That’s right, in 102 more plate appearances, Rollins made 92 more outs than Granderson.

So Granderson was a better offensive player when he played, but Rollins played more. We need to find the proper way to weight quantity and quality.

Runs created measures how many of a teams’ runs were due to the production of individual players, and both Rollins and Granderson created a lot of runs. But you also have to account for how many outs were used up to create those runs. If you give at-bats to a scrub player he’ll still create a few runs. In fact, a team of scrub players would score about 3 runs per game. (In contrast, a team of 2007 Jimmy Rollins would score 5.6 runs per game and a team of 2007 Curtis Grandersons would score 6.4 runs per game.) We want to know how much better each player was compared to a scrub.

In the chart below, RC is runs created and RAR is runs-above-replacement, the difference between how many runs each player actually created and how many runs a scrub player would have created given the same number of outs.

Name         RC  RAR
Rollins     115   51
Granderson  109   57

As you can see, Granderson’s ability to create runs without making outs outweighs Rollins advantage in playing time. It’s like a free-throw competition where I’ve made 25 out of 50 shots and you’ve made 26 out of 60. You’ve sunk more shots, but it’s only fair that I get to shoot as many times as you do. Even if the rest of my shots are taken by someone half as good as me, I’m going to catch your total. Replacing Jimmy Rollins with a scrub would not have hurt the Phillies’ offense as much as replacing Curtis Granderson would have hurt the Tigers.

Now, a lot of the push for Rollins’ MVP candidacy is because the Phillies made the playoffs and the Tigers didn’t. But if you’re asking whether Rollins or Granderson was the more productive offensive player in 2007, the answer is Curtis Granderson.

(Defense? You want defense? Granderson’s well above average in center field while Rollins is mediocre, at best, as a shortstop. The gap widens…)

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Everyone has a theory why homeruns have steadily increased over the past twenty years, and I’m sure most of them are valid to some extent:

• smaller ballparks
• steroids
• the juiced ball
• expansion

But what if the increase in homeruns is also a product of itself? That is, whatever the initial reasons for the increase, it’s now snowballed into a bigger increase than any of those reasons can explain on their own.

Why? Because the equilibrium between hitting and fielding has shifted towards hitting. Homerun hitters tend to strike out more and, obviously, hit more homeruns. With those types of hitters, there are fewer balls in play that fielders have a chance to turn into outs. Therefore, the cost of putting a bad defender on the field is less than it used to be. And if that worse fielder can take advantage of the new, homerun-friendly conditions, he can make up the gap between himself and the better fielder who can’t.

How about a picture?

Now, there obviously is significant value in turning batted balls into outs, and that loop at the bottom of the diagram won’t continue forever. The equilibrium has definitely shifted more towards hitting than it used to be. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see homeruns continue to decrease over the next few years (they were down about 10% in 2007) as teams figure out the actual value of fielding and decide they’ve shifted too much away from it. Everyone will wonder why homeruns are suddenly decreasing, and the only reason might be that GMs are choosing to value things differently.

Note: The title of this post makes reference to a great book I’m reading about a mathematical model of consciousness, I Am a Strange Loop.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Short answer: when your name is David Ortiz and the year is 2007.

Long answer: Sure, Ortiz’s run-producing numbers are lower in 2007 than during his homerun-laden 2006 campaign. Big Papi’s homeruns dropped from 57 to 35 and his RBIs dropped from 137 to 117.

But Ortiz’s batting average went up 45 points from .287 to .332, resulting in a gigantic .445 OBP (30 points higher than last year) and .621 SLG (only 15 points lower than last year thanks to the bump in AVG and 23 additional doubles. By the way, those 52 doubles tie Ortiz for 35th all-time in a single season.)

So why the lack of hoopla this year? I see two reasons. One, hitting a lot of homeruns is a big deal, no matter what else you do (see Prince Fielder’s 2007 MVP campaign). And two, big Papi wasn’t clutch like in the past. He cost the Red Sox a win and a half with his lack of clutchiness in 2007 — the same number he helped the Sox win last year. However, clutchiness isn’t a repeatable skill and the situations in which Papi steps to the plate aren’t under his control. That leaves complaints about his lack of homeruns.

Nobody’s made a big deal about it, but homeruns were down across baseball in 2007. In 2006 AL players hit homeruns in 3.2% of at-bats, while that number is at 2.9% this year — a drop of 10%. (Run-scoring only dropped by 1.5%, though.) Even with the same power, Ortiz would have been expected to hit “only” 51 homeruns in 2007. Ok, so it’s still a big dropoff, but not quite as extreme. Hitting 19 extra singles and 23 extra doubles helps ease the pain, though.

How about overall value? Ortiz’s 2006 earned him a VORP of 77 runs. In 2007, he’s a full win better at 86 runs — good for 3rd in the AL. And Ortiz’s 176 OPS+ in 2007 was the best of his career.

So when you hear people calling Ortiz’s 2007 season a down year (or when you don’t hear anybody talking about it at all), make sure to mention he’s actually been better this time around. Bring up the .332 batting average and 52 doubles. In the right circles you could even mention the 176 OPS+ and 86 VORP. Even removing a chunk of value for possessing zero defensive talent, Ortiz is still the best player on the Red Sox and should appear on a significant number of MVP ballots. 2007 was not a down year.

Popularity: 6% [?]

When I first became interested in sabermetrics almost ten year ago (thank you, Rob Neyer), one of the major tenets was that fielding just isn’t very important. Maybe that was because current fielding measures were bad (errors, assists, etc.) and there wasn’t anything better. People didn’t know how to handle fielding, so they ignored it.

Ironically, debates about player value in 2007 seem to under-rate fielding. Ryan Braun appears destined to win NL Rookie of the Year, with his poor fielding reputation just a subjective footnote. Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter lost the 2006 MVP award to Justin Morneau, who was barely a better hitter and not even one of the top ten players in the league.

We’ve hit the time of the year when there’s a lot of discussion about player value — awards, team retrospectives, and 2008 projections — so it’s important to get a good handle on fielding. I’m going to talk about the wrong approach to judging fielding, the right approach, specific stats that take the right approach, and the effect of using the right approach on player value. Feel free to skip down if you’re in touch with the basics.

The Wrong Approach
Traditional fielding stats include errors, fielding percentage, assists, putouts, total chances, and maybe double-plays turned. Anything that’s just a raw count of plays made is highly dependent on the number of groundballs given up by the team’s pitchers. There’s a difference between playing behind Barry Zito and Chien Ming Wang. It’s not how many plays you make, but how many you make with what you were given. Therefore, assists, putouts, total chances, and double-plays are all out the window.

Errors and fielding percentage (the second is just errors as a rate stat) are a different beast. Yes, errors are bad. But crappy fielders can actually have very low error-rates. Imagine a fielder who can’t move, but has great hands — say, Luis Castillo circa 2007. He won’t commit many errors, but groundballs will constantly roll by him that would be scooped up by most other players. Is it worth not screwing up 20 plays per season in exchange for not getting to 30 hits? No way. Range is the name of the game, especially for outfielders.

A Better Approach
Any decent fielding metric should compare plays made with plays that could have been made. These days, all the big name stats providers (STATS, BIS, etc) track where each ball is hit, dividing the field up into zones. Stats such as Zone Rating hold each fielder accountable for certain zones. You get credit for each ball hit into your zone that you turn into an out and get docked for each one you don’t, regardless if it’s an error or ball you can’t get to.

The next step is take into account the difficulty of balls hit into each player’s zone of responsibility. If one player happens to have 500 balls hit right at him, he shouldn’t come out looking better than a player who has 500 balls hit to the edge of his zone. Precise zone data is important for these advanced metrics. With it, you can assign different locations a difficulty level based how often balls in each zone are turned into outs by the league as a whole. Then, for a specific fielder, compare how many of the balls hit towards him you’d expect an average fielder to turn into outs with how many he actually turned into outs. This is often called a +/- system, or advanced zone rating system.

And finally, since number-of-plays-made doesn’t mean a whole lot to most people, you can convert to runs prevented. A routine grounder through the legs might cost the team .6 runs on average (the full difference between an out and a single). A difficult grounder down the line is almost always a double, so not making the play only docks the third baseman .1 runs. But if he stretches out to make the play, he gets credited .8 runs (most of the difference between a double and an out). Plays that are neither routine nor impossible are graded on a sliding scale.

The great part about judging fielders on the scale of runs is that you can easily convert to wins (10 runs is about 1 win) and you can combine them with offensive runs. For example, Derek Jeter’s hitting is worth 40 runs and his fielding is -15 runs, so he’s worth 25 runs overall.

So What Stats Are Best?
Because zone data takes a lot of effort to create, it costs money. Teams can pay for it, successful websites can pay for it, and rich people can pay for it. Teams haven’t given away their numbers, but people from the second two categories have. Check out Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) by Mitchel Lichtman, who used to work for the Cardinals. Check out the Probabilistic Model of Range (PMR) by Dave Pinto, who used to work for ESPN. Check out Justin’s +/- stat based on zone data from The Hardball Times (the same data that goes into John Dewan’s Fielding Bible). None are perfect (due to design flaws, data that’s not precise enough, and differences in the way balls in play are recorded by different stats providers) but the benefits far outweigh the lack of total accuracy.

If you don’t want to bother with the whole advanced fielding metric thing yourself, at least use Defensive Efficiency Ratio (DER), a team-level stat that’s simply outs made divided by balls in play. It’s like batting average from the fielders’ point of view. Good fielding teams turn more balls into outs.

Ok, Why Should I Care?
Simply put, the difference between the best and worst players in the field is a significant chunk of the difference between the best and the worst players at the plate. Good fielding metrics aren’t just more accurate, they help demonstrate the relative value of hitting and fielding.

Take, for example, Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzky, whom I discussed yesterday. Compared to replacement level, Tulo’s offense has been worth 35 runs and Braun’s 50 runs. That 15 run difference is worth about a win and a half. But (depending on which fielding metric you use) Tulo is +20 runs compared to average while Braun is -20. That’s 40 runs in Tulo’s favor, making him a better player by 25 runs, or 2.5 wins. Still want to ignore fielding?

The difference between positions is also important. Vlad’s more or less an average rightfielder. But would you play him at shortstop? No way. He’d be a sieve. So just by being able to play shortstop, Miguel Tejada help his team more than if he played right field. How much more? However many runs Vlad would cost your team at shortstop. Tango once came up with these relative values between average fielders at each position:

Pos Runs
CA +10
CF +5
SS +5
2B 0
3B 0
RF -5
LF -5
1B -10
DH -15

The range of fielding value over a full season goes from Manny (about -30 runs — some say more) to Adam Everett (+25 runs) plus a 10 run positional difference. In 2007, ARod’s created 155 runs, an awesome number. If you go down the list 65 runs (the difference between Manny and Everett), you’ll find the likes of Aubrey Huff and Johnny Damon. Would you rather have a guy who hits like ARod and fields like Manny or a guy who hits like Aubrey Huff and fields like Adam Everett? The numbers say it doesn’t really matter.

But that’s why fielding matters. You can turn ARod into Aubrey Huff.

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This might be the ultimate in self-aggrandizement, but I don’t care. I want to watch Daisuke pitch, and typing will keep my hands busy. I’m not promising a Chuck Klosterman level of mind-blowing pop culture references or a word count that approaches a throw-off Bill Simmons blog entry. But I bet I can I keep it up through at least 2.5 innings. Ok, maybe 2.

2:12
Ok, I missed the first batter of the game typing up that introduction — it was probably the ESPN links that put me over the edge. Evidently Julio Lugo made an out. He’s bound to do that a lot this year. I read part of an article recently that criticized Lugo as a “sabermetric darling”. Um, no. Lugo’s probably overrated, mostly due to overperforming for the Rays last year. But he’s no JD Drew.

2:20
For me, this game has TWO intriguing starting pitcher story lines. Zach Greinke’s recovery from mental issues is a huge personal victory for him, and could become a top national story if he can fulfill even 75% of the potential he showed two years ago. Greinke’s impressive spring motivated me to throw a few bucks his way in my fantasy league. I’m rooting for him.

2:29
I always thought Esteban German’s last name was pronounced “jer-mane”. Evidently it’s “her-mon”. Every time the KC announcers say “Her-mon” I think of the Arrested Development Hermano episode. Great show.

2:38
Three strikeouts for Greinke already, all looking.

If Pedroia succeeds in the majors, will he get the David Eckstein treatment? Dustin swings pretty damn hard every time, but hits for average instead of power — in other words, he hits like Eckstein throws. If the Sox win the World Series, will Pedroia’s heart and determination receive the all the credit?

2:42
Alex Gordon: 0-7 with 4 K’s. Overrated? Time to move Teahen back to third? With that pop-out he’s now 0-8. No player who started their rookie season 0-10 has ever gone on to hit 500 HRs, so these next two ABs are critical. (For those bad at figuring out written sarcasm — which I’m learning is 90% of the non-Kalkman population — the preceding paragraph was tongue-in-cheek.)

Dice-K’s got some nice pre-pitch hip-thrust action.

Back to relevant commentary next half-inning…

2:49
Great close-ups of the two starters releasing their change-ups. Daisuke straddles the ball with his middle and ring fingers, while Greinke’s middle finger is directly on top of the ball. I wonder how much a grip without the index finger affects a major leaguer’s control? Maybe it’s not as important since most change-ups land in the dirt anyway.

2:57
Manny’s going with the Ricky Williams’ coif, I see — somewhere between the Dolphin Dreds and whatever you call the homeless-and-smoking-pot-in-southeast-Asia look. Awesome. (My intro paragraph was correct — if Klosterman was writing this, he’d know the perfect rock star to compare with Manny. And it would fit not just because of the hair, but also because of some childhood trauma and his pattern of ex-girlfriends. This is why I’m no Chuck Klosterman.

3:07
The Royals announcers have now compared Daisuke to David Cone twice in three innings, and I’m still not sure what their point is. The second time they also managed to diss the Japanese for lacking personality.

Greinke just allowed the leadoff batter to reach base for the third straight inning. So far none have scored, the only run coming in the first with two outs. Again, Greinke strands the lead-off runner and runs his strikeouts total to five through four innings.

3:26
Just had to restart my computer because it had slowed to a crawl. Looks like I missed a quick inning by Daisuke.

A quick perusal of the other afternoon scores shows the Indians beating the White Sox yet again. I don’t often root against teams, but I despise the White Sox. Bold statement: Chicago will finish last in the Central, behind even the Royals.

Do you think Greinke just enjoys the challenge of giving up leadoff hits and then getting the next three hitters out? Maybe he’s just that good from the stretch?

Anyone want to bet that David Ortiz doesn’t go down looking for a third straight time? (If I was Frank, I’d say he’s due to crank one.) Nope, Greinke got him again — Ortiz couldn’t quite check his swing. Damn impressive.

Can I admit something? I can’t tell one bit how good a pitcher is by watching him throw pitches. Maybe I’m exaggerating — I notice the difference betwee breaking balls that break a lot or just hang. I notice when pitchers throw a lot of strikes at the edges of the zone. And I notice pitchers that get batters to chase a lot of balls way out of the strike zone. But I have no idea why some pitchers can get batters to chase pitches and others can’t. I don’t have any clue why hitters crush Jeff Weaver’s fastballs more consistently than John Lackey’s. And don’t even get me started on good mechanics versus bad mechanics. These are the things I would like to learn from color commentators and professional writers. These are the things color commentators and professional writers fail to explain.

3:43
MLB.tv has gone silent. Combined with the fact that it pauses every couple seconds, I’m not sure how much longer I can “watch” this game.

4:17
It got to the point where I could either watch the streaming feed or type brilliant analysis. I opted for the former until the skipping frames gave me a headache. The radio feed is working out a lot smoother and I can get back to writing now.

I’m trying to decide if Greinke’s outing today was overrated or underrated. On one hand, he gave up four doubles among eight hits, including one off the wall that could have been a homerun. He’s fortunate only to be charged with one earned run. On the other hand, Greinke’s struck out seven, walked one, and hasn’t actually allowed a homerun. Two hits were of the infield variety, knocked down by a diving Alex Gordon, and most of the balls in play were kept on the ground. Given that he’s pitching against a strong Red Sox lineup, I’m leaning towards calling it an excellent outing and allowing myself to get excited. Zach Greinke for Cy Young!

Daisuke hasn’t been bad, either. Without the caught stealing in the seventh he’d probably have given up a couple additional runs. But you can’t argue with a 10/1 K/BB ratio, even against the Royals.

We’ve arrived at the point of the game where the Royals’ bullpen makes Greinke’s strong outing completely irrelevant by giving up somewhere between three and six runs. Which is, coincidentally, the point of the game where I start watching another one. Thanks for reading, Chuck.

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