skyking162

On Tuesday I outlined a variety of a sources for historical fielding data. Yup, just by downloading a few files, you too can have access to how many runs any fielder saved* in any season back to 1957. I spent last night looking through the data and found some interesting stuff. Read on.

(* Well, a moderately accurate guess, at least.)

Ozzie vs. Mark Belanger

Growing up, I always took it for granted that Ozzie Smith was the best fielding shortstop of all time. After all, he’s a Hall of Famer with a decidedly mediocre bat. But the more I read about baseball prior to 1988 (Kirk Gibson’s World Series homerun is the first baseball event I remember watching in real time), the more I see the name Mark Belanger. He was the Orioles’ shortstop from 1966 through 1981. Who was better? Here are a few ways to look at their accomplishments:

                     Ozzie Smith           Mark Belanger
Best Single Season   +24 (1980, 88-90)     +34 (1975)
Best Three Seasons   +72  (24, 24, 24)     +88 (34, 27, 27)
Best Consec Five     +20.4 (1988 - 1992)   +26.2 (1974 - 1978)
Best Dozen Seasons   +19.1 (low: +13)      +20.1 (low: +8)
Career Total         +268 (#1)             +254  (#2)

From that, it appears Mark Belanger was a better shortstop at his peak, but Ozzie had a longer peak. Either way, saving over 250 runs in a career is ridiculous. Luis Aparicio’s the next closest shortstop, with “only” 142 career runs saved. The active leader is Omar Vizquel at +97.

The Derek Jeter Check

Yup, he’s still a bad fielder, checking in at -96 runs over his career for an average of -8 runs per season. In fact, he’s the worst fielder in career runs using the data available. Now, he actually has had some slightly above average years, but those are outweighed by some awful streaks. Here’s every season since 1996, his first full season in the big leagues:

On the Good Side

The Yankees have definitely had their share of excellent fielders, however. Clete Boyer fits the bill, preventing an average of 20.5 runs per season from 1960 through 1964 at the the hot corner. Graig Nettles’s best five year stretch wasn’t far off, averaging 16.5 runs saved from 1973 through 1977. Bucky Dent was the best fielding Yankees shortstop of the past 50 years, averaging 16 runs saved from 1977 through 1980. Since 1987, Paul O’Neil was the only right fielder to save more than 15 runs, totaling 60 throughout his Yankee days. In fact, over his career, he accumulated the third most runs saved of any right fielder, at +91.

Best of the Best

Here are the fielders who have saved and cost their teams the most runs over their entire careers, since 1957:
1B Keith Hernandez +115 Mo Vaughn -75
2B Lou Whitaker +113 Tony Taylor -71
3B Brooks Robinson +300 (seriously!?) Bobby Bonilla -104
LF Carl Yastrzemski +114 Manny Ramirez -135
CF Paul Blair +156 Matty Alou -87
RF Tony Gwynn +118 Jay Buhner -100

In the current game, shortstops are about five runs more valuable than third basemen per season, all else being equal. That puts Robinson behind Belanger and Ozzie, but he could very well be the third most valuable fielder of the past 50 years.

Is Ken Griffey Jr. Overrated?

Junior’s troubles in the field have been heavily discussed since he moved to Cincinnati, but the zone ratings don’tt give him a lot of credit even when he was with Seattle. Here are his runs saved totals in the 90s: +3, -5, -6, -2, -5, -9, -5, -6, -3, -8. That’s remarkably consistent, but not in a good way. Was Griffey a guy who’s grace and flash made people think he was a better fielder than he really was? Or are his zone ratings missing something that the Gold Glove voters didn’t?

Top Seasons By Position

1B Rod Carew +19
2B Jose Oquendo +30
3B Brooks Robinson +32
SS Mark Belanger +34
LF Carl Yastrzemski +25
CF Kirby Puckett +27
RF Al Kaline +22
(Not that all positions are created equal.)

Hall of Fame Candidates

Jim Rice was +40 runs in left over his first dozen seasons and -28 over his final two. Tim Raines was +27 over his entire career, with no single season more than nine runs better or worse than average. Andre Dawson was +7 runs per season as a center fielder and just about average as a right fielder. Dale Murphy’s fielding record is all over the place. In center, he had seasons of +16, +18, and -21. In right, he posted a +16, but also a -25. In total, he’s about average. Alan Trammel ranks surprisingly low, at only 65 career runs saved. That’s only three ahead of Adam Everett, who’s had a much shorter career. Of course, Trammel knew how to hit, as well. Mark McGwire finished his career at +9 runs total in the field. He did have a four-year stretch from 1989 to 1992 in when he averaged +8 runs per season, but I think there are more important things to figure out about McGwire than his fielding record.

Top Active Fielders In Career Runs

Scott Rolen 3B +153
Darin Erstad CF/1B +99
Omar Vizquel SS +97
Adrian Beltre 3B +87
Placido Polanco 2B/3B +86
Jeff Cirillo 3B +76
Mark Ellis 2B +76
(Not that all positions are created equal.)

The Bottom Two

There are two fielders who are far and away the worst of the worst in career runs saved. Well, at their level, we really should be using an antonym of “saved”. Believe it or not, neither name is Manny Ramirez — he’s third worst, only ten runs behind the pack.

The silver medal goes to Dante Bichette, at a whopping 150 runs below average. And because the number one guy on the list is far worse than Bichette, I’ll spare him more comment.

Number one was 104 runs below average as a third baseman, 26 runs below average as a first baseman, 60 runs below average as a right fielder, and a few runs below average in both left and center. That’s right, Mr. Bobby Bonilla cost his team 194 runs more than the average fielder. I’m not sure if I’m more amazed at Bonilla’s complete lack of fielding ability or his NL teams’ willingness to repeatedly sign him to play the field. This dude was born to DH.

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Ok, let’s pretend you’re convinced that fielding really is uber-important to winning baseball games. And you’ve realized that traditional stats like errors and assists just aren’t worth your time. Where can you go to find good fielding data? After all, mainstream websites certainly don’t have it, Baseball Prospectus’ FRAA isn’t based on play-by-play data, and The Hardball Times only has zone rating data back through 2004.

Thankfully, there are some industrious individuals who have done the heavy lifting. Here’s where you can go, depending on the time frame and quality demanded:

1956 through 1986

Check out Sean Smith’s TotalZone system, which uses play-by-play data from retrosheet. Hit location data isn’t precise or complete for many of these seasons, but Sean came up with a brilliant way to address that problem. While this approach isn’t as accurate as other methods for a single season, we have the benefit of looking at these players’ entire careers, hopefully removing any flukiness from specific seasons.

1987 through 2007

You’re going to want to use a zone rating system here, and SG over at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog has compiled that data from the past 21 seasons. From 1987 to 2001, data is pulled from ESPN and chances are estimated based on Chris Dial’s research. From 2002 through 2007, the exact zone rating data from STATS is used. (I’ve been using combined STATS and BIS zone data for my 2007 player values. Sean Smith has the same data in a nicely formatted file.)

2000 through 2006

Ultimate Zone Rating is probably the best publicly available fielding measure. Well, at least for the seasons that MGL has made it available. UZR starts with a basic zone rating, but also adjusts for batter handedness, pitcher handedness, ballpark, and a number of other potential biases. It also doesn’t treat every ball hit into a fielder’s zone the same — fielders get more credit for hard-to-field balls and less credit for easy plays. There are two files: 2000 through 2003 and 2003 through 2006 (with partial 2007 data).

Dave Pinto’s PMR system is worth paying attention to, but nobody’s compiled all the data in a single place or converted the data into runs. Hopefully we can convince Dave to do that one of these days.

2008

Sean Smith has the only fielding projections I know of, using zone ratings from previous seasons to project 2008 performance. He knows what he’s doing, even using speed scores to help the outfielder regressions. There are two files: infielders and outfielders.

Catchers 1957 through 2006

Catchers are a whole different beast, because instead of fielding batted balls, they prevent wild pitches and help control the running game. Sean Smith has career data available, in a per-season format.

Outfield Throwing Arms 2004 through 2007

Most outfielder ratings only measure range, so you’ll need to sprinkle in some information on throwing arms. John Walsh has done some great research in this area, not just measuring assists, but how valuable the reputation of an outfielder’s arm is in keeping runners from taking an extra base.

First Basemen Scooping Ability 1985 through 2007

One aspect of a first baseman’s fielding skillset that’s almost never measured is his ability to corral errant throws, either by scooping bounced throws, stretching to the side, or being tall enough to reach high throws. Sean Smith has done some simple work on the careers of first basemen from 1985 through 2007. The methodology is explained at his blog.

Scouting Data 2003 through 2007

Do you want to know what a specific player’s strengths and weaknesses in the field are? Check out TangoTiger’s Fans Scouting Report, conducted yearly since 2003. Hopefully he’ll have each season’s data converted to runs in the near future.

There you go. Now, whenever you want to rate any position player after 1957, you know where to find the fielding data. Sure, fielding analysis isn’t perfect, but what’s available is a much better option that assuming everybody is average, counting up Gold Glove awards, or asking Steve Phillips. Oh, and remember to apply a positional adjustment when comparing two different positions.

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