Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Fan Fielding Survey Results

Tom Tango, who has one of the more interesting and informative sabermetric sites on the net, annually conducts a very interesting survey on defensive skills. The results of the 2006 survey are now ready. Many of you completed the survey this year and he very much appreciates your participation. For those of you who are not familiar with the survey, he asked fans to rate the fielding skills of players on their favorite teams just based on observation. He instructed them not to use any stats at all. He also urged them not to vote based on what somebody else told them. He wanted them to just use their own eyes. They were the scouts. As you can see on the ballot, fans were asked to scout players on reaction/instincts, acceleration/first few steps, speed, hands, release/footwork, throwing accuracy and throwing strength.

He then tabulated the results which can be seen in detail on his site. I’ll summarize the results for the Tigers below. Note that the sample size for the Tigers was about 60 which is a pretty good size. Not every fan rated every player so some players ratings are based on fewer than 60 ballots. However, most of the regulars were rated by at least 50 fans and every player was rated by enough fans so that all the results should be relevant. . Tango explains that the league average rating for each of the 7 categories is 50 and that a player with a rating of 70 or better is in top 16% in the league.


There is also an essay written on each of the top 9 rated fielders in the game. This year, one of the top 9 was Ivan Rodriguez and this sabermetrician managed to write the essay without using any numbers at all.

Best Overall defense
1. Ivan Rodriguez 81
2. Brandon Inge 79
3. Curtis Granderson 70
4. Placido Polanco 69
5. Ramon Santiago 63

Reaction/Instincts
1. Brandon Inge 88
2. Ivan Rodriguez 83
3. Curtis Granderson 75
4. Placido Polanco 75

Acceleration/first few steps
1. Brandon Inge 82
2. Curtis Granderson 80
3. Ivan Rodriguez 77

Speed
1. Curtis Granderson 76
2. Brandon Inge 70
3. Omar Infante 66

Hands
1. Placido Polanco 81
2. Ivan Rodriguez 79
3. Curtis Granderson 78

Release/Footwork
1. Ivan Rodriguez 97
2. Brandon Inge 76
3. Placido Polanco 76

Throwing Strength
1. Ivan Rodriguez 92
2. Brandon Inge 91
3. Vance Wilson 60

Throwing Accuracy
1. Ivan Rodriguez 93
2. Placido Polanco 78
3. Brandon Inge 63
3. Vance Wilson 63

1 comment:

  1. Most of that doesn't surprise me. I guess I wasn't expecting Pudge to have such a strong arm. He doesn't show it off too often, but Inge can sling absolute bullets.

    ReplyDelete

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