Tiger Tales: A Detroit Tigers Blog: Ranking the third basemen

Monday, January 14, 2008

Ranking the third basemen - 2007

This is the eleventh part of my series on fielding in 2007. The table of contents for the entire series is listed below:

Basic fielding stats
Converting Zone Rating to something useful
Revised Zone Rating
Probabilistic Model of Range
Fielding Bible
Ultimate Zone Rating
Fan Fielding Survey versus range measures
Outfield arms
Ranking the second basemen
Ranking the shortstops
Ranking the third basemen
Ranking the first baseman
Ranking the center fielders
Ranking the right fielders
Ranking the left fielders
What about catchers?

The table below shows the runs saved above average per 150 games for all the major league third basemen with 600 or more innings in 2007. Brandon Inge did consistently well on each system and his Average Range Score (ARS) of +14 led all third baseman in the majors. On the other hand, new Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (-21) was one of the worst third basemen in baseball in 2007. That's a 35 run difference between the two of them which is a lot. Cabrera, of course, more than makes up the difference with his hitting. However, with a very left-handed staff and some ground ball pitchers , Cabrera could hurt them defensively if he doesn't improve. The hope is that his intense off-season conditioning program will improve his range to the point that he will be an average defender.

Inge is not the only good defensive third baseman hoping to find a full-time job some place. Major league ARS leader Pedro Feliz (+27) is currently a free agent. Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals finished second at +21. The trailers were Brewers third sacker Ryan Braun (+36 ) and Garrett Atkins of the Rockies (+25).

Table 1: Runs Saved Above Average (per 150 games) for third basemen in 2007

player	team	inn	ZR	RZR	PMR	+/-	UZR	FFS	ARS
Feliz	SF	1,220	28	30	28	24	28	22	27
Zimmerman	Was	1,432	15	21	33	16	N/A	10	21
Rolen	StL	935	26	17	10	17	24	27	19
Wright	NYM	1,418	2	31	18	10	N/A	2	15
Inge	Det	1,310	12	13	16	18	12	17	14
Jones	Atl	1,081	10	17	1	N/A	N/A	-1	9
Ramirez	ChC	1,091	5	0	20	15	6	7	9
Mora	Bal	1,051	4	4	17	N/A	N/A	-6	8
Beltre	Sea	1,279	0	7	14	6	5	24	7
Glaus	Tor	928	-9	23	7	10	-5	-3	6
Lowell	Bos	1,324	4	-5	16	6	N/A	8	5
Chavez	Oak	775	3	0	-0	14	N/A	18	4
Punto	Min	828	-1	5	-8	13	N/A	10	2
Rodriguez	NYY	1,330	0	-5	9	N/A	N/A	10	1
Gordon	KC	1,135	-4	2	-4	N/A	4	6	-1
Figgins	LAA	837	-10	1	7	N/A	-11	-7	-3
Wigginton	Hou/TB	647	-1	4	-16	N/A	N/A	-24	-4
Iwamura	TB	1,042	-1	-13	-1	N/A	N/A	14	-5
Kouzmanoff	SD	1,135	-0	-3	-13	N/A	N/A	-18	-5
Reynolds	Ari	842	-4	-2	-16	N/A	N/A	-4	-7
Encarnacion	Cin	1,168	4	-25	-6	N/A	N/A	-10	-9
Blake	Cle	1,209	-9	-13	-23	N/A	N/A	-8	-15
Bautista	Pit	1,065	-8	-38	-22	-23	-12	-2	-21
Cabrera	Fla	1,311	-16	-13	-26	-20	-28	-12	-21
Fields	CWS	690	-16	-32	-27	-29	-17	-19	-24
Atkins	Col	1,319	-14	-27	-38	-23	-23	-35	-25
Braun	Mil	945	-22	-47	-32	-46	N/A	-24	-36

18 comments:

AdamJan 14, 2008 12:10 PM
Currently living in milwaukee and can say that Braun surely does deserve his place as worst 3rd baseman. The word however is that he will be moved to the outfield next season.
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MattJan 14, 2008 03:54 PM
While I wasn't optimistic, I was hoping the upgrade from Guillen to Renteria would cover more of the gap between Cabrera and Inge than it did.

Between the two, the Tigers are still giving up 25 runs on defense. Hopefully, Cabrera will be a little better than last year and having Jones in left and Guillen at first will make up some of that ground.
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otisJan 14, 2008 07:14 PM
I'm curious. Have you done correlations between the different fielding measures? Are they well correlated with each other?
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Lee PanasJan 14, 2008 07:40 PM
Otis, the correlations are moderately high. Most of them are between .5 and .6. The highest one was between the two STATS based systems: UZR and ZR (.8).

The correlations between the fan survey and the measures was in the .40s for the most part which isn't too bad for a subjective survey.

Lee
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otisJan 14, 2008 07:47 PM
That's not bad. Perhaps defensive metrics have more reliability thant their reputations would you to believe.
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giantsrainmanJan 14, 2008 08:06 PM
Thanks for the good work and for visiting my use of your work on McCovey Chronicles. I have modified it to replace pure VORP with VORP adjusted to 150 games as your defensive averages are. I wondered what you thought of this adjustment.
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Lee PanasJan 14, 2008 08:09 PM
rainman, that one makes more sense. Does it change the results much?
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otisJan 14, 2008 08:25 PM
hmm. to really have it make sense you would need to use an offensive stat that doesn't give a value over replacement, like say Bill James's Runs Created or David Smith's Base Runs. I'm not sure if these defensive metrics are adjusted for situation, but the second of those is.
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Lee PanasJan 14, 2008 08:50 PM
Otis, you are correct and it came up before (on Rainman's blog). I think he's looking for something quick and dirty though and it's hard to find RCAA for all the players. Plus, he's only looking at one position so I think it's ok to do what he's doing. If he was comparing players at different positions, it would be more problematic.
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giantsrainmanJan 14, 2008 08:59 PM
Lee,

It made a small difference with a few of the players changing where they were on the list. Only Braun significantly improved his positon on the list and nobody really significantly lowered their position on the list. None the less I think the change did make a necessary correction and Braun's value was indeed understanted before this correction.
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otisJan 14, 2008 09:12 PM
I did some quick Visual basic work and managed to get a quick and dirty measure of both defense and offense. I used Runs Created as listed at the hardball times.

http://www.crumpled.com/brackish/3bsheet.xls
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giantsrainmanJan 14, 2008 09:20 PM
Otis,

Thanks! But why didn't you add RC per 150 games to ARS which is also per 150 games. Would this not make the list more accurate measurement of the comparitive value of the thirdbasemen. You are actually just repeating the mistake I made when I used VOPP instead of VORP adjusted to 150 games in my original list.
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otisJan 14, 2008 09:28 PM
I didn't research it that closely, but 650 at bats should be close to 150 games, and I used 650 at bats as my "season."
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giantsrainmanJan 14, 2008 09:38 PM
Otis,

My mistake. I misunderstood your labels and thought you had not made this adjustment. Thanks again!
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Lee PanasJan 15, 2008 07:37 AM
Wow, Cabrera is not looking so great on this list. This is another indication that he needs to improve his defense.
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SkyJan 18, 2008 01:06 PM
Otis -- using straight runs created is problematic because you're not using a replacement level.

GiantsRainman -- can you give me a link to your use of these numbers at McCovey?

BPro's VORP numbers don't use very good positional adjustments, but they're probably the best you'll find publicly. Their problem is that they adjust positions based on average offensive performance at each position. You really want to adjust based on difficulty of playing the position. For example, center fielders are actually pretty decent hitters AND defenders. Overall, there's more talent in CF than at 2B. But making it a zero sum game like BPro does removes the value of the center fielders.

Great fielding series.
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otisJan 18, 2008 05:05 PM
Yeah, that was the point. The McCoven have convinced me that it's okay to combine an "Above Average" analysis with an "Above Replacement" analysis if you are just adding them together, though.
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SkyJan 19, 2008 08:34 AM
Otis -- that's correct, but you're not using an "above replacement" figure. Straight runs created just divides up all of the runs scored by a team between its contributors. Even replacement-level hitters will accumulate 50 or so runs created over a full season. That is, a team full of replacement-level hitters will still score like 450 runs (numbers for example, only.) You need to subtract out replacement-level runs from runs created before using it in an analysis.
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