Players attempt to catch a fly ball or popup and it drops between them. Get as Excel Workbook. Meanwhile, Mitchel Lichtman independently began efforts of his own to improve on the basic Zone Rating metric. In this article we use the term defense mostly in the twenty-first-century sense, to mean fielding as distinct from pitching. The metrics that are available now and that we outlined above may prove useful for evaluating players in a career context or, depending on the metric, over a shorter span, one to three seasons. Why did Ross Tucker start Go Big Recruiting? Weve had pretty good methods now for five or six years. Statistic Description: Fielding Percentage (Putouts + Assists) / (Putouts + Assists + Errors) Note that seasons prior to 1876 are not included in single-season marks, but are included in career marks. Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball, Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE. "I think he's got a chance to have a long career in this game as a frontline shortstop, no question," the manager added. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Part of the Baseball Almanac Family, Fielding Average Records for Shortstops by Baseball Almanac. With that in mind, lets turn our attention to shortstop defense. Segura has amassed a career .285 batting average over 11 seasons. Why should I tweet when a college checks me out on Go Big? Joseph T. Hallinan, Discover Magazine, 20 May 2014 Donovan made four errors at third base, two at first base and one at shortstop and had an overall fielding percentage of .982. 555 N. Central Ave. #416 The biggest problem with both the box-score category of metrics and the zone/tracking category of metrics is that theyre not useful for comparing contemporary and more-recent players to players before 1989. Mitchel Lichtman took Zone Rating one step further, using a different approach from that in The Fielding Bible. Can your recruiting process start spring of junior year/summer of senior year? As a 21-year-old Pujols played in all but one of the Cardinals . Their significance over a small number of games is still uncertain and may not be great. Totals are Below. This provides insight into to how much a teams defense is helping its pitching staff turn batted balls into outs. As with Baseball Info Solutions data, hits are classified by batted-ball type (groundballs, flies, line drives, popups), and the fielder who made the out or attempted to make it specified. At the high end are the infielders and the pitcher. Maybe fielding stats for aluminum-bat-league shortstops are at least partly telling us how good the guy will be at third base with wood bats. Steve Sommers has actually gone as far as combining both UZR numbers and the Fan Scout Report to come up with a combined value. [/fn] Theyre the mirror image of Runs Created, the metric Bill James developed to estimate how many runs that are scored a hitter can be credited for. Now that hes a Ranger, well soon have an idea of how his defensive numbers hold up among pro competition. Defensive Runs for pitchers is a measurement, of course, of the runs they save with their glove, not with their arm, except when they throw to a base after a ball is hit into play. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Numerically, what does it mean to be consistent? As a data point, then, that we can use when plotting the fielding quotient of a player who has won it, the Gold Glove Award is of limited value, but neither should it be ignored or outright dismissed. Find out more. Outfielder steals a home run from a batter. (James would later propose that defensive innings be recorded. Colligiate Summer ball as a true Freshman. Because of the location of the mound, the calculation of Plus/Minus for pitchers is similar to that of Plus/Minus for the middle infielders. Fielding percentage is not the only way to measure a players success or failure on defense. What level of play? Like Defensive Runs Saved, UZR is relative to the league average for a player at a given position. In the article, I didnt try to resolve the sort-of-contradiction between Beckhams excellent stats and the conventional wisdom that he cant stick at shortstop. . Smith explains: Without information on the hits, I have to make an estimate. For the metrics to be routinely tracked and updated on a daily basis for the benefit of the general public, however, the conventions of scorekeeping would have to undergo radical revision. DER can be applied to historical data. In order to be a truly terrible defensive catcher and still stay on the roster, you have to be a heck of a hitter. But if you do not have a radar gun, average-grade velocities throwing from shortstop to first usually around 85 mph and higher. For the outfielders and corner infielders, it is adjusted to reflect the number of bases saved (on plays that could be or were extra base hits)the result is an Enhanced Plus/Minus number. However, there are many gray areas in the game of baseball for which the numbers cant always account. [fn]John Dewan, The Fielding Bible, Volume II, (Skokie, Ill.: ACTA Sports, 2009), 2729. Returning junior Steve Sclafani (North Massapequa, NY/Farmingdale) is expected to man second base this season with a fielding average of .931 over . This effectively minimizes subjectivity. A couple of other notes. An important advantage of RRF is that can it be used for seasons as far back as 1876. This is slightly different from the original Zone Rating, where balls fielded out of a players zone as well as in it counted toward a players Zone Rating. Extensive Play-by-Play Data Available. For the seasons for which they can be used, however, these metrics have proven to be more reliable indicators of a players fielding ability than are the box-scorebased metrics. The caught-stealing percentage is tracked for pitchers as it is for catchers. Copyright 1999- Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted His zone rating is simply plays divided by opportunities; in this way, zone-rating numbers are numerically similar to fielding percentage. On the 1900 Giants, for example, Hall of Fame shortstop George Davis had a fielding percentage of .944, which was much better than the league average at the position, .922, and certainly better than five standard deviations below the norm. Slugging percentage differs from batting average in that all hits are not valued equally. 1 in the MIAA is because seven players for the Bearcats are hitting above .300 freshman outfielder Omara Love (.538), Daugherty . )[fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, 11. If the fielding percentage was .970, they'd get claim points for fielding above .910. . Career Leaders & Records for Fielding % as SS. Some would also argue that shortstop is one of the most difficult positions because of all that a shortstop is asked to do.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'baseballscouter_com-leader-3','ezslot_13',130,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-baseballscouter_com-leader-3-0'); See Also:What is WAR in Baseball? For historical data, this provides a better estimate than does plain Range Factor, although its still an estimate. Rankings of Negro League players should consider that Negro League data is not complete. "A couple of years ago there was a group of good, young shortstops who emerged as future stars: Derek Jeter, Rey Ordonez, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra to name a few." Revised Zone Rating is simply a percentage of the balls fielded successfully in a players zone; it lists Out of Zone plays separately. Conversely, in 2005, Derek Jeter had a Plus/Minus of 34, despite his Gold Gloves and his reputation for making web-gem plays. Statistics That Require the Tracking of Batted Balls Metrics For Plus/ Minus Runs Saved, the Enhanced Plus/Minus version is used, because outfielders can take a hit that would have been a double and keep it to a single. This site also participates in other affiliate programs and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies. Second basemen stand far away from the batter, but have a short throw to first base, while third basemen stand close to the batter, but have a long throw across the diamond. At third base and shortstop, his fielding percentage remains at 1.000. If it is so important, how does someone evaluate a players ability on defense? Velocity from the INF: Upper 70s MPH from SS. Outfielders are rated on how often runners advance, stay put, or are thrown out in extrabase advancement situations. Height and Weight for MIFs are really not as important as the key measurables and obviously the technical offensive and defensive ability. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'baseballscouter_com-leader-1','ezslot_6',123,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-baseballscouter_com-leader-1-0');if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'baseballscouter_com-leader-1','ezslot_7',123,'0','1'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-baseballscouter_com-leader-1-0_1');.leader-1-multi-123{border:none!important;display:block!important;float:none!important;line-height:0;margin-bottom:7px!important;margin-left:auto!important;margin-right:auto!important;margin-top:7px!important;max-width:100%!important;min-height:250px;padding:0;text-align:center!important}On the other hand, most of a shortstops defensive chances come from fielding ground balls in an area that requires them to cover more ground giving them less room for error. First base has the highest average RC value, 99, and catcher has the lowest, 70. Since the Total Zone rating is simply a measure of fielding range, additional components must be added, depending on the position. A brief inquiry into their history might give us a new perspective on defense and on the report that defense is the new OBA. If it is, the .225/.286/.307 line that Yankees shortstops have produced might start to look slightly more respectable. That is, he made 33 more plays than the average shortstop. As with Plus/Minus, the player evaluated by Total Zone is compared to the average player at his position in his league. What level of play? The metrics have come a long way in the last few years, and clubs go to great lengths to quantify defense, but they simply dont have the same confidence level as they do in quantifying offense.[fn]Albert Chen, Feel the Glove, Sports Illustrated, 1 March 2010. On several occasions Royals general manager Dayton Moore has indicated that, when it comes to evaluating defense, he trusts his scouts more than he trusts the numbers. February 27th, 2023. Top middle infielders are evaluated first from a defensive standpoint, and then from an hitting standpoint. In ZR, a ball that drops in for a hit in a zone that no fielder is considered responsible for is not counted as an opportunity for anyone, whereas in DA, if the ball is hit into the gap between short and second, for example, each infielder is charged with half an opportunity. When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. I am truly crazy about the sport and everything associated with it. [/fn], Plus/Minus. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. The most important factors when evaluating an elite middle infielder defensively are speed, quickness, good hands, and arm strength. For double plays, additional credit is given beyond the putouts and assists the fielders are credited with. . There is no magic number for the amount of data on a player to be reliable, but after, say, three years, I consider a players UZR to be pretty darn reliable. Fielding Average/Fielding Percentage: Divide a player's total number of assists and put-outs by the number of assists, put-outs, and errors. Im working with a college play-by-play database that goes back through 2007. (See Fielding Bible Awards: An Alternative to the Gold Glove on page 96. [fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, 1. The trick is to know not only how to read the maps for what they are, a set of honest if not infallible data points, but how to read them with one eye while keeping the other one on the ball in flight as Franklin Gutierrez takes off to run it down. The Mariners, ranked twentieth in MLB in UZR (1) in 2008, led all of MLB in that category (+85) in 2009. But is a player who scores +5 in Plus/Minus in the course of a single week really having a better defensive week than the player who scores 5? While a batting average is only one measure of a . What is a good infield fielding percentage? Credits and debits are assigned to the fielders according to the difficulty of a play made or not made. If they make an error on a ball hit to them or if they make a bad throw on a pickoff attempt, it counts against their fielding percentage.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'baseballscouter_com-leader-4','ezslot_14',113,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-baseballscouter_com-leader-4-0'); Fielding percentage is taken into consideration when voting for Gold Glove awards in the MLB, but they are not just given to the player with the highest fielding percentage. A good shortstop is always in need for a college coach and for programs at this level its no different. First, in RZR, the hit locations by pixel, described above, are used to plot batted balls; balls hit in specific directions and at specific distances are predetermined to fall in a players zone or out of zone. BIS video scouts plot hit locations, and then an automated code determines whether the ball landed (or was caught) in a particular RZR zone. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. Some zones, representing gaps, are not assigned to any defensive position. So James sets the Runs Saved value of each position equal to a value such that the sum of Runs Created and Runs Saved is equal for each position. Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Research is complete through completion of the previous season and includes all the fielding average variations. [/fn] Still, DER is highly correlated with winning. And UZR is like Defensive Runs Saved in that its based on locations of batted balls and not on an observers judgment whether a fielder should be able to reach a ball in a given zone. [/fn] Gutierrezs exceptional range couldnt be fully leveraged at Progressive Field, which has one of the smallest outfields in MLB. In Revised Zone Rating (described below), no extra credit is given for them, theyre merely tallied separately. Below well look at some of the new, and not so new, defensive metrics that Jeff Kingston alludes to and then at some of the major-league clubs that are mining them for information that might give them insight and an advantage over their competition. Judgment calls based on seeing, on empirical evidence, do count for something, as any scout will tell you, and when joined to statistical analysis the two modes of evaluation taken together may produce a higher confidence level than either of them taken only by themselves. [fn]Bill James and Jim Henzler, Win Shares (Morton Grove: STATS Publishing, 2002). This article was written byJeff Zimmerman - Dan Basco, This article was published in Summer 2010 Baseball Research Journal. Plus/Minus values are calculated purely on the fielders success at all exactly unique plotted hit locations. Data are generally available for determining who made an out in the field. Never brooding, never sighing We were concerned several years ago that the advantage of the things that we knew could play itself out when you reach the point that everybody knew those things, Bill James told a gathering of the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America earlier this year. When you watch baseball games every single day, its very apparent who can play defensively and who cant.[fn]Dayton Moore, interview on AM 810 WHB, Kansas City, www.royalsreview.com/2009/7/13/947719/the-defensive-statistics-i-still. James also assumes that all positions contribute equally to a baseball gamethat the players who contribute more offensively contribute less defensively, and vice versa. Fielder holds a runner to a single on a ball that was a likely double or a triple. Critics of fielding percentage note that the statistic can be misleading - fielders who work harder to get to the ball can have a higher percentage of errors (therefore a lower fielding percentage) while at the same time being more effective for their team as they have a higher total number put outs and assists. He also ranks fourth among shortstops in onbase percentage - Renteria's slash line as a Cardinal featured a .290 batting average, .347 OBP, .420 slug and .768 OPS. Outfielders also can be expected to have high fielding percentages because most of their chances come from catching fly balls. A players Fielding Runs number is used to estimate his Fielding Wins, an estimate of the number of games a team won above or below what it would have won with an average fielder (with zero Fielding Runs) at the players position. DER is a measure of the percentage of batted balls that become outs. [fn]Ibid., 33. A college shortstop playing high-level competition is probably more like a wood-bat-league third baseman. If some position players whose good glove more than offsets their weak bat still have a market value below their actual value, how would you know how to identify them? Recruits need to show the strength, speed and general athleticism to make the jump. anything but a shortstop!) In the past year many baseball writers have remarked that defense is the new on-base percentage, meaning that its an undervalued assetas the ability merely to get on base was about a decade ago, when driving in runs was thought to be the ticket, or so said Michael Lewis in Moneyball. It is well known that some positions are widely considered offensive positions or defensive positions. As baseball historian John Thorn notes, Fielding skill was still the most highly sought after attribute of a ball player.[fn]Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game: Baseballs Lifelong Fascination with Statistics (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), 9.[/fn]. Double plays by individual fielders were added as an official stat in 1922. His +26 is just percentage points below the top performance of the last two years, which belonged to another D II product, UC San Diegos Vance Albitz. Since 1958, the Gold Glove has been given to nine players in each league. Of that 36 percent of the total, it was 36 percent for the pitcher, 14 percent for the catcher, 6.5 percent for the second baseman, 6 percent for the first baseman, and less than 6 percent for each of the remaining positions. I dont know whether thats the case, though I can say that the year-to-year correlation is weaker for programs outside of D I. He thus had 28.02 expected errors. Down the years in proud parade, [fn]Bill James, interview with C. Trent Rosecrans, Talking with Bill James: Part 1, 19 March 2010, Cincinnati Sports Journalism, cnati.com.[/fn]. This is an improvement on Zone Rating in that a 6-second fly ball, for example, is treated differently from a 3-second line drive or a 4.5 second fliner. The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Here are some of the top 2009 picks who were above the 800 BIP threshold in each of the last two college seasons: The +/- column gives plays above or below average for the combination of the last two seasons per 2400 balls in play (approximately 100 games). Most of the effort to quantify run prevention, or defense, has been focused on pitching, at least since the late nineteenth century. Check out 2022 Regular Season MLB Baseball ss Fielding Statistics on ESPN.com. Check out 2022 Regular Season MLB Baseball 1B Fielding Statistics on ESPN.com. These cover things like Arm Strength (ARM), Catcher Framing, and Launch Angle (LA). Winn has more than twice as many 92-plus mph throws as every infielder in the majors combined. Still, the usefulness of the Gold Glove Award in evaluating defensive talent across MLB would be greater if the details of the vote were made publiconly the winner is announced, so we dont know by how much he won or who else was in the running. Only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Jorge Polanco graded . Jon Jay Current Visitors: 47 (0 members, 47 guests). Lewis Pollis Sabermetrics: Fielding percentage and erros dont tell the whole story,, Society for American Baseball Research Measuring Defense: Entering the Zones of Fielding Research,, Wall Street Journal Sports The Count: The Error of Relying on Fielding Percentage., Rules on baseball and baseball statistics from. Statistics: Batting | Pitching | Fielding Season: . Its adjusted for the strikeout and groundball rates of the pitching staff and for the handedness of batters. The name of this statistic is a bit deceiving. [fn]Total Baseball, 7th ed., 2494. All Rights Reserved by Baseball Almanac, Inc.Hosted by Hosting 4 Less. Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. In the original Zone Rating from STATS, players get extra credit for fielding a ball out of their zone. A player is given an assist when he makes a throw that gets a hitter out. - Ozzie Smith, Career Fielding Average Records at Shortstop, Single Season Fielding Average Records at Shorstop. Plus/Minus, another metric that John Dewan developed using BIS data, is designed to answer the question How many plays did this player make above or below what an average player at his position would make?[fn]Ibid., 1. The number of plays a given fielder makes is compared to the number of balls into the zones hes responsible for. 2. From that probability, a value for expected outs is obtained. update=copyright.getFullYear(); At the low end are the three outfielders, whose numbers are .56 to .58. A pitching staff with a high ratio of groundballs to fly balls is likely to increase the number of chances for infielders and to decrease the number of chances for outfielders. [/fn] From 2003 through 2008, Albert Pujols and Mark Teixeira had the best Enhanced Plus/ Minus at first; Mike Jacobs and Richie Sexson had the worst. A practical advantage that plain Range Factor has over Relative Range Factor is that it can be generated entirely from the data in box scores (you dont consider, for example, whether the pitchers the fielders are playing behind are groundball or fly-ball pitchers), although the reliability of plain Range Factor is inferior to that of RRF. Other statistics used to measure a players effectiveness on defense are total errors, putouts, and assists the basics as well as more advanced measurements such as range factor and defensive WAR. Carey has a .367 batting average and two home runs on the season. Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net. The league's lowest fielding percentages typically come from shortstops and third basemen, who must deal with a wide array of tricky ground balls and tough throws across the diamond. And the cunning pick their running [/fn] Havent all the front offices caught on by now, so that there are no more bargains for them to sift through in the glovework department? For an example, consider John Dewans discussion of Chase Utley in The Fielding Bible, Volume II. [/fn] But is that still true? Caught stealing percentage: .233. Range factor is calculated by dividing a players total number of putouts and assists by his total number of games played. [fn]Day, Deconstructing the Midas Touch.[/fn]. Based on Catcher ERA, Dewan takes the ERA of each catcher with each pitcher and compares that to the ERA of other catchers who caught the same pitchers that year. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'baseballscouter_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_10',126,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-baseballscouter_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0');First basemen do have chances as well to field ground balls, but they dont get as many chances to do that, and there is more room for error when they dont field the ball cleanly because they have a very short throw to first base.