Jesse Spector pens an excellent piece on resistance to defensive metrics. Players talk about how these metrics don’t match what they see in certain players, and things the stats might be missing. Joe Maddon talks about using them the predict who will be good, rather than measuring who already is good. Once place where they are being put to good use is positioning defenders, as pointed out by Denard Span:
“When I come up to hit, guys are standing basically where I hit the ball, my hot spots, and that makes it more difficult to hit,” says Giants center fielder Denard Span. “Defensively, they put you in better positions. … The game has changed. From my rookie year to now, there was no such thing a UZR. Then the WAR started. People weren’t sold on it. Now you see teams swearing by it, and guys are getting paid by their WAR and not their actual numbers like before. I don’t get it, but I don’t get paid to get it.”
I’ll also note that in most cases, at the core defensive positions up the middle, the difference between the 30 starters is pretty small. When I watch a minor league game, what usually stands out to me is the defense. Often players don’t make the plays you take for granted at the big leagues. So when analysts put a negative number next to one of the best defenders in the world, it doesn’t sit well. Maybe we just need to express the number in a different way, do there is no minus sign.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2hWknN4
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