The Defense Thread

[TooLiveBrew]

Maybe no one else will find this interesting, but I couldn't find a thread to post in without feeling like a hijacker. It'd be interesting to see if Brewerfan can track defensive performance on a 'what we saw' basis. Since there really isn't a way (yet) to measure defensive performance, I believe that the eyes should be trusted a great deal.

 

Observations like how Hall has a weakness for playing balls to his side, and then I'd imagine there'd be more keen ones (reads off the bat, positioning of players on the field by coaches, arm angles on throws, etc.). Of course, this would be the 'web gems' thread too... that is, if it's interesting to more than just me.

 

My entry: Adrian Beltre will probably always be my personal 3B-playing metric. I can only truly compare players against those I've seen play, even though I'm sure Beltre isn't the greatest to ever field at thrid. The guy is, though, flat-out amazing with the leather, and to be honest, the reason for this thread tonight. He makes the routine plays (easily), and makes plays you just shouldn't be able to make at 3B. Tonight he fielded a chopper literally 2/3 of the way towards 2B (no dive), spun counter-clockwise (slowly, but controlled as opposed to just 'slow'), and gunned down the runner at 1st. It looked like he had to hustle, but not like he could barely made the play.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

You can consider Mike Cameron the Adrian Beltre of CF. The guy gets to everything and he has a good arm to go with it. There aren't many better defensive CF's in baseball than Cameron.

[danzig6767]

Rickie Weeks has an amazing ability to get gloves on so many boarderline non-error called plays that don't end up resulting in an out. Granted, since many are fairly tough plays, some should have been expected to not become an out, but i wish someone had kept track of how many blown DP throws and missed plays that weren't quite bad enough to be an error called plays Weeks has had this year.

 

Weeks has improved defensively, but him and Prince on that side of the infield are sure frustrating to watch play defense.

[Gopher74]

I tend to give Weeks a break a little bit(the DP play really annoys me though he seems to be improving) because he gets to some balls behind 2nd that I don't think many 2nd basemen would get to. Hell, he also at least knocks down quite a few going the other way.

 

He does seem as though he times the line drives that he has to jump for pretty poorly though. So that's one of those "what I see" plays that isn't ever going to show up in any defensive metric that is a knock against Rickie.

[uwisfan]

after watching Estrada butcher the position last year, it is really a pleasure watching Kendall in action. He is able to get to so many balls that most catchers can't get to. I am amazed every time someone bunts on him watching him fly out of his stance down the line to snag it. Also nice that we don't have to wait 10 minutes every time a ball grazes his facemask and that he can get to popups. As for the rest, we still hear pitchers commenting on his "gameplan" and how he "calls a great game". Kudos to this pickup... oh yeah, that and he leads the league in caught stealing.

[Ennder]

From a quick statistical standpoint we are 8 plays below average which is good for 4th worst in the NL. That number has been improving lately which agrees with my observations. We started out strong which I agree with because of all those early season double palys we got and then during our big losing streak we slid to 2nd worst in the NL and our defense really was bad during that. Now it is making a rebound just like it seems it should be.

 

The stats seem to agree with my observations so far.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Even though we haven't seen much of Branyan at 3B this year, I'm really satisfied with his defense. If you can get that above average defense that he's given throughout his career with a 780 OPS, that isn't all that bad for 3B.