Branyan and Hall in the field

[silversurferr]

When I was complaining on a different thread about Branyan, none of you Branyan lovers put up the fielding numbers for Branyan and Hall (although you were real quick with their OPS). In consecutive innings today, I saw Branyan: 1) make a decent pickup, but then stumble around like a drunk at Summerfest before making a weak throw to first, which missed the double play; 2) meekly wave at a candy hop grounder that went into left for a hit (after which Shouse gave up a two run double and Yost was forced to bring in Torres for the final out). I think Hall would have made both plays. I know it was only two plays ("too small a sample"), but those plays are representative of Branyan's weakness in the field. Whaddya say?

[DHonks]

When watching Hall, he's had a rather rough year at 3b. I made excuses until he made bad play after bad play beginning with the Boston series. I personally hoped Branyan's vastly underrated defense would get called up, because we could see that Hall needed a mental break. His hitting had been awful, but his defense was the last straw.

 

Branyan makes plays look smooth. He's very patient out there. Hall tends to look like the game is coming too fast at him.

[Brewer Fever]

Counsell should be brought in as a late inning defensive replacement for both.

[PKBadger]

Branyan's defense seems to come and go. He had a rough day today, but on Friday when C.C. was pitching, it seemed like there were about 10 ground balls to 3B and Russell was making very clean picks with patient, accurate throws to first.

[kramnoj]

Per Zone Rating this year, Branyan has been better than Hall, .847 to .780. Branyan's career ZR at 3B is .754 compared to Hall's .795. Hall should be expected to be better but he's been in a general funk this year.

[TooLiveBrew]

Branyan's defense is so much better than Hall's I just don't know what to say. Apparently 'you Branyan haters' just saw a couple plays they didn't like.

[logan82]

We have seen the same type of games out of Hall. The numbers are usually posted because the splits are far enough apart that the difference in defense would have to be pretty big to offset the difference in expected offense.

[BrewCrewForever]

Counsell should be brought in as a late inning defensive replacement for both.

Exactly! Counsell is about as sure handed as can be. Branyan and Hall both have had their struggles. Hall probably a little more. But neither is as good as Counsell on D.

[Jay Zahn]

Exactly! Counsell is about as sure handed as can be. Branyan and Hall both have had their struggles. Hall probably a little more. But neither is as good as Counsell on D.

Presumably one of the benefits of the Durham trade is that Counsell won't be the only lefty on the bench and could be used to replace either of them.

 

 

(edit: nested quote --1992)

[endaround]

Counsell doesn't have the arm strength anymore to play 3B

[istanbultaye]

Sure he does. It's actually a shorter throw than it is from many plays at shortstop. Plus the ball gets there quicker at 3b allowing him more time to get the ball to 1b. He doesn't have the arm strength to play top end defense there, but both Branyan and Hall have seemed to be quite below that even with better arm strength. It doesn't matter how hard you can throw the ball if you don't get the ball in the first place.

[JoeHova]

I disagree with you. There's no question (imo) that Branyan has been average or better so far this year. Who knows if it will continue, but he's been fine.

[joepepsi]

I think Russell is due for another tear this week. He hasn't played much in the last couple weeks, but seemed close to finding his stroke this weekend. 4 righthanders in St. Louis. C'mon Russell, give us some dramatic homers!

[TooLiveBrew]

I really don't know where the 'Branyan sucks on D' notion has come from. He's no Scott Rolen, but he's certainly our best option at 3B. A couple/few bad plays (I wonder how much the amount of sitting he's done lately has to do with them) in recent games doesn't make him a sub-par defender. In general, Russ appears to be average at worst at the hot corner.

[mcnaulty21]

Per Zone Rating this year, Branyan has been better than Hall, .847 to .780. Branyan's career ZR at 3B is .754 compared to Hall's .795. Hall should be expected to be better but he's been in a general funk this year.

Where do you find the Zone Rating? I'm pretty new to the stats game (besides the main ones).

 

[TooLiveBrew]

THT sortable (2008 defense) stats page

 

Be forewarned: Especially when considering the Brewers, who employ extreme shifts more than most teams, the metrics can be odd. As far as I know, there isn't a reliable metric for D that takes extreme ***** into consideration. The OOZ (out of zone) tallies are skewed, & I imagine the in-zone stuff is too. Does anyone that's better versed on the newer defensive stats know if the extreme shifts are as problematic as they appear? Or do the results even out (as in, more/less OOZ plays & more/less in-zone plays)

 

 

EDIT: RZR appears to be a better choice than just ZR, since RZR takes the OOZ plays into account. But considering the over-shifts, maybe the best idea is to see where a player ranks in several defensive stats & try to get a relative idea of his standing amongst his peers.

[danzig6767]

To the stat guys out there, warning alert, these are just my naked eye impressions

 

Hall is much better making touvgher plays moving laterally on grounders to either side, this is the weak area of Branyan defensively. While Billy can get to balls that Branyan can't, Hall has flubbed more simple plays . Arm strength wise, both look to have roughly equal arms to me, but Branyan is a lot more consistently accurate. I had forgot how Branyan was on defense, but his throwing has been what's impressed me the most by far. He not only doesn't pull Fielder off the bag, i can't remember a single throw that Prince had to scoop out of the dirt. If Branyan does field the ball clean, the throw almost always hits Prince's glove around chest high. In fact, his throwing had been so flawless all year that a few games ago when Russell made a throwing error, i remember being very surprised.

 

On the plus side for Hall, his throwing has been improving. Early in the year, there were so many off line throws that either ended up an error or Prince had to scoop balls that i'd get nervous each time Billy threw to first. Given that Fielder is miserable at scooping balls in the dirt compared to good firstbaseman, an inaccurate throwing infielder gets exasperated even more.

[kramnoj]

Zone Rating can be found on ESPN's stats section: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding?groupId=9 Data goes back to 2001. I believe it is generally accepted that you need two years worth of defensive stats to get a comfortable sample size. Zone Rating is the basis for mgl's UZR, which has been considered one of the best defensive ratings for most of the baseball internet era.

 

It is defined on ESPN's site as "Zone rating. The percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc." If you would like a more depth look at ZR, I highly recommend this detailed explanation and discussion. It also includes the grid that was used a few years ago (I don't know if the grid is static or changes): http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/dialed_in/discussion/what_is_zone_rating/

[Postseason2006]

Exactly! Counsell is about as sure handed as can be. Branyan and Hall both have had their struggles. Hall probably a little more. But neither is as good as Counsell on D.

Counsell single handedly blew a game last year when he was brought in as Ned's D replacement.

 

 

(edit: nested quote --1992)

[silversurferr]

Bill hit a HUGE homer for the second night in a row. (I think both were off righthanders.) Followed that with an excellent play in the field for the second out in the ninth. Branyan was on the bench where he belongs. Best trade we didn't make!

 

Oh yeah; Hall has now played about 162 games at third in his career. He'll continue to improve in the field.

 

 

(combined consecutive posts --1992)

[mcnaulty21]

THT sortable (2008 defense) stats page

Be forewarned: Especially when considering the Brewers, who employ extreme shifts more than most teams, the metrics can be odd. As far as I know, there isn't a reliable metric for D that takes extreme ***** into consideration. The OOZ (out of zone) tallies are skewed, & I imagine the in-zone stuff is too. Does anyone that's better versed on the newer defensive stats know if the extreme shifts are as problematic as they appear? Or do the results even out (as in, more/less OOZ plays & more/less in-zone plays)

EDIT: RZR appears to be a better choice than just ZR, since RZR takes the OOZ plays into account. But considering the over-shifts, maybe the best idea is to see where a player ranks in several defensive stats & try to get a relative idea of his standing amongst his peers.

Thanks for the info. I'm trying to expand my baseball info sources, so this will be good.

[TooLiveBrew]

The Hardball Times's stats pages are awesome. Completely sortable, and you can filter in so many ways (by position, league, whether players qualify with enough PA, etc.). Don't rely on any one source, but THT is a good one. They also have a glossary that explains their stats in pretty good detail. Plus, if you're still confused, just go post a question in the Statistical Analysis forum here. Honestly, BF.net itself is about as good a resource on stats as you can find.