Hardy vs Weeks defensively

[istanbultaye]

Zone rating measures how many balls you get to within your zone. I am not sure how good the stats are for JJ. He led the league in Out Of Zone plays for a SS. He was 12th in RZR. I would think the opposite from watching him. He gets to balls in his zone very well, but not out of zone plays.

Don't the Brewers employ more defensive shifting than the average MLB Club? That would explain his OOZ/RZR rating being off, as I don't believe defensive shifts are accounted for in that stat.

[TooLiveBrew]

Weeks just makes them more often than others and people end up dwelling on it. A dive and miss on a play that another player makes doesn't seem to bother people as much as just making a silly error.

 

It might be interesting to re-visit rulz's thread on assigning a numeric (1-10) value on how 'exciting' an offensive play is, except use how 'frustrating' certain defensive miscues can be. There were numerous tangible examples of Weeks's overall superiority in the field to Durham even in just Ray's short tenure here, but I'll be damned if the Weeks-bashers ever seemed to take notice.

 

Weeks does make more frustrating errors than many infielders. He also makes more plays overall than many infielders. One is more of a pet peeve than the other, though, so you get people talking about, 'man, I know Weeks is terrible -- I don't need to look at it objectively!'

[danzig6767]

One thing i've wondered about with Weeks is his throwing mechanics. I'm not scout who has studied middle infielders for a decade or longer, but i do wonder if guys who throw side armed like Weeks are more prone to throwing errors? I could be way off base on this, but it seems like guys with more "traditional" throwing mechanics like Hardy/Counsell are able to repeat that motion better and thus not spike as many in the dirt like Rickie does?

 

Weeks has a strong arm and quick release when turning the double play, but to often the guy just makes terrible off target throws. Rickie no longer is the miserable defensive player he once was, but i'm still skeptical of some defensive metrics that say he's now average or only slightly below average. One caveat i should add though is i don't know exactly just how much Fielder hurts Weeks and all the infielders with Prince being so short and how much he struggles at scooping throws in the dirt. Put say Lee at first instead of Prince, he'd save all the infielders a fair amount of errors.

[phxMILWfan]

Weeks isn't a great defender but can we stop with the comments like "my grandma could make that play" or anything about beer league players. I know people are making a point but it's insulting. In an entire MLB season plus spring training and now playoffs guys will make mistakes. How about comments that reflect his performance compared to actual athletes, not plumbers and car salesmen.

[TooLiveBrew]

Hear, hear, phxMILW

 

 

One caveat i should add though is i don't know exactly just how much Fielder hurts Weeks and all the infielders with Prince being so short and how much he struggles at scooping throws in the dirt. Put say Lee at first instead of Prince, he'd save all the infielders a fair amount of errors.

 

Oh man, just watching more than a couple Cubs games shows you how Aramis Ramirez [tv baseball analyst stooge]"Has improved his defense so much from his Pittsburgh days!"[/tv baseball analyst stooge]. It's Derrek Lee. The man saves Ramirez so many throwing errors it borders on obscene. I think it's a very good point to highlight the defensive deficiency we have at 1B when trying to analyze Weeks's defensive effectiveness. As you mention, danzig, his throwing mechanics are not pretty, which must lead to him making more poor throws. But having a 1B that could convert some of those errant throws into outs (like many MLB MIFers have) would make Rickie look significantly better in the field imo.

[Greg Vaughn]

valpocrewsader[/b]]

Rickie is absolutely boneheaded in the field, I've seen enough to convince me of that.

Thank you for finally pointing that out.

 

He just doesn't pass the eye test in the field or the plate. He's just not a good baseball player. You can dress his statistics up anyway you want....he's flat out one of the worst middle infielders in the game.

 

As one Major League scout said this year of Weeks "I don't know what he is.....but he isn't a 2nd baseman".

[dhoffman19]

Weeks ..... has above average range though which offsets it.

Again, I'm just not seeing the above-average range. Seems below average to me, both based on the "eye-test" and his zone rating. Why is it that people think he has good/great range? Sure, he's fast running the bases, but moving side-to-side and reacting quickly to a batted ball is a different skill.

[endaround]

Because he has great range. Zone rating doesn't tell you anything about "range" per se. Not sure how he fails the eye test, the eye test shows he gets to balls no one else gets to.

[dhoffman19]

Because he has great range. Zone rating doesn't tell you anything about "range" per se. Not sure how he fails the eye test, the eye test shows he gets to balls no one else gets to.

I think it does, but I also thing his range factor is below average - which you may put more stock in. Anyway, I watched just about every game last year and I just don't see the range - and I certainly don't think he gets to balls "no one else gets to." I mean, you're not seriously saying he has the best range in the league, are you? I see him reacting slowly to balls and not moving much laterally b4 they get to him. I specifically remember a few where the announcers were kind of marvelling that he didn't get to the ball. I also recall him making a few stops look a lot harder than they needed to be. None of this is scientific of course but I guess we're just seeing diff. things. Agree to disagree.

[endaround]

Range factor and zone rating don't tell about range, just plays made. You need to look at OOZ plays to get a good idea of how encompassing a players' range actually is. Weeks had 41 OOZ plays in 1056 innings. The players who had more OOZ plays: Utley (the modern ideal player) 66, Lopez 51 in 1229 innings, Uggla 45 in 1272 innings, Iwamura 44 in 1337 innings, and Roberts 42 in 1320 innings. To me this says Weeks has really good range.

[dhoffman19]

Range factor and zone rating don't tell about range.

that's a matter of opinion. it's not perfect by any means of course but plenty of people would disagree. I'll admit I'm suprised that Weeks would have so many OOZ plays, although I don't know enough about that stat to argue with you about it. (how are zones defined, does it take into account shifts, etc.).

[Gobias Industries]

Thank you for finally pointing that out.

 

He just doesn't pass the eye test in the field or the plate. He's just not a good baseball player. You can dress his statistics up anyway you want....he's flat out one of the worst middle infielders in the game.

A major theme of this discussion was about how often it's already pointed out, and that it may be closer than a lot of people's "eye-tests" may lead them to believe.

[Ennder]

The eye-test is why guys like Darrin Erstad and Jack Wilson get raved about all the time even though they are well below average players. The eye-test is meaningless to me~. Weeks has a lot of raw talent and not a lot of baseball smarts, in the end it makes him about an average 2B overall.

[TooLiveBrew]

As one Major League scout said this year of Weeks "I don't know what he is.....but he isn't a 2nd baseman".

"I don't like books -- they're filled with facts" -- Stephen Colbert, playing "Stephen Colbert"

[homer]

The eye-test is why guys like Darrin Erstad and Jack Wilson get raved about all the time even though they are well below average players. The eye-test is meaningless to me~. Weeks has a lot of raw talent and not a lot of baseball smarts, in the end it makes him about an average 2B overall.

What is zone rating though? Or OOZ for that matter. Aren't those just a grouping of eye tests? I admit I don't know how they are tracked but i assume it's like LD% where a stringer tracks it for each game.

[Ennder]

Another set of defensive data is out.

 

 

http://lanaheimangelfan.b...efensive-projections.html

 

These are based on 5 years of data when available so it isn't just tracking 1 year and are a projection for next season.

 

Hardy went from a -1 to a +1 and Weeks from a -16 to a -9. My guess is that means Weeks was at least as good as Hardy this year according to their system since a -7 jump is pretty darn huge but the safe bet which this system goes with is that Weeks will be significantly worse than Hardy next year.

 

Fielder is a -8

Braun is +2 at a corner.

Cameron is +3 in CF

Hart is +2 at a corner but projects to a -8 in CF (I don't think he can handle CF either which is why i added that).

Hall is -1 at 3B.

 

Only surprise in that bunch is Hall who I think is above average at 3B. Add that all up and it assumes we'll be below average defensively again next year but only by 10 runs or so which is only 1 win.

[rluzinski]

There's a thread up at Insidethebook.com/ee that used the last 5 years of UZR to project defensive performance for next year. Weeks still projects to be one of the worst 2B in the league, so as a guess, it's hard for me to even project him as an average 2B for 2009, overall. I guess we need to know how many runs above an average 2B he projects to be on offense.

[rluzinski]

Here's another defensive projection that put Hardy well ahead of Weeks:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/if2009.htm

 

Hardy projects to essentially be an average defensive SS (+1 runs). Weeks projects to be one of the worst starting 2B (-9 runs). They may have been closer (relative to an average defender at their respective position) in 2008 than in years past but the projected gap is still substantial.

[danzig6767]

Hardy projects to essentially be an average defensive SS (+1 runs). Weeks projects to be one of the worst starting 2B (-9 runs). They may have been closer (relative to an average defender at their respective position) in 2008 than in years past but the projected gap is still substantial.

That's right around what my eyes see when watching those two

[logan82]

If the projections are using multiple years I can understand why there would be a bigger gap. If Weeks and Hardy play defensively in 2009 like they did in 2008, I would expect the projected gap to close. Like I said in the start, Weeks is still being penalized for being a crappy defender when he came up.

[danzig6767]

If the projections are using multiple years I can understand why there would be a bigger gap. If Weeks and Hardy play defensively in 2009 like they did in 2008, I would expect the projected gap to close. Like I said in the start, Weeks is still being penalized for being a crappy defender when he came up.

Yea Weeks has improved defensively from when he was brought up. IMO though, he gone from being a miserable defensive player to a still a pretty poor one. That's improvement, but he's still a liability in the field and because of that, he really needs to be productive at the plate to not drag down the team overall.

 

I wish i felt that there was a fairly significant level of improvement still out there for Rickie to yet reach in the field, but i just don't feel there is. Maybe he can improve a little more, but generally, really poor defenders have a ceiling that isn't very high on just how much better they can get regardless if the guy works really hard at it in the same fashion poor hitters do. Defense is a skill like hitting is, some players are born better at it. Even if say Hardy only had half the work ethic of Weeks, JJ would still be better in the field simply because he's more naturally gifted in that facet of the game.

 

I really like Weeks, he seems to be a very hard worker and is team first. I also still hold out a bit of hope that Rickie can put it together at the plate much better than he's shown since being called up to the big leagues, don't feel that way about second base though.

[TooLiveBrew]

Here's another defensive projection that put Hardy well ahead of Weeks:

 

Aren't those two the same set of projections, Russ? I could swear that the Book blog links you to Chone's site, which links to that data you linked.

 

 

That's right around what my eyes see when watching those two

 

That's what I thought too when I saw the Chone projections, Danzig. Those are the first ones I've seen that seem to handle the shifting the Brewers employed best.

 

 

I wish i felt that there was a fairly significant level of improvement still out there for Rickie to yet reach in the field, but i just don't feel there is.

 

I think I agree with you here Danzig. Rickie really is what he is at this point defensively. I would love to see him tried in CF if Cameron isn't our CF next season. I don't think '09 is our best shot at the postseason anyway, so why not see what options you might have within.

 

 

[Rickie's] still a liability in the field and because of that, he really needs to be productive at the plate to not drag down the team overall.

 

This is the rub with Weeks. I thought he'd have a breakout season in '08, and still feel it's coming. Get him out of the leadoff slot & just tell him to let 'er rip. His power potential ceiling is crazy-high, and his BB rate should still be fine. I'd love to see him hitting 3rd or 5th in 2009. I wouldn't even mind seeing Hardy atop the lineup if it meant Rickie could slide down into the middle where he belongs.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

That's right around what my eyes see when watching those two

 

That's what I thought too when I saw the Chone projections, Danzig. Those are the first ones I've seen that seem to handle the shifting the Brewers employed best.

Here's a description of the methodology used to derive those projections:

 

These are based on 5 years of data from 2004-2008, weighted 1, .8, .6, .4, .2. The numbers are a combination of Stats ZR, Revised Zone rating, and Totalzone (which is not available for 2008). Instead of regressing these to a league average, the regression is to a run value derived from the Fan's scouting report.

 

http://lanaheimangelfan.blogspot.com/

So it certainly isn't that Chone Smith has developed any revolutionary way of dealing with infield shifting. That's as unadjusted-for here as it is everywhere else.

 

Given the lack of a clear-cut winner in the advanced defensive metric fray, he's simply making a pretty sensible move and tossing all the freely-available zone ratings based on the two different sets of stringer data available (STATS and BIS) in a pot, letting it simmer for 5 years, and throwing in a dash of Tango's Fan Scouting Reports for flavor.

 

These numbers always look the "most correct" to me too -- what this tells us is one of two things. Maybe both of two things.

 

1) One year's worth of defensive statistics is simply too small a sample size for quantifiable results to match up with actual defensive talent. This is most certainly true -- the usual rule of thumb is that 2 years of defensive data is approximately equal to one year of offensive data. So one year plus-minus or defensive runs saved totals are about as likely to match up with a given player's actual ability as, say, post AS-Break OPS.

 

2) What our "eyes see" isn't nearly as objective as we tend to like to believe it is. Not only are our great big brains heavily involved in the actual "seeing", they do a tremendous amount of filtering and interpretation, a huge chunk of which is defined by preconceptions about the reality we believe we are seeing. As a result of this, our "eyes" may persist in telling us that Weeks still stinks, even if he isn't stinking anymore, because for most of his career, he really has stunk. At some point, "Weeks stinks" just becomes a sort of tenet of faith that is stubbornly stuck in our heads. So when somebody estimates his true talent level at "stinks" by using a weighted mixture of all the available info over a 5 year period, we are pleased with the results and believe them to be accurate.

 

I really do like the methodology here (guess I'd rather he was using Dewan's plus-minus and UZR in the pot, but those aren't freely available, so what are you gonna do?) and I believe that for the bulk of the player population this kind of approach is going to give you the best estimate of true talent you're likely to get. But, assuming for the sake of argument that Weeks has actually improved at 2B from his pretty disasterous early career numbers, this approach will still punish him for older data that isn't quite as relevant to his current performance level as it tends to be for the bulk of the player population.

[TooLiveBrew]

Given the lack of a clear-cut winner in the advanced defensive metric fray, he's simply making a pretty sensible move and tossing all the freely-available zone ratings based on the two different sets of stringer data available (STATS and BIS) in a pot, letting it simmer for 5 years, and throwing in a dash of Tango's Fan Scouting Reports for flavor.

 

Mmmm... defense stew

 

 

But, assuming for the sake of argument that Weeks has actually improved at 2B from his pretty disasterous early career numbers, this approach will still punish him for older data that isn't quite as relevant to his current performance level as it tends to be for the bulk of the player population.

 

If Weeks is able to incrementally increase his rating in the Chone defensive projections in future seasons, then I think it'd be safe to say that he'd have improved his D to somewhere near or above league average. I totally agree with your point on the "tenet of faith" about 'Weeks sucks!' & our eyes not being completely trustworthy, but it's only fair to keep in mind how bad Rickie has been. Doing so objectively will help fans recognize how far he has improved (& may continue to improve), which I think is an important part of understanding his overall value. Right now overall, he's at about league-average at 2B. I am of the belief/delusion that his offense is going to improve next season to the point where he's an above-avg. option at 2B.

[logan82]

danzig6767 wrote:

I wish i felt that there was a fairly significant level of improvement still out there for Rickie to yet reach in the field, but i just don't feel there is.

I am not sure that Weeks can improve much in the field either. I think the tools are there, but he isn't very instinctive.