An Argument against Fielding Statistics

[The Truth]

Prince Fielder ranks second among qualifying major-league first basemen with a 2.959 zone rating, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He has a .999 fielding percentage.

 

By any stretch of the imagination, Prince Fielder is not an elite defensive player.

[logan82]

So for your argument you pick out 2 of the worst fielding stats or are you arguing those are bad stats. UZR/150 and Dewan's have him as one of the worst fielders in the league.

[pingman]

inconsistent scorekeepers make fielding statistics nearly useless.....

[endaround]

So for your argument you pick out 2 of the worst fielding stats or are you arguing those are bad stats. UZR/150 and Dewan's have him as one of the worst fielders in the league.

Well let's not overstate it. He's no Ty Wiggington. He's in a bunch of bad fielding 1B from Texeria to Konerko.

[Funketown]

Oh boy. Here we go...

[rluzinski]

You are using 100 games of data and bad metrics at that. You can make plenty of arguments against advanced defensive metrics bit this isn't it.

[1992casey]

The scorer is really only a factor in fielding percentage. Other stats--which range from bad to somewhat useful (if handled with care)--depend on how well fielders "get to" balls. They don't really "care" if the failures are due to errors, lack of range, or whatever.

[logan82]

So for your argument you pick out 2 of the worst fielding stats or are you arguing those are bad stats. UZR/150 and Dewan's have him as one of the worst fielders in the league.

Well let's not overstate it. He's no Ty Wiggington. He's in a bunch of bad fielding 1B from Texeria to Konerko.

He is in the group with Glaus, Howard and Cabrera sanwiched between Teixeira and Konerko. One of the worst fielders in the league. Outside of last year he has been pretty consistently bad in UZR and . I am not overstating it. I didn't say the worst.

[Invader3K]

Shouldn't this be in "Statistical Analysis"?

[Thurston Fluff]

All a single season of defensive stats tell you is a player was/n't good at that time. It tells you little about their overall ability. You need about three seasons to get credible information from them. The probelm is young players improve so the first of the three years is outdated by the time the information is useful. Older players regress so the same is true in reverse. What we are left with is valuable information about players in their prime who have been playing for a while. Typically we already know quite a bit about them at that point. It didn't take UZR or Dewans to tell us Carlos Lee was not good nor did we need them to tell us Ozzie Smith was great. By the time those stats had meaning it was already pretty obvious.

[logan82]

On the other hand there are still people who think JJ Hardy is not one of the best defensive SS in the league.

[rcon14]

Prince's UZR (which is the best defensive measurement out there) is well below average making him one of the worst defensive 1B in the league.

[endaround]

The point is that the vast majority of 1B are in the +5 to -5 range and that might as well be 0 for how precise defensive stats are. For example Morneau is going to end up at like +12, but is that really true? He's in a brand new stadium so unlikely. The range for 1B just isn't something to get that worked up about.

[JohnBriggs12]

The point is that the vast majority of 1B are in the +5 to -5 range and that might as well be 0 for how precise defensive stats are. For example Morneau is going to end up at like +12, but is that really true? He's in a brand new stadium so unlikely. The range for 1B just isn't something to get that worked up about.

Most of the fielding value at 1B comes from the ability to pick throws out of the dirt and save errors for the rest of the infield.

[Thurston Fluff]

that's an interesting point endaround. Range is more important at some positions than others. Reflexes seem more important at third and first than actual range. I also think first basemen in particular should be rated higher on their ability to prevent errors by other players than how much range they have.