Braun's defense: is it better this year?

[danzig6767]

I'm not really that interested in sabermetrics even though i understand they have significant value in an individual sport like baseball, so i don't really know where to go for the myriad of defensive stats out there. Plus, from my limited reading up on defensive stats, they seem far from being as consistently reliable as offensive stats which don't seem to be as clouded by variables which can influence the numbers. Especially in smaller samples.

 

Watching Braun in leftfield the two years prior to this year though, in my eyes he has looked to be a below average defensive leftfielder at best, probably more in the bad range. Here and there he'd make some really nice catches, but to often to me it looked like he'd misjudge balls off the bat, take poor angles, and make dumb thumb throws in attempts to get baserunners out instead of just hitting the cutoff man. This lead to guys advancing an extra base. He's also would just look awkward out there quite a bit, like an infielder recently switched to outfield.

 

Well, this year to my eyes at least, Braun looks better in leftfield. In fact, quite a bit better. Granted, he does still often look kinda awkward when going after baseballs, unlike how fluid most quality outfielders look when tracking balls, and few guys catch the ball with two hands as he generally does. That said, Braun doesn't seem to be badly misjudging near as many balls as he did in prior years and even if he can still look awkward, he ends up catching the ball in most cases. With his speed, he's also run down a number of balls and turned them into outs. Yea, he still can at times make poor judgments about trying to throw runners out at the plate when there is no chance, but of late he has stopped doing it.

 

So i had two questions. Do others watching feel like i do that Braun looks noticeably better/more productive in left this year? For the stats guys, were his stats bad in left the last two years to match up with what i was seeing in believing Braun was a below average to really bad leftfielder , but this year the numbers better even though in samples this small, the numbers can't really be counted on that much, especially defensive stats?

[derflotr]

I'm a terrible, primitive judge of defenders because I believe the biggest part of being a good defender is not screwing up. Errors may not tell the entire story but they absolutely do not mean nothing. He has zero. I think he has enough speed and athleticism to partially make up for his average instincts. As long as he continues to not screw up I will not be complaining.

[TooLiveBrew]

Errors may not tell the entire story but they absolutely do not mean nothing. He has zero.

 

Braun has literally had a ball hit him in the glove & fall to the ground with no error charged this season. Errors for outfielders are almost 100% useless

[derflotr]

Errors may not tell the entire story but they absolutely do not mean nothing. He has zero.

 

Braun has literally had a ball hit him in the glove & fall to the ground with no error charged this season. Errors for outfielders are almost 100% useless

I must have missed that one. Well, I guess he's actually atrocious.

[And That]

I don't think he's as bad as people make him out to be. He's certainly improved from a few years ago. I think he's to the point where his athletic ability has really made his marginal improvements on ball reads that much better. I wouldn't call him even average, but he's not the total hack that he was.

[logan82]

Errors may not tell the entire story but they absolutely do not mean nothing. He has zero.

 

Braun has literally had a ball hit him in the glove & fall to the ground with no error charged this season. Errors for outfielders are almost 100% useless

I was thinking almost the exact same thing as I was reading that. Errors are 100% useless for outfielders. You can't even get an error by dropping the ball. I am not sure why they even keep the stat for outfielders.

 

Braun dived for a ball and missed it by 3 feet. No error. That was an absolute bad play. He isn't as bad as just that play but he is a bad fielder. If he was less athletic he would be heading for DH territory.

[TooLiveBrew]

I wouldn't call him even average, but he's not the total hack that he was.

 

This is the best we're going to be able to do in this thread, even though it will inevitably go on for a few more pages. He's not awful, he's not average. Somewhere in between.

[And That]

Part of his problem is that he looks awkward out there. He's not a natural defender anywhere. But he makes almost all of the standard plays now.

[JoeHova]

Maybe Ryan should be the one to take over 1st base after Prince leaves, instead of Gamel. He might be a little better there because he was mostly an infielder while he was developing. Maybe it would be more natural for him than the outfield is.

[theavrock]

Braun's problem is and always will be he takes bad routes to balls and gets bad jumps.

 

This has improved somewhat over time, but he is still below average. His athleticism allows him to overcome this and he has a decent arm, but that only helps so much.

 

That being said, he isn't as bad as he used to be and I think he does just fine out there especially with Gomez and Morgan able to cover up for him somewhat.

[Baldkin]

He throws to the wrong base way too often, he never adjusts his position based on who's up or the game situation, and, on more than one occasion this season, I've watched him running towards the dugout on a ball to the left-center gap with two outs, just assuming Gomez was going to get there, well before the ball was caught.

 

He's better than he was, but it just seems like he doesn't care to be a good defender. You'd think the little mental things would've caught up to him by now. That he would know that whenever he dives for a ball he misses it by about 8 feet.

[bacon06]

Braun is a real Frodo Baggins out there; always an adventure.

[TheCrew07]

No, his defense is still putrid because he still doesn't get very good reads off the bat or take good angles to the ball. He makes up for some of that with his athleticism, but I think he's clearly still below average. That's why for a relatively gifted runner he doesn't cover as much ground as he should out there, it takes him a while to get moving in the properish direction. Early in the season I can think of at least 2 balls that hit off the bottom of the wall when he was running to his left that he should have easily caught if he didn't underrun the trajectory and have the ball sail over his head.

 

I say properish, because anytime he's running looking back over his shoulder like a receiver would he really struggles to take good routes to the ball. In fact he's overrun a couple this year and had to reach back across his body to catch them, not to mention the ones that get through him or over his head as I previously mentioned.

[splitterpfj]

At this point, there still isn't a defensive metric that I have much faith in, although I know some of you do. I believe over time, measuring defensive ability will become much more refined, just as we've seen with hitting.

 

As for Braun, no he does not have good instincts, but he does make the plays out there. I don't look away from the TV when the ball is hit to left. I think he does mask some mistakes by being able to run well, etc, but in the end, I don't see a ton of balls dropping in that should have been caught, etc.

 

With pitchers, we're seeing a move away from simple pitch counts, to things like, how many pitches were thrown under stress, how many pitches in a single inning, etc. The attempt is being made to define what it is that wears a pitcher down and makes him more susceptible to injury, or to failure in the next inning.

 

I'd like to see more of this with fielding, for example - with no runners on base, Braun misreads a flyball, but his speed allows him to make the catch...no harm, no foul. OK, but, suppose that same play happens with a runner at 3rd...Braun misreads the ball slightly, then uses his speed to make the catch...but in doing so he is running full-out, and is not in position to throw the ball, allowing the runner to tag and score. In that case, it's a nice running catch, but it hurt his team...that's the stuff that still isn't accounted for, IMO.

[logan82]

At this point, there still isn't a defensive metric that I have much faith in, although I know some of you do. I believe over time, measuring defensive ability will become much more refined, just as we've seen with hitting.

With the defensive metrics I think the fault lies almost 100% with the input. Garbage in garbage out. They are miles better than fan opinions but still imperfect. If FieldFX ever goes public I think that will get those defensive stats closer to offensive stats pretty quick.

[danzig6767]

Part of his problem is that he looks awkward out there. He's not a natural defender anywhere. But he makes almost all of the standard plays now.

That's what i was getting at.

 

Not that Braun has turned into an above average leftfielder, just that to me he is misjudging less balls off the bat so poorly that it ends up falling in for a hit. It also seems to me that he's run down a few more balls hit to the left or right of him which were quality plays that he likely wouldn't have turned into outs in previous years.

 

He does often look so awkward out there though when making catches that it might make him look worse than he actually is production wise. Between him usually using two hands to catch any balls which is uncommon in baseball and his herky/jerky movements even on a lot of balls he catches, it makes him seem like a terrible outfielder, but i no longer feel like he is this year. In years past, he'd regularly misjudge balls badly enough that he couldn't recover and make the out, especially on balls hit right over his head. This year he seems to me to misjudge balls less badly and thus he's been able to recover more often and get the out, even though it can make me nervous because he's far from graceful looking out there.

[Invader3K]

Braun is probably still a somewhat sub-par defender, but when you look at some of the slugs patrolling left field for many teams, I'll still gladly take him. I do think he has improved a bit. Early this season, it seemed like he was trying to over exert himself to make "highlight reel" plays (I remember this ridiculous throw to home plate that was never going to make it in time, which included himself falling over making the throw). Lately he's seemed more solid.

 

I do think some people on this board have somewhat unrealistic expectations for defense in this sport, though.

[dlk9s]

He's definitely improved. As others have said, he's no maestro out there, but he's not Manny Ramirez, either. He seems to have gotten better at plays going towards the line and judging things in front of him (not that he gets to everything, but he knows better when to pull up and make the safe play). He still struggles going back, but his overall progress is ok.

 

He's made a bad decision or two on throws this season (that airmail to home that's been mentioned), but he's also made some great throws. Last week, I think it was, he fielded one on the foul line and gunned a guy trying to stretch for a double, all while he was falling back. And I don't think anybody noticed, but Braun made a really good throw to home when Jay Bruce tagged for the first run of the game Monday night. There was no reason the play should have been close, but if Bruce had let up just the slightest bit, I think Braun would've nailed him.