Outfield defense

[markedman5]

Lowest out rate on Fly Balls and OF Liners- Defenses

Pirates 60%

Brewers 61%

Giants 62%

Indians 62%

Rockies 62%

[Ennder]

Not a surprise. Santana is awful. Broxton is above average as long as he doesn't have to pick the ball up off the ground. The combination of LF's we have replaced Braun with are awful too.

[Lathund]

One serious area of weakness for this team. We've been hurt by having Franklin and Thames out there quite a bit. But even with everyone fit and available, we'd still be sending Santana and Braun out there, who are both poor defenders. It's OK to have one relatively poor corner outfielder, but it's painful to have two. Which is one reason why I was hoping for a Braun trade to happen. Now that it looks likely he'll see out his contract here, we'll just have to hope that Santana either improves enough offensively to make up for it, or that he somehow improves defensively. The latter of which seems unlikely.

[3and2Fastball]

This will improve once Phillips is an every day starter

[jerichoholicninja]

I'm not sure how much you can take from this considering how close all those teams are and there is basically no context to the ball being hit. Not saying our OF defense is good or bad but those numbers don't really show anything of substance to me.

[Thurston Fluff]

I'm not sure how much you can take from this considering how close all those teams are and there is basically no context to the ball being hit. Not saying our OF defense is good or bad but those numbers don't really show anything of substance to me.

 

Ditto. Add in the sample sizes need to be larger for defense than offense and you have about as useful a stat as batting average over any given month. That said our outfield corner defense isn't good. I don't really care as much about corner outfield defense as I do the infield and center so to me it isn't a big deal. I'll take well below average defenders who can hit over a gold glove right/left fielder who struggles to be an average offensive player any day.

[Ennder]

I'm not sure how much you can take from this considering how close all those teams are and there is basically no context to the ball being hit. Not saying our OF defense is good or bad but those numbers don't really show anything of substance to me.

 

The stat cast version agrees with this, Brewers rank near the bottom. There stats include difficulty of catch etc so they are a bit better. Not sure where to find those numbers, I just listen to their podcast.

[JohnBriggs12]

Brewer OF plays exceptionally deep by design. It's an average defense. Perez is pretty solid. Santana and Braun are OK. Broxton misplays some balls but has the speed to close gaps.

.

[MrTPlush]

Domingo Santana is not ok, Broxton is ok until his speed declines, and I like to think Braun is ok as a LFer though he has slowed down a touch.

[brewcrewdue80]

Santana's Arm is good on Defense, His chasing a ball is bad. There's just no get up and go after the ball in Santana's defense. It's like 10 steps or less or he won't hustle to get it. I gave him credit last year to being injured and not playing for anything important. Now, this year we're in first and balls are still falling in front of him or down in foul territory that you'd believe an OF could make on catches. When is the last time you seen Santana dive on a liner? Braun for the hate on his defense will at least dive/slide to make a catch.

[Humans Need Water]

I'm not sure how much you can take from this considering how close all those teams are and there is basically no context to the ball being hit. Not saying our OF defense is good or bad but those numbers don't really show anything of substance to me.

 

The stat cast version agrees with this, Brewers rank near the bottom. There stats include difficulty of catch etc so they are a bit better. Not sure where to find those numbers, I just listen to their podcast.

Is it based on where the player's starting point is or is it assuming everyone is playing straight up?

[Baldkin]

Statcast is the technology they use to show how far guys run to catch balls and the route they took

[MrTPlush]

Domingo Santana's arm is indeed strong...however the accuracy. Terrible.

[Ennder]

I'm not sure how much you can take from this considering how close all those teams are and there is basically no context to the ball being hit. Not saying our OF defense is good or bad but those numbers don't really show anything of substance to me.

 

The stat cast version agrees with this, Brewers rank near the bottom. There stats include difficulty of catch etc so they are a bit better. Not sure where to find those numbers, I just listen to their podcast.

Is it based on where the player's starting point is or is it assuming everyone is playing straight up?

 

It is based on where he starts on the field so it can't take player positioning properly into account. It also doesn't account for dealing with the wall. It does however account for break on ball, foot speed, direction you had to run, route efficiency etc. It also doesn't account for arm strength at all, this one is simply built for catch difficulty.

 

It shows that the top fielders in the game can make easy catches that someone like Adam Jones has to dive for or simply can't reach no matter what.

[FVBrewerFan]

At the end of last season, I was hoping they traded Braun and moved Santana to 1B. Neither happened, so now we have below average defense at every OF position. With all the athletic OFs in the system, this will eventually correct itself- just looks like it will take longer than anticipated. This really should be a strength for the Brewers when they're a 90+ win type of team, so it does hurt to watch.

[Greenleaf1]

Santana's offense is more than good enough to make up for his defensive liability. He definitely seems to have problems with lack of focus or just lack of interest in the game around him (his out at home on Shaw's near homer recently comes to mind, but he's always seemed kinda lackadaisical in the outfield).

 

I think Santana's long term home should be in left field where lack of defense isn't as much of a concern, but in order for that to happen we're going to have to trade Braun and that just doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

 

However, even in RF, Santana's bad defense doesn't really concern me. His bat is more than making up for it.

 

As for Broxton, his defense doesn't really seem great this year, but he's one more extended slump away from losing most of his playing time to Brinson who should provide much better defense, and Phillips could serve as a great late inning replacement in right field in the future too.

[clancyphile]

For 2016, one of my "what-ifs" would have been an outfield with Khris Davis in left, a healthy Santana in center, and Braun in right.

 

The offense would have been awesome. 110 home runs from those three alone is not out of the question.

[Crash2303]

who knows how it'll all shake out with the overload of OFs, but it is quite plausible that in 2018 our OF could be Brinson (CF), Broxton (LF), Phillips (RF), which would have excellent defensive potential. in fact, one would assume that with another year of maturation from Arcia (who is already excellent), Villar (getting used to full-time 2B), Shaw, and whoever is at 1B (Thames, Cooper, Aguilar)- in addition to Pina/Bandy/Susac all solid defensively- we could have one heck of a defensive club. then again, it could just as plausibly be Braun, Santana in the OF and Villar never gets his groove back and never meets his defensive projection and Thames also gets time in the OF to give more ABs to Aguilar at 1B.