Left Field?

[logan82]

The problem is, we really need a #2/high OBP guy not a #7 hitter. Maybe Kendall will fit that bill. To be honest, if we are going to talk about aquiring a #7 hitter, we might as well stick with Grillon in LF.

[Gopher74]

Gopher, when people are critical of Braun's range, you've made the assumption/leap that everyone is somehow inherently referring to RF - an outdated fielding metric full of holes (I know you feel that way about most defensive metrics iirc). Yet the people who've continued the discussion with you have stressed in nearly every instance that they aren't referring to RF, but instead his range itself.

 

With that, I'd never, nor will I ever, fault you for taking issue with how subjective it all is... but no one is focusing just on RF here. It's hard sometimes to differentiate the two, but range is certainly not = RF.

I think you give some people too much credit. I think that most people look at his range factor, and say, "he's got no range". I'm pretty certain that's what the poster that I was replying to was inferring. It not, then my mistake, that's just generally what people are talking about and going off of.

 

And I guess if it's not, to cite his poor "range" in the manner you're referring, is redundant to me. We all know that he struggles to make plays, in his zone hit right at him, or outside of his zone, even if he gets to it, so to say that he's got poor "range" meaning "the ability to field the position as determined by the scorer of the game", then why make an extra point to say, "I'm not just talking about the errors". What else would the scorekeeper be determining? Is there a stat for "he should have gotten to that ball, but it's not an error"?

 

So read the post that I was responding to. Tell me that he's not talking about his "ability to cover ground", despite what's been "stressed" to me, plenty of people do in fact use "RF" as in "their ability to cover ground". I guess it'd be easier if he clarified what he was saying rather than you tell me what he "might" have been saying.

[TooLiveBrew]

I think you give some people too much credit. I think that most people look at his range factor, and say, "he's got no range".

 

All I do is notice when people say that they aren't referring to RF. I know not everyone is so thorough, but I'm not speaking for them.

 

We all know that he struggles to make plays, in his zone hit right at him, or outside of his zone, even if he gets to it, so to say that he's got poor "range" meaning "the ability to field the position as determined by the scorer of the game", then why make an extra point to say, "I'm not just talking about the errors". What else would the scorekeeper be determining? Is there a stat for "he should have gotten to that ball, but it's not an error"?

 

The scorekeeper isn't necessarily the one determining what's a fielder's range, but whoever is there keeping track is inherently operating subjectively. You're right in that the official scorer isn't necessarily there determining Braun's range. In any case, someone is judging whether or not a ball was in a certain position's range. There are plenty of negative ways a fielder can hurt a team that aren't scored as errors. And they aren't necessarily covered by RF.

 

I for one think that Braun's OOZ plays will increase as he plays more at 3B. I just think that he's still going to be poor enough (even if he improves drastically) in 2008 that we can't afford him defensively anywhere but the OF. Braun's athletic ability doesn't mean 'range.' As others have mentioned, the impact of speed at 3B is minimal. Moving him to LF would actually utilize his skills better, in addition to being a less impactful & challenging position.

 

I guess it'd be easier if he clarified what he was saying rather than you tell me what he "might" have been saying.

 

What I'm telling you is how I interpreted what he said. Don't know how else to say it.

[Gopher74]

What I'm telling you is how I interpreted what he said. Don't know how else to say it.

 

I guess that's the point. It's your interpretation. You made a point of telling me essentially that I'm not getting it with your word choice in how "everyone's tried to stress to me", which really amounts to a couple people using the more accurate definition of range, and most people simply going off of range factor, yet you don't know what he meant. To me it seems clear. I could be wrong, but going back and forth with you on what he may or may not have meant doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

 

All I do is notice when people say that they aren't referring to RF. I know not everyone is so thorough, but I'm not speaking for them.

 

I don't mean to be sarcastic, but it seems like that's exactly what you're doing.

 

The scorekeeper isn't necessarily the one determining what's a fielder's range, but whoever is there keeping track is inherently operating subjectively. You're right in that the official scorer isn't necessarily there determining Braun's range. In any case, someone is judging whether or not a ball was in a certain position's range. There are plenty of negative ways a fielder can hurt a team that aren't scored as errors. And they aren't necessarily covered by RF.

 

I'm not clear on what you're saying here. Are you saying that there essentially is someone there judging what balls he "should have" gotten to in some way other than errors or not?

And I fully understand you can hurt your team in other ways. I honestly don't know what place that has in this particular conversation other than stating the blatantly obvious.

[WV Brew]

Going forward. LaPorta will be here the year after next if not next year. He can arguably play only 1B or LF. Where else is he going to play? 1B is obviously out of the question. If Braun is moved to LF, there is no place for LaPorta or Braun will have to be moved again. As such, if the Brewers cannot get a plus 3B, they should keep Braun at 3d. Hire a guy to mentor him in Spring Training not affiliated with the coaching staff (Cal Ripken? made the SS to 3B transition) who he can call during the season if problems crop up. An outfield of LaPorta, Braun and whoever doesn't look like any bargain either.

[Fatter than Joey]

I'm not clear on what you're saying here. Are you saying that there essentially is someone there judging what balls he "should have" gotten to in some way other than errors or not?

 

Yes -- There is RZR which measures how many balls that are hit into a fielder's zone that are converted into outs. And then, OOZ which measures how many balls hit out of a fielder's zone are converted into outs. Braun is in the bottom in both of these stats.

 

One could certainly argue that there is a throwing element in these stats, as in most cases you have to throw the ball to get an out. However if you look at Braun's errors (25) -- 16 were throwing and 9 were fielding. The 16 throwing errors is the worst in the NL, regardless of Innings/chances. The 9 fielding errors is not the worst in the NL if do not consider Innings/Chances -- but if you look at Innings, Braun's fielding errors is pretty bad as well -- Innings(FE)

 

Braun 945(9)

Zimmerman 1431(8)

Feliz 1220(10)

Wright 1418(10)

 

Based on what I have seen on the field and with data, I have a hard time buying the argument that Braun's defensive shortcomings are entirely in his throwing.

 

Obviously Braun is a great athlete, even to the point it makes it hard to accept the fact, that he struggles at manning 3b.

[brewers4eric]

I don't really think that anything is going to happen for left field or third base until spring training. One of the perceived playoff contenders that has a shaky rotation (Mets?) is going to suffer an injury and ask the Brewers for some help, and Melvin is going to pluck a slam bang outfield prospect from their system. Hopefully, we can find a long term solution at that point, because none of the remaining free agents seems like a long term answer at this time.

 

Those of us that uttered an audible groan when Jose Hernandez signed as a free agent probably remember his defensive struggles as a shortstop making a transition to third base. I recall that the term "footwork" was thrown around quite a bit during those dark days. With the memory of Jose tying himself up on fruitless airball whiffs still in my mind, I'm willing to cut Ryan Braun quite a bit of slack defensively.

[Tbadder]

I really have nothing to add here other than to affirm those who believe that Braun must be the leftfielder regardless of who plays at 3B. In fact I'd go as far as saying if Braun doesn't end up in the outfield the Brewers simply aren't serious about going to the playoffs.

[Ennder]

Braun played 945 innings at 3B last year. 219 balls were hit into his zone of which he made 123 outs which means 56.2% of the balls that were hit where you would expect him to have a chance at a play were turned into outs. Pedro Feliz sat at 75%, Crede at 82.9%, Counsell at 78.9%. Even if he makes 0 errors that is only 148 plays made out of 219 for a 67.5% which is about average.

 

Braun made 21 plays that were out of his zone in 945 IP. David Wright made 83 in 1418 innings. Feliz made 62 in 1220 innings, Zimmerman 70 in 1431 innings. Counsell 15 in 297 innings. He doesn't display good out of zone range either.

 

To get all sabermetric in 945 innings last season Braun cost the team 32 runs. In 297 innings at 3B Counsell saved the team 9 runs.

 

Obviously these numbers are not an exact science but they are a decent indicator that Braun is pretty miserable at 3B. Even if he does improve a good bit you are going to be adding another 300-400 innings to his numbers and he probably is going to still end up around -20 to -30 runs at 3B. That is comperable to Atkins and Encarnacion who are also considered terrible 3B. Miguel Cabrera who is considered bad enough that he wont' stay at 3B cost Fla 10.8 runs last season. So if Braun sees a huge improvement he ends up being as good as someone who people think shouldn't stay at 3B.

 

Now given time he very well may improve, it is just a matter of whether or not they want to give him the time. Weeks was only -2.6 last year so he certainly did improve though he is still pretty terrible at in zone plays, he just got better at the out of zone side.

 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pfk_WuYpfduzefA8-s0_iYw&gid=3

[Fatter than Joey]

Now given time he very well may improve, it is just a matter of whether or not they want to give him the time.

 

This is a good summary of the "move Braun" position. As Ennder has pointed out -- Weeks has shown some improvement, but it has been afte ~2700 innings. If it were 2004 and the Brewers had no shot at competing, I would be AOK with weathering the storm with Braun.

 

Whether you think the Brewers are ahead of the Cubs, or behind the Cubs, I would hope we can all agree we don't need to be spotting them 20-30 runs at one position.

 

Going forward. LaPorta will be here the year after next if not next year. He can arguably play only 1B or LF.

 

If LaPorta was on the same track as Braun, he would show up in Milw. in May of 2009. Everything I have heard is that LaPorta is NOT on the same track as Braun (this is not an indication of sucktitude, only that LaPorta needs more work). I think the earliest we will see LaPorta in a significant fashion will be in 2010. It's not as if LaPorta was tearing up AAA last year. So many roster changes may occur between now and 2010, it doesn't seem reasonable to keep Braun at 3rd based on this.

 

Ultimately -- If it turns out that LaPorta and Braun can only play LF and 1b, and Prince and Hart are locked down -- someone will need to be traded.

[dadofandrew]

The 32 runs makes about as much sense as any I've seen, and still leaves Ryan as a very valuable player at 3B, as long as he hits like he did in '07. Considering he is likely to improve in the field, I still prefer to leave him at 3B.

[RobDeer 45]

A ball that is tailing can be caused by arm angle and grip on the ball. Throwing the ball at a 3/4 angle needs to be done a lot in the IF because of needing to get rid of the ball quickly and therefore causing more tail on the ball. In the OF you have more time to throw and therefore can come more over the top and therefore have less tail on the ball. So I think he'll be fine throwing wise in the OF. However with LaPorta coming up I don't think moving him off 3rd (unless we can get a stud in a trade) is a good move. I think he will get better with time, but he's probably never going to be more than average deffensivly. That is ok with me if he keeps putting up these numbers.

[Fatter than Joey]

The 32 runs makes about as much sense as any I've seen, and still leaves Ryan as a very valuable player at 3B, as long as he hits like he did in '07.

 

I think that we all agree that even with his fielding deficiencies Braun was an overall positive in 2007.

 

Considering he is likely to improve in the field, I still prefer to leave him at 3B.

 

I think he will improve, but I think his offense will regress as well.

[Gopher74]

I'm not clear on what you're saying here. Are you saying that there essentially is someone there judging what balls he "should have" gotten to in some way other than errors or not?

 

Yes -- There is RZR which measures how many balls that are hit into a fielder's zone that are converted into outs. And then, OOZ which measures how many balls hit out of a fielder's zone are converted into outs. Braun is in the bottom in both of these stats.

I understand the stats, how they work, and what they are. I get that part of it. I specifically asked in my question if he was suggesting that there was an actual person there who measures those things. He specifically said there were. It was really a rhetorical question because I know there is not.

 

The scorekeeper isn't necessarily the one determining what's a fielder's range, but whoever is there keeping track is inherently operating subjectively. You're right in that the official scorer isn't necessarily there determining Braun's range. In any case, someone is judging whether or not a ball was in a certain position's range. There are plenty of negative ways a fielder can hurt a team that aren't scored as errors. And they aren't necessarily covered by RF.

 

He said that the official scorer judges what balls a player should have gotten to, and he does this in ways other than calling a play an error.

And, yea, I understand that Ryan Braun as at the bottom of every, or nearly every defensive metric there is, and that he's an absolutely terrible defender. The argument is made, and has been made at times that he's physically unable to get to balls. That's the only argument/issue I'm addressing.

 

 

I also think saying that trying to attribute a number to the amount of runs a player cost using any of those defensive metrics is an "inexact science" is a huge understatement.

[TooLiveBrew]

No, I didn't say the official scorer is always the one who's responsible for judging OOZ/in-zone stuff. But there is a person watching each game who has to determine in-zone v. OOZ, and it's obviously inherently subjective.

[Gopher74]

No, I didn't say the official scorer is always the one who's responsible for judging OOZ/in-zone stuff. But there is a person watching each game who has to determine in-zone v. OOZ, and it's obviously inherently subjective.

I don't believe there is anyone who actually judges it, rather it's a collection of statistical data based on where a ball is hit.

 

[Ennder]

Someone at BIS watches a video tape of every game that is played and enters the information into a computer.

 

Baseball Info Solutions reviews videotape of every game in Major League Baseball. Every play is entered into the computer where we record the exact direction, distance, speed and type of every batted ball. Direction and distance is done on a computer screen by simply clicking the exact location of the ball on a replica of the field shown on the screen

 

The computer does the rest based on probabilies of plays made in various vectors. The one thing I have always wondered is how it handles things like the shift, I know Yost used it way too much last season and it could have caused a blip in Braun's skills depending on how they handle it.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yeah, agreed on the shift factor(s). It's too bad this is all still so subjective. I question how much shifts impact the overall measurements - like David Wright's 88 OOZ plays from 2007. No other 3B even came close to that total, which makes me wonder if perhaps the Mets' defensive alignments resulted in what seemed to be a lot of OOZ plays for Wright. I know he's fantastic defensively, but the gulf between him & the next OOZ leader was huge.

[Gopher74]

Yeah, agreed on the shift factor(s). It's too bad this is all still so subjective. I question how much shifts impact the overall measurements - like David Wright's 88 OOZ plays from 2007. No other 3B even came close to that total, which makes me wonder if perhaps the Mets' defensive alignments resulted in what seemed to be a lot of OOZ plays for Wright. I know he's fantastic defensively, but the gulf between him & the next OOZ leader was huge.

Yea, either way, it's kinda funny. The gap between my usual Brewers conversations and the ones on Brewerfan.net. You know, the typical, "Weeks sucks, and shouldn't be a leadoff hitter because his BA is .235", and....well, this one for instance.

 

I must say, even when I don't agree, it's a much more interesting conversation than I'm generally going to have about the Brew Crew.

 

[TooLiveBrew]

I must say, even when I don't agree, it's a much more interesting conversation than I'm generally going to have about the Brew Crew.

This is precisely the way I feel about BF.net. It gets old to have people tell you that they know - to use your example - that Weeks isn't a good player... because he batted .235.

[endaround]

Braun's BRAA last eyar was 36. With him costing the Brewers 32 runs defensively, thats a net +4. Good but hardly earth shattering. In left field that could easily turn into +20 to +40.

[Gopher74]

I must say, even when I don't agree, it's a much more interesting conversation than I'm generally going to have about the Brew Crew.

This is precisely the way I feel about BF.net. It gets old to have people tell you that they know - to use your example - that Weeks isn't a good player... because he batted .235.

There's no bigger reason that I'm looking forward to next season than to watch Weeks just friggin go off and tear this league up ala Hanley Ramirez.

 

And to just further prove my point, I actually got into an argument with about 7-8 guy, all of them arguing against me, trying to tell me that the OF was a tougher position to play than 2nd base. That Weeks wouldn't succeed in the OF if he can't succeed at 2nd base. This was from this past summer. We were actually talking about Braun, and I just made the comment in passing that I'd have moved Weeks over Hall, so I'd definitely move Braun. I didn't even think that this particular point could be argued, but low and behold, I found myself in an argument with this whole group sitting around a bond fire, just absolutely flabbergasted that people seriously could argue that point. That argument still bothers me because all of them are convinced they're right, and that I didn't know what I'm talking about.

 

Anyway, that's on point, huh?

[TooLiveBrew]

I actually got into an argument with about 7-8 guy, all of them arguing against me, trying to tell me that the OF was a tougher position to play than 2nd base.

 

Well, if you weren't so uninformed...

We were actually talking about Braun, and I just made the comment in passing that I'd have moved Weeks over Hall, so I'd definitely move Braun... That argument still bothers me because all of them are convinced they're right, and that I didn't know what I'm talking about.

 

It's good to know there are the real experts out there. You know, using perception & that 'one play' they saw to cement what is undeniably a factual truth.

[jazzytrav]

Braun's BRAA last eyar was 36. With him costing the Brewers 32 runs defensively, thats a net +4. Good but hardly earth shattering. In left field that could easily turn into +20 to +40.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking but didn't have the knowledge to back up. These stats could actually make for quite an easy equation to figure out what the best possible solution would be considering both offense and defense. I have to imagine the net benefit that Braun would bring in LF combined with the net from at worst a Counsell/Dillon platoon would be better than nearly any other situation.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yea, I'm starting to get that feeling about the way DM & Co. are approaching this hole at 3B/LF. It seems like Doug feels like if his worst-case scenario is a Counsell/Dillon platoon at 3B, that's still better than keeping Braun there.

 

I guess mathematically I can't argue with that logic, but I sure hope we don't have to see Counsell get run out there for 400+ ABs in 2008.