The Yankees set a record Monday night, playing their 18th straight game without an error. Now, errors are a fairly overrated defensive statistic. While most are obvious, there will be variation among official scorers on some hard hit balls that players bobble. Also, compared to the early days of baseball, errors are rare. The ability to get to a ball (range) is a much more important factor that the ability to handle a ball cleanly. Fielders with hands of stone just aren’t going to last a long time in the majors.
The Yankees defense appears to have improved, however:
| 2009 | First 33 games | Last 18 games |
|---|---|---|
| Runs Allowed per game | 6.1 | 3.6 |
| Strikeouts per 9 IP | 7.2 | 7.4 |
| Walks per 9 IP | 4.1 | 3.6 |
| Home runs per 200 IP | 30.5 | 31.5 |
So the pitching is a little better in terms of strikeouts and walks, a little worse in terms of home runs allowed. It doesn’t seem like enough to account for the 2 1/2 run drop in runs allowed. Maybe the drop is better defense, including no errors. I noticed Jeter was well positioned last night. If someone has game by game defense for the Yankees, I’d love to see +/- or UZR comparisons.
That’s pretty awesome! I was just wondering last night how they slipped into 1st place.
On the subject of errors being overrated, I couldn’t agree more. There’s a 3rd baseman on the Twins AAA team who’s got a lot of errors. Thing is, I’ve seen some of those plays and they really shouldn’t been errors. He’ll try to field a bad hop, and it gets called an error. Sometimes I think he should let the ball go intstead of trying to get to it… then they wouldn’t give him an error. But of course, an extra run might score, so he’s determined to try anyway. Yet, people who just see the boxscores have no idea that Luke Hughes is a good fielder.