February 22, 2011

Five Year PMR, Second Basemen

My five-year survey of fielders using objective PMR continues with second basemen. (You can find all Probabilistic Model of Range posts here.) We start with the composite team view:

Team second baseman PMR, 2006-2010, four parameter objective model built on visiting team data.
Team In Play Actual Outs Predicted Outs Actual DER Predicted DER Index
NYA 16081 2674 2462.3 0.166 0.153 108.6
COL 17011 2796 2590.3 0.164 0.152 107.9
ARI 16276 2672 2498.8 0.164 0.154 106.9
PHI 16614 2596 2481.2 0.156 0.149 104.6
TEX 16691 2721 2611.7 0.163 0.156 104.2
OAK 16203 2653 2563.1 0.164 0.158 103.5
TOR 16418 2663 2590.4 0.162 0.158 102.8
CLE 16901 2687 2616.5 0.159 0.155 102.7
NYN 16069 2476 2428.2 0.154 0.151 102.0
HOU 15999 2467 2427.4 0.154 0.152 101.6
BOS 15779 2509 2478.1 0.159 0.157 101.2
SEA 16591 2562 2531.3 0.154 0.153 101.2
ATL 16587 2585 2554.0 0.156 0.154 101.2
MIL 16105 2373 2351.5 0.147 0.146 100.9
FLO 16105 2493 2474.4 0.155 0.154 100.8
LAN 16188 2573 2555.3 0.159 0.158 100.7
WAS 16839 2518 2517.7 0.150 0.150 100.0
ANA 15624 2549 2554.1 0.163 0.163 99.8
DET 16562 2593 2598.1 0.157 0.157 99.8
MIN 16082 2630 2635.0 0.164 0.164 99.8
CIN 16377 2478 2484.3 0.151 0.152 99.7
CHA 16459 2541 2552.9 0.154 0.155 99.5
CHN 15242 2340 2379.5 0.154 0.156 98.3
SFN 15403 2308 2360.4 0.150 0.153 97.8
SLN 17217 2555 2620.3 0.148 0.152 97.5
TBA 15843 2408 2472.2 0.152 0.156 97.4
BAL 17338 2474 2573.4 0.143 0.148 96.1
SDN 16048 2442 2566.9 0.152 0.160 95.1
KCA 16381 2448 2575.9 0.149 0.157 95.0
PIT 16877 2218 2472.8 0.131 0.147 89.7

The Yankees dominate this list, while I’m not surprised the Royals, a very poor defensive team, come up near the bottom. The Giants, who like to play veterans, tend toward the bottom as well. Next, the individual players, the regulars and semi regulars:

Individual second baseman PMR, 2006-2010, four parameter objective model built on visiting team data.
Fielder In Play Actual Outs Predicted Outs Actual DER Predicted DER Index
Orlando Hudson 12946 2221 2031.8 0.172 0.157 109.3
Robinson Cano 14648 2415 2237.8 0.165 0.153 107.9
Mark Ellis 11955 2018 1894.1 0.169 0.158 106.5
Ian Kinsler 12629 2103 1976.6 0.167 0.157 106.4
Clint Barmes 5285 855 805.1 0.162 0.152 106.2
Jamey Carroll 6028 1000 943.2 0.166 0.156 106.0
Jose Lopez 11573 1878 1772.7 0.162 0.153 105.9
Chase Utley 14380 2270 2152.4 0.158 0.150 105.5
Adam Kennedy 7914 1276 1224.0 0.161 0.155 104.2
Dustin Pedroia 10181 1645 1588.2 0.162 0.156 103.6
Kazuo Matsui 7745 1207 1167.3 0.156 0.151 103.4
Placido Polanco 10775 1723 1683.6 0.160 0.156 102.3
Aaron Hill 12243 1968 1928.3 0.161 0.158 102.1
Howie Kendrick 8266 1375 1355.0 0.166 0.164 101.5
Josh Barfield 5445 879 874.1 0.161 0.161 100.6
Dan Uggla 15092 2318 2318.3 0.154 0.154 100.0
Rickie Weeks 10082 1457 1459.3 0.145 0.145 99.8
Brandon Phillips 14595 2213 2217.3 0.152 0.152 99.8
Kelly Johnson 9706 1474 1481.7 0.152 0.153 99.5
Felipe Lopez 5964 898 904.0 0.151 0.152 99.3
Aaron Miles 5054 754 767.0 0.149 0.152 98.3
Tadahito Iguchi 6725 1004 1030.2 0.149 0.153 97.5
Mark Grudzielanek 7038 1052 1085.3 0.149 0.154 96.9
Ronnie Belliard 7049 1025 1057.5 0.145 0.150 96.9
Luis Castillo 10720 1608 1668.0 0.150 0.156 96.4
Brian Roberts 13706 1945 2038.1 0.142 0.149 95.4
Ray Durham 6439 925 978.5 0.144 0.152 94.5
Freddy Sanchez 10154 1398 1483.3 0.138 0.146 94.2
Jeff Kent 6600 970 1043.5 0.147 0.158 93.0

I like that the peripatetic Orlando Hudson comes up at the top of this list. He played for three teams over these five seasons. I sometimes wonder if the way the model is built makes fielders on strong offensive teams look good (like Robinson Cano). The Yankees send a number of good left-handed hitters to the plate, so when a model is built for Yankee Stadium, one might expect the ability for a second baseman to field a ball there is tougher than it may be in reality. Hudson, coming out high on the list, playing for fairly weak offensive teams argues against that.

At the other end is an old Jeff Kent. Right smack in the middle, however, is Dan Uggla, who owns a reputation as a poor fielder. In fact, there is a big discrepancy here between the objective model and FanGraphs range run ranking. The latter puts Cano, Uggla and Orlando Hudson all near the bottom of the list. This is fairly huge. Looking at Bill James Online, Hudson was near the top in +/- in three of the five years.

Here’s a closer look at Hudson and Cano:

Type of Batted Ball Hudson’s Index Cano’s Index
Ground 103.2 106.5*
Line 125.8 112.6
Pop 131.5* 112.6

*Highest

So Hudson caught a lot of line drives and is a pop up hog. Cano’s ranking looks pretty good, however. I don’t know if you can be lucky with line drives over a five year period. Maybe Orlando is really good at positioning himself.

4 thoughts on “Five Year PMR, Second Basemen

  1. Sylvan

    Interesting that the Mets score pretty high despite relying on the withered remains of Luis Castillo for much of that period.

    I guess Ruben Tejada, Jose Valentin, Damion Easley, and all the other journeymen who’ve filled in there did pretty well for themselves defensively.

    ReplyReply
  2. Pingback: Looking At Robbie Cano And Defensive Metrics | New York Yankees blog, Yankees blog, A blog about the New York Yankees | The Yankee Analysts

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