This is the next article in a series on a system I'm developing which I'm calling a probabilistic Model of Range. If you haven't been following the discussion, you should read these posts first:

1. A probabilistic Model of Range
2. More on Probability and Range
3. Range Rankings

Here is the updated list of range rankings, through Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003.

The next question I wish to answer is what positions on a particular team are above or below average? I'm not looking at individual players yet, but at the position of the team as a whole. What I'm doing is calculating each position's contribution to DER. (If you add up the Actual DER column, it should total to the team value above.) I'll start by looking at the best team on the list, the Seattle Mariners:

Not surprisingly, the Mariners are positive at every fielding position except catcher and pitcher, and those two positions don't contribute much to the team DER. What surprised me is the right fielders. It's mostly Ichiro, and this shows that he basically did what he was expected to do.

Now let's look at the worst team on the list, the NY Yankees:

The Yankees have great fielders on the mound. Unfortunately, they don't have great fielders behind them. Especially disturbing is the lack of defense at two of the most important positions, SS and CF (I must admit I'm a bit surprised to see 2B doing so well). Yankees shortstops have made almost 60 fewer plays than expected, while their centerfielders are around -40. That just doesn't work.

We can also use this to rank positions. Here's the ranking of team shortstops:

None of these have park adjustments. That will be the next step.