Baseball Musings: Probabilistic Model of Range, 2008, Leftfielders

November 12, 2008

Probabilistic Model of Range, 2008, Leftfielders

The survery of range continues with leftfielders. The following table shows how the thirty teams fared at the position:

Team Leftfielders PMR, 2008, Visit Smooth Distance Model, 2008 data only
Team	In Play	Actual Outs	Predicted Outs	DER	Predicted DER	Ratio
Royals	4413	368	353.21	0.083	0.080	104.19
Indians	4513	302	290.89	0.067	0.064	103.82
Rays	4264	344	331.81	0.081	0.078	103.67
Nationals	4417	350	339.72	0.079	0.077	103.03
Mets	4335	308	299.09	0.071	0.069	102.98
Diamondbacks	4224	306	298.79	0.072	0.071	102.41
Braves	4383	279	273.49	0.064	0.062	102.02
Brewers	4354	305	299.07	0.070	0.069	101.98
White Sox	4409	293	287.74	0.066	0.065	101.83
Rangers	4667	323	317.21	0.069	0.068	101.83
Orioles	4540	362	355.59	0.080	0.078	101.80
Athletics	4285	333	328.28	0.078	0.077	101.44
Astros	4292	282	278.71	0.066	0.065	101.18
Padres	4419	310	306.42	0.070	0.069	101.17
Cardinals	4597	312	308.84	0.068	0.067	101.02
Red Sox	4232	292	291.37	0.069	0.069	100.22
Dodgers	4265	286	285.62	0.067	0.067	100.13
Tigers	4536	356	355.77	0.078	0.078	100.06
Giants	4232	308	308.26	0.073	0.073	99.92
Yankees	4349	316	316.76	0.073	0.073	99.76
Angels	4374	285	286.29	0.065	0.065	99.55
Cubs	4156	302	304.23	0.073	0.073	99.27
Blue Jays	4215	270	272.75	0.064	0.065	98.99
Pirates	4683	293	299.34	0.063	0.064	97.88
Reds	4299	280	288.41	0.065	0.067	97.08
Rockies	4535	282	290.95	0.062	0.064	96.92
Marlins	4338	289	299.06	0.067	0.069	96.64
Mariners	4512	324	336.18	0.072	0.075	96.38
Twins	4607	306	327.83	0.066	0.071	93.34
Phillies	4396	260	279.09	0.059	0.063	93.16

As in rightfield, there doesn't seem to be a huge correlation between doing well in left and winning. The Royals displayed the best defense at the position, while the Phillies came out at the bottom of the pack.

The list of individuals in left shows that very few teams employ a regular at the position:

Individual Leftfielder PMR, 2008, Visit Smooth Distance Model, 2008 data only (1000 balls in play)
Player	In Play	Actual Outs	Predicted Outs	DER	Predicted DER	Ratio
Skip Schumaker	1085	85	73.79	0.078	0.068	115.20
David DeJesus	1522	136	121.91	0.089	0.080	111.56
Brandon Boggs	1818	131	118.10	0.072	0.065	110.92
Matt Joyce	1249	94	84.77	0.075	0.068	110.89
Ben Francisco	2021	150	138.34	0.074	0.068	108.43
Juan Pierre	1816	125	116.83	0.069	0.064	107.00
Willie Harris	1685	145	135.55	0.086	0.080	106.97
Carl Crawford	2715	231	217.97	0.085	0.080	105.98
Conor Jackson	1944	146	139.06	0.075	0.072	104.99
Gregor Blanco	1547	86	82.08	0.056	0.053	104.78
Jay Payton	1293	132	126.31	0.102	0.098	104.51
Luke Scott	2668	200	196.08	0.075	0.073	102.00
Johnny Damon	1998	155	152.00	0.078	0.076	101.97
Ryan Braun	3919	275	270.93	0.070	0.069	101.50
Wily Mo Pena	1260	99	97.68	0.079	0.078	101.35
Carlos Lee	2840	187	185.42	0.066	0.065	100.85
David Dellucci	1164	75	74.64	0.064	0.064	100.48
Adam Dunn	2942	210	209.06	0.071	0.071	100.45
Alfonso Soriano	2653	186	185.23	0.070	0.070	100.42
Fred Lewis	2622	178	177.57	0.068	0.068	100.24
Carlos Quentin	3465	228	228.42	0.066	0.066	99.81
Jack Cust	1753	129	129.74	0.074	0.074	99.43
Emil Brown	1229	89	89.70	0.072	0.073	99.21
Chase Headley	2159	156	157.62	0.072	0.073	98.97
Matt Holliday	3850	240	243.20	0.062	0.063	98.68
Manny Ramirez	2894	190	193.40	0.066	0.067	98.24
Adam Lind	1712	113	115.52	0.066	0.067	97.81
Xavier Nady	1212	87	89.04	0.072	0.073	97.71
Chris Duncan	1012	73	74.80	0.072	0.074	97.59
Raul Ibanez	4203	303	312.07	0.072	0.074	97.09
Garret Anderson	2113	144	148.53	0.068	0.070	96.95
Jose Guillen	1098	83	85.62	0.076	0.078	96.94
Luis Gonzalez	1547	105	109.32	0.068	0.071	96.05
David Murphy	1317	86	89.62	0.065	0.068	95.96
Josh Willingham	2551	166	173.80	0.065	0.068	95.51
Eric Byrnes	1209	76	80.12	0.063	0.066	94.86
Jason Bay	4215	254	268.19	0.060	0.064	94.71
Marcus Thames	1537	120	127.42	0.078	0.083	94.18
Delmon Young	4209	282	301.19	0.067	0.072	93.63
Pat Burrell	3646	202	223.39	0.055	0.061	90.42

Ryan Braun is the first player on the list on the field in left for over 3000 balls in play. Some of this was caused by injuries (Soriano, Matsui), but for the most part, managers mix and match at the position. The move to left was clearly the right one for Braun.

The other rankings of note belong to Manny Ramirez and Jason Bay. Manny actually did better than Jason in 2008. I'm going to need to break down the two by team to see how much the parks might have made a difference. Bay certainly looked better than Manny watching him play for the Red Sox.

All those late inning substitutions Charlie Manuel made for Pat Burrell looked proper, also. Pat ranks as the worst leftfielder in baseball in 2008, so it's no wonder Charlie wanted a better glove in left when the Phillies had the lead late.

Posted by David Pinto at 08:43 AM | Probabilistic Model of Range | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Ramirez actually tried to field the ball in LA, so he got a little ahead of Bay in both zone rating and range factor for the year. Both ranked near the bottom.

Holliday led all qualifiers in zone rating. From what I saw of him in Colorado's endless left field, he looked much better than his mediocre rating in this table. He looked like he could play center, in fact.

Posted by: Casey Abell at November 12, 2008 10:15 AM

Is there any significance to the fact that Schumaker appears at the top of the list in LF, but was almost dead last in CF?

Is it that he is an incredible LF but a terrible CF, or is that these numbers, whatever they may reveal, should not be used to gauge defensive quality? Is there something else going on that affects the numbers?

Seriously, that just seems odd....

Posted by: salvomania at November 12, 2008 03:22 PM

Shumaker is someone worth looking at closely. It could be that his range is fine for left, but not good enough for center.

Posted by: David Pinto at November 12, 2008 04:02 PM

Manny isn't actually as bad a fielder as most people think. Both he and late-career-Barry-Bonds probably suffered from the "enduring-image" or "looks horrible" effects.

Baseball Prospectus' numbers agree with yours, btw; Manny was a better fielder than Bay this year. Bay was about 90-95% of Manny (which is quite good for considerably less money), but I have to wonder if that missing 5-10% would have put them up against the Phillies.

Posted by: Subrata Sircar at November 12, 2008 04:54 PM

Manny was OK in Fenway because he played right behind the SS - One good thing about him is you don't have to worry about him running into the CF.

How can Adam Dunn finish ahead of anyone?

Posted by: Bandit at November 12, 2008 05:58 PM

on your comment about Ichiro yesterday regarding his being better in CF than RF, perhaps it has to do with Ibanez's poor showing in LF. Ichiro in CF was expected to cover some of Ibanez's territory in LF, and did so. But when he's in RF, he has less extra ground to cover.

Posted by: matt at November 12, 2008 05:59 PM

No, I refuse to believe Wily Mo Pena was slightly better than average.

Posted by: Tom at November 13, 2008 11:03 AM

Having watched Skip play, I find this very, very very hard to believe. He is about the worst player I've ever seen at getting a jump on the ball.

Posted by: JeremyR at November 20, 2008 09:03 PM