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Friday, September 19, 2008
Fielding differences in the positions, take 2
Let’s go back to my original chart:
+1.0 C
+0.5 SS/CF
+0.0 2B/3B
-0.5 LF/RF
-1.0 1B
More specifically, when we look at this chart, it asks “How does the average player at this position compare to Willie Bloomquist?”. If we consider WFB as the ideal average fielder, we see that the average SS and CF are a bit better than Willie, while the average corner OF are a bit worse, etc, etc. (If you don’t like the Willie comp, use someone else. Say Melvin Mora. He’s got average traits in the Fans Scouting Report across the board. He has close to a 0 UZR from 03-07. He started life as an OF and is now an IF. Whatever. Just choose one guy.)
That was based on players who play multiple positions. However, insofar as the IF is concerned, this excludes all LH throwers. That is, the comparison of that chart is to a righthanded WFB or Mora. However, what would the chart look like if we compare those players to a LEFTHANDED Mora?
In a recent thread, we have kind of settled down on around 40 plays, which is around 30 runs, or 3 wins, as the cost of putting a LH thrower in the infield (2b,ss,3b).
So, here is the above chart, but when compared to a lefthanded average fielder:
+3.5 SS
+3.0 2B/3B
+2.0 C
+0.5 CF
-0.5 LF/RF
-1.4 1B
All I did was add 3 wins to our IF, and I added 1.0 wins to the catcher. I moved the 1B downward by 0.4 wins (presuming a lefty is slightly more beneficial). The OF positions remained the same.
I’ll reset the above chart so that average is zero, so I will knock out 1.2 wins from everyone:
+2.3 SS
+1.8 2B/3B
+0.8 C
-0.7 CF
-1.7 LF/RF
-2.6 1B
So, that’s what the average fielder looks like when compared to a LH Mora.
From 2000-2007, 14.5% of the innings from nonpitchers were fielded by LH throwers. So, if we take 85.5% of the first chart, and 14.5% of this last chart, we get this:
ALL RH LH
1.0 1.0 0.8 C
0.8 0.5 2.3 SS
0.3 0.5 -0.7 CF
0.3 0.0 1.8 2B/3B
-0.7 -0.5 -1.7 LF/RF
-1.2 -1.0 -2.6 1B
If we try to make it a bit symmetrical, we get:
1.25 C
0.75 SS
0.25 CF/2B/3B
-.75 LF/RF
-1.25 1B
(I bumped the catcher a bit because I’ve probably been shortchanging them from the beginning. And I like symmetry. 
)
As you can see, this is identical to my original altered chart in the first linked thread. It conforms better to what we would think, while being able to arrive at the results in a somewhat logical manner.
The average of the three OF positions is -0.42 wins and the three IF positions is +0.42 wins.
This gap is 0.83 wins (compared to my original 0.33 wins). And it conforms more closely to what the offensive gap is between the two groups (around 1.2 wins).
So, what do we think?