from Amazon
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Primates Look at Fielding
Looks like some interesting fielding numbers will be published for our consumption
In the long-run, a player’s ZR should pretty much match his UZR, making this a good metric when looking at careers.
And yes, the aging pattern…
...for fielding follows a similar one for hitting, but just a tad earlier. If you remember, a hitter’s speed skills peaks at around age 23, while his other skills peak later. For fielding, speed is alot more important than it is for hitting, and therefore, fielding peaks a little earlier than it does for hitting. IIRC, it’s about 1 year earlier than for hitting. And for the SS/CF positions, it was 2 years earlier. 1B peaked 1 year later than hitting, I believe.
In any case, that was based on 4 years of data. With the Primates’ data, we will be able to see this better.
As well, with so much more data, we’ll be able to do the “multiple fielding position” analysis I did several weeks (as well as years) ago.