THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

MGL: Can you list the 2008 UZR of players who debuted in 2007 or 2008 (or had at most say 100 innings played entering 2007), for the 20-30 players with the most innings in 2008?

I’d like to test the issue that some of the readers have in terms of knowledge of UZR biasing results.  Since you haven’t published UZR since mid-07, this would be the ideal group of players.

If we can show that the top 10 and bottom 10 in UZR of those 30 inexperienced players matches, as a group, what the Fans say they should be, that should be one more feather in the Fans’ cap.

The Indians should move Cabrera to SS and Peralta to 3B/2B. Gutierrez would probably be one of the better CFs in the league, but I doubt they’d ever consider moving Grady.

Phillips (Res) should be a SS, too.

For the Indians, I’ve got Gutierrez and Cabrera as the two best fielders (on the team, and close to the top in the league… no way this was influenced by UZR).  Sizemore is next in line.

I’ve got Sizemore as pretty good in CF, and not so good in RF.  If you have decided that you want both Sizemore and Gutierrez in the OF, the best combination is what they currently have.

Among the infielders, Cabrera, Carroll, and Marte are the three best ones.  The fans hate Peralta.  Among the 64 shortstops I’ve got, he ranks 13 from the bottom (Jeter is 24th from the bottom, while his year-in year-out comp is Michale Young at 23rd from the bottom… it really is amazing.  The Yanks fans and Rangers fans always evaluate these two guys the same way across all 7 traits, each year.  They even give them the same aging.)

I started to do the Braves, but I had to go before I was able to finish. I am also doing the Tigers.

When do the ballots close?

I leave them up through the World Series at least.  Usually I close them whenever I go a week without receiving a ballot, which means any time between Dec 1 and Feb 1.

I put out the first draft of the full report at the end of regular season, and the final one in the winter.

Some surprises here. Vizquel still that good? I wonder if that’s a reputation score. Same for Ichiro, who I didn’t think was anything special defensively outside of his arm.

And, anecdotally, I think a lot of White Sox fans are voting Swisher as one of the worst defensive CF because he’s had a bad (unlucky) season at the plate. A lot of comments I hear reflect this. He’s not good in center, but he appears to be at least competent.

The advanced metrics, at least through last season, had Vizquel as still an outstanding shortstop, one of the very best in baseball.  UZR had him at +16.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/best_and_worst_of_2007_uzr/

Yes, Nick Swisher is currently ranked last among all CF (52 of them) based on 33 ballots, which is quite a substantial number.  It corresponds to around -10 runs or so, per 162G.

All that means is that this is what the fans think.

(Junior was ranked even lower, but lucky him, he counts as a RF.)

Dewan, since 2004, has him as average in CF, but pretty bad in CF this year.

It is possible that Fans bias their evaluation based on the hitting game.  I know that Kaz Matsui got hit pretty hard by Mets fans back in the day.

That’s simply one more thing to possibly correct.

Btw, Orioles fans liked Juan Castro.  It was Hernandez,Cintron and Bynum that they detested.

Of the 65 SS I have, the Fans rated those 3 in the bottom 4 in the league.  (Chris Gomez of the Pirates is the other.)

Adam Everett ranked 26th after being #1 last year.  (Castro is #21.  Jeter 41.  Anyone who says fans are blind to Jeter is not talking about the Fans who frequent message boards.)