THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I wonder if arm strength and accuracy make it more difficult to coalesce an advance metric with the human eye in right field than it does at other positions.

Personally I hate seeing a noodle arm in right field, love seeing a Francouer (sp) hose a guy out at third (or at first, which he did this year on a single).  But in the metrics, those plays are less important than a guy’s range.

I agree with your basic sentiment that it’s much more likely a strong-armed, averaged-speed player will get a high (eye) mark in RF than an average-armed, fast player.

This sole soul would make the argument that Albert Pujols is not so much the best-fielding first baseman as the most aggressive-fielding first baseman. When the aggressiveness pays off, the results are spectacular—probably disproportionately so, in the minds of those who vote on such matters. But when it does not pay off, there are harmful effects upon Albert’s team. I’d love to quantify just how often a Cardinals pitcher, sweltering in humid St. Louis all summer, has to fly off the mound to cover first whenever Albert decides that he can reach a ball that his second baseman can likewise comfortably reach. Such plays get recorded as 3-1 in the scorebook; the fans laud Pujols for his Gold Glovedness; the effect on the pitcher (of what should have been a 4-3 play) gets ignored. I’m probably preaching to the choir here. But when I read the home page of fieldingbible.com and see Albert extolled for that (terrific) 6-3-5 FC against Utley in the ‘11NLDS, I cannot help but long for balance. Am I in the wrong, here?

Keith: if you want to figure out the performance of a pitcher to the next batter in the same inning where he had to get a putout at first base, be my guest.  The data is there. You formulated your hypothesis.  Now, test it.