THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Chipper to left?

Otis to right?

It would be more helpful for everyone if you can expand more on the story behind the moves.

Having seen both Carlos Lee and Lance Berkman play outfield, I wonder why Lee is in left and Berkman is at first rather than the other way around.

Ron Santo from 3rd to 2nd, late in his career. White Sox. I’d expand if I remembered more.

For ‘way too early’, the Expos tried to move young upcoming Catcher Gary Carter to RF, for two years, just so they could keep Barry Foote in the lineup. 

Fortunately for Carter, Dick Williams was hired, and ended the nonesense.

With Otis to left (sorry, I said right originally), in 1981, Jim Frey, manager of the Royals deceided to move 3-time Gold Glover Amos Otis to left field and replace him in center with Wilie Wilson. Otis made errors in his first two games, and was quickly moved back to center after just 12 games.

He seemed to forget that Otis was the much better fielder, even though Wilson was good also. It was done because Wilson was so fast that everyone expected him to play center, even though Otis was the smoothest fielding center fielder outside of Philadelphia. He would have won more than 3 Gold Gloves if it wasn’ for guys names Paul Blair and Fred Lynn, but Otis was better.

That was just one of the reasons Frey didn’t last through the strike.

The Reds are famous for doing it way too late:

Ken Griffey Jr. played CF through the 2006 despite being historically bad there from at least 2004 onward.  The move to RF for 2007 has to be one of the most overdue such moves in history.  His defense essentially negated his offense for many of his last 4 years with the Reds. 

Edwin Encarnacion is still scheduled to be the Reds’ starting third baseman despite 3.5 seasons of being somewhere between bad and terrible there.  They have the opportunity to move him to left field this season, but they will not. 

The Reds also had a great opportunity to move Adam Dunn to 1B for the 2006 season, but didn’t in order to get Scott Hatteberg in the lineup.  Hatteberg did have a pair of excellent years with the Reds, but at the time it seemed beyond crazy…
-j

When Mark McGwire came up with the A’s he had played 3rd in the minors and there was talk about moving Carney Lansford to 1st if McGwire could field enough to stick there.  Despite Lansford being a solid defender at the hot corner.

It never made any sense to me, and a after a few April games, the A’s figured it out too and went on to win a few pennants.

They might have been planning on replacing Lansford with Rob Nelson and needing to fit him and McGwire into the same lineup, but Nelson never panned out so it became a non-issue.

Following up on #4, I looked up Santo’s stats at 2b in 1974. Fld%=.970 (lg avg .975)***** Rng9=5.32 (lg avg 5.37)*****and 40 DP in 331 def. innings.

I had always heard that Santo was embarrassed/embarrassing at 2b, but his stats look OK to me. I realize we don’t have UZR here, but the basic stats should be good enough to tell us if a guy is obviously out of position.

The W Sox traded for him and then put him at 2b because they already had Bill Melton at 3rd. Of course this begs the question, why did they obtain him in the first place?

The Dodgers re-signing Casey Blake to play 3B and (presumably) moving Blake DeWitt to 2B.

Reason: Ned Colletti loves veterans and there’s some weird misconception that DeWitt can be just as good at 2B as he is at 3B. I also believe he’s never even looked at a defensive metric.

In 2008, DeWitt’s UZR/150 at 3B was 9.9 and his UZR/150 at 2B was -17.3. Blake’s UZR/150 at 3B was -5.4. So instead of gaining about a win defensively, they’re probably going to lose 2 wins.

This reminds me—one of the most baffling results from the The Book is the one about how DHs suffer an offensive penalty. I still don’t understand why that would be after reading it several times.

The result was arrived at by looking at players who both DH’ed and did not DH, and comparing their stats while as a DH and not as a DH, correct? I wonder if there is a bias or problem with applying this to everyone, since it essentially eliminates from consideration the all-time DHs like a Harold Baines or David Ortiz.

Anyways, the way it’s related to this post is, did you do similar analyses for other position switches? You often hear that moving an outfielder to 3B will hurt his offense. It’s essentially the same analysis as the DH.

There are no “all-time” DH.  Ortiz has over 200 games on the field.  Baines has over 1000 games on the field.

Certainly there will selection bias issues.

***

Yes, it would be a good study to show what happens to players’ hitting when they go to less demanding positions.  I should in the 2009 THT Annual that catchers take a leap when getting out of the catcher position.

The observed DH penalty is very possibly a problem with sampling bias - as some position players may be playing DH when they are hurt, but not hurt so badly that they can’t play at all.

But it’s hard to tell as getting that kind of injury data, beyond just DL stints, would be a very difficult chore.

The DH penalty could also be similar to the pinch hitting penalty, and players may just hit better when they keep lose by playing the whole game instead of sitting on the bench and waiting to hit once every 40 minutes.

The players will tell you that the DH role is a challenge.  It’s possible that the best DH’s - Edgar, Baines, Ortiz, Hal McRae - have learned how to overcome the challenges, prepare themselves for the role, and eliminate a penalty.  But players used to playing in the field do not handle it so well.

I had a thought - maybe we should look at NL position players who DH in interleague play.  They are probably less likely to be DHing as injury rehab than a split DH/position player in the AL.  But you’d have to adjust for quality of pitching faced.

I would nominate the Indians’ current handling of Asdrubal Cabrera, and the insistence on leaving Jhonny Peralta at short rather than moving him over to third.

Rally: great idea!

***

Pat: Seeing that the Fans Scouting Report raved over Cabrera and were sickened by Peralta, you are definitely not alone among Indians fans.  I must believe that Cabrera will be playing SS in 2009.

Not quite a position move, but how about the Mariners sticking with Jim Presley in 1988(.230/.280/.355) 1989 (.236/.275/.385) when Edgar Martinez was in the minors OPS’ing .984.

When I heard the Indians had traded for DeRosa, that’s what I thought too (DeRosa at second, Jhonny at third, Asdrubal at short).  But they’re claiming publicly that DeRosa is going to play third.

According to Shapiro, the plan is to begin the season with DeRosa at 3B, Peralta at SS and Asdrubal at 2B.  However, Shapiro has also been quoted numerous times saying that Cabrera will eventually take over the SS position.  The acquisition of Valbuena also provides Cleveland with a potentially viable 2B option as early as the second half of 2009. 

In defense of Peralta, though, his defense at SS has improved considerably.  Looking at his UZR/150 numbers over the past three seasons, he has improved from -12.3 to -8.7 to -4.0.  Should the Indians decide at some point to trade Peralta, keeping him at SS might maintain some of his positional value.

Great point about the positional value.  Same could be said for Rickie Weekes.

Then again, look how moving Soriano to the OF improved his fielding value. Ryan Braun and Upton too.

So, the lesson is: if you have a bad infielder, who can hit, move him to the OF to improve his fielding value.

If you have a bad infielder who can’t hit enough, keep him in the IF until you can trade him.

With a move to third, Peralta loses some offensive value.  He’s a league-average hitter, which is good for a shortstop but mediocre for a third baseman.

I’ve often wondered aloud if Peralta should move to second, where he would retain some of that offensive advantage.  But with Valbuena and Barfield in the organization, in addition to DeRosa and Cabrera, that probably isn’t in the Indians plans.

I apologize if this has become a Jhonny Peralta thread-jack...but in reference to John’s (#20) suggestion, the problem with moving Peralta to 2B seems to be you are maximizing his defensive weaknesses and minimizing his strengths with that move.  Jhonny’s strengths (supported by the fan results) have always been his strong, accurate arm, and relatively good hands.  These all play well at 3B.  What he’s regularly been criticized for is a lack of lateral mobility, something which would seemingly be more of a negative at 2B than 3B.  But I could be wrong. He spent a little time at 3B in the minors (and this year in winterball) but to the best of my knowledge he has never played 2B professionally.

Whatever offensive value he loses is made up for the defensive gain, more or less.  This is the idea behind the positional adjustment.

For guys like Ryan Braun, whose arm was very exposed, it matters.  For most guys, it won’t matter.

Of course in retrospect Babe Ruth should have been moved from pitcher to outfielder sooner but he was a very fine pitcher so it’s hard to second guess that.

In 1986, the White Sox moved Carlton Fisk to left field.  He played there only 31 games and hated it.  He moved back to catcher and showed surprising longevity there, even having a late career hitting resurgence.

It’s similar to the “park effects” question: in general, we can say that the difference in performance is offset by the difference in context.

Folks wondering about Matt Holliday in the Coliseum, for example, forget that the drop in his offense will be offset by the fact that his offense is worth more in that environment.  The real question is whether Holliday was *particularly* suited to Coors field, moreso than other players.

Same with fielding, which is why the category breakdown in the scouting report is so important.  In general, a hitter will be worth less at third than at short, but that’s offset by the positional value.  But if we know that a guy is *particularly* suited to a fielding position (because of his defensive skillset), then the position change might result in an increase in fielding value.

salb is dead-on.

FWIW, Peralta has been playing 3B in winter leagues.

“Jhonny is playing third base very well every day in the Dominican. He’s made it clear he wants to play shortstop. We’ve made it clear we value him as a shortstop. But we have to put the best team on the field and he understands that too.”

~Mark Shapiro