THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

The answer if you highlight from here:Lou Gehrig, 1934:to here.  Don’t spoil it by talking about it, unless you figured it out on your own first.

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The way I see it, if you have the perfect infielder (the feet of Vizquel, the legs of Reyes, the arm of Tulo, the wrists of Rolen, the hands of Ellis, and the instincts of John McDonald), such a fielder would be say +50 plays above average.  I’m not sure you can possibly get any better.

What would happen if you make this monster lefthanded?  I have to believe that such a player would lose no more than 20 plays per year.  And maybe more like 10.

If we agree that the difference between the monster fielder and the worst fielder (Frank Thomas or whoever you want to nominate) is say 120 plays, then what value do you place on each item?  The fastest legs against the slowest legs?  30 plays?  The softest hands against the hardest hands?  40 plays?  The strongest arm against the weakest arm?  50 plays?  The most ideal handedness (left) against the least ideal handedness (right)?  I’m saying it can’t exceed 20, and it’s more like 10.

I’m glad you wrote about this Tom, because it is one of those unwritten rules that has always bothered me. The same goes for catchers who throw left-handed. Could you give us a hint on what decade the last Left-Hander to play 2B,3B, or SS occurred?

1. If Frank Thomas were playing SS he’d have about 70 to 100 throwing errors a year. Yes, his throwing was that bad. He rarely turned a 3-6-3 or 3-6-1 DP because half the time he tried it the ball would end up in LF.

2. Plays moving toward 2B should be unaffected, or possibly a bit easier for a lefty SS. It seems to me that a lefty SS would have to cheat toward 3B since plays moving toward the hole would be extremely difficult, a near-180 degree spin move would have to precede the throw. To turn a play in that direction a SS might have to flip the ball to the thirdbaseman, sort of like a 463 DP. I think that you are underestimating the number of infield hits that would result from this. Maybe the thirdbaseman could cheat toward the hole instead. This would eliminate many of the infield hits but allow an unknown number of doubles down the line.

Being left-handed, I’ve thought about this (though I haven’t played shortstop in about 45 years, so thinking about it doesn’t have any real effect).

I would think a lefthander playing shortstop would be quite feasible, third base not quite so much, and second base very difficult. A lefthanded second baseman would lose a lot of range going to his right, and turning the double play would be nearly impossible.

I agree that a lefthanded shortstop wouldn’t lose more than 10 or 20 plays a year, mostly on balls to his right ... many of those are infield hits anyway, even for a righthanded shortstop.

Hint:1930s:decade
Hint:1934:year
Hint:Yankees:team

If you need the hints, definitely don’t post your answer!

Also worth noting: the mystery “SS” didn’t actually play in the field.

The shortstop also has to turn double plays on occasion. But now that I think about it, it might be easier for a lefthander to turn a 4-6-3 DP than a 6-4-3 DP because of the angles involved.

I really don’t think it’s that bad to have a lefty in the infield.

I’m a righty.  I was a good fielder in my 20s, insofar as playing on a company team, or pickup games.  That would probably have made me the, what, one-millionth best fielder in the country (at best).  And I had this move with my feet, that almost as soon as the ball was in my glove, my feet would spin to the correct orientation for the throw, so that when the ball was in my glove, I’d already be set for the throw.  It was one of the few things I could do really well on the ballfield that I took pride in.  I’ve got to figure that a lefty infielder must do what I did all the time, and even if he didn’t, since the one millionth best can do it, then the one thousandth best can easily do it.

There must be lots of high school kids in the country who are lefty and a wonder as a fielder.  And if you ask them, they’d probably say they’ve got just a tiny disadvantage.

I made about 5 guesses by just typing in names of players in the search box at Baseball Reference. The 5th guess led to the “mystery SS.” He’s listed as playing 1 game at SS, and has 0 defensive chances.

We give BP grief for their fielding stats.  But, when it comes to historical data, can we presume they are fairly decent?  I don’t know.  I’ve never looked.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/maculji01.php

The lefthanded SS with the most career games at that position was -29 runs in 2 full seasons.

The number 2 guy:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/mcclebi01.php
was -49 runs in 1.5 full seasons.

The number 3 guy:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/halliji01.php
was -47 runs in 0.7 seasons.

Adding it up, that’s around -30 runs per 162game season.  That’d be -40 plays.

It just seems to hard to believe that putting at SS the worst righty infielder (Weeks, Braun, whoever) would be the same as putting a great fielding lefty.

Tom, -30 runs per season is an excellent estimate. Here are the career fielding runs of the left-handed throwers who played at least 20 games at SS. The average FRAA/150 for this list was -28 runs, which is approximately -30 runs per 162 games:

Player: G, RAA, RAA/150
Macullar: 325, -29, -13
McClellan: 246, -49, -30
Hallinan: 111, -47, -64
Hulen: 92, 21, -34
Van Haltren: 79, -14, -27
Redmond: 61, -11, -27
Ryan: 58, -12, -31
Leary: 40, -4, -15
Hall: 36, -13, -54
Sutcliffe: 31, -1, -5
Greenwood: 30, -7, -35
Marr: 29, -3, -16
Pike: 23, -4, -26

Total: 1161 Games, -215 FRAA, and -28 FRAA/150

Just curious… Let’s say everyone in the world suddenly became lefthanded overnight, and we left the game of baseball the same. What would the defensive spectrum look like compared to what it is now?

Dan,

I don’t know if the defensive spectrum would change or not if everyone suddenly became left-handed. I don’t think it would, because you would still be playing your most talented left-handed fielders at SS and 2B. The Offense certainly would increase it’s Runs Per Game by 0.3 to 0.5 if all the infielders were left-handed. However in the situation you are proposing, the fact that left-handed fielders are more often left-handed batters, then they’d be at a disadvantage as a hitter because they would always be facing left-handed pitching, so it would probably even everything out. If everyone suddenly became left-handed throwers and right-handed batters, than offense would certainy increase.

Dan,

On second thought, if most hitters were left-handed, than I imagine 2B would trade places with SS on the defensive spectrum and 1B would swap places with 3B. Actually 3B would probably be more important than LF, so we’ll move LF to the far left of the spectrum. So our defensive spectrum in a left-handed world, would probably be:

LF - 3B - RF - 1B - CF - SS - 2B - C

compared to what it is now:

1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C

You’re missing Mike Squires, who was a left hander who played a little 3b - In 1984 he played 37 innings for the White Sox.

His assists per 9 innings was better than both Roy Smalley, who was primarily a SS, and Vance Law, primarily a 3b who in his career played 2b and ss.

Thanks for pointing out Mike Squires. I would of thought that the last time a left-handed thrower would of played that many innings at 2B, 3B, or SS, would of been early in the 20th century. What doesn’t suprise me is the manager who made the decision was Tony Larussa, the most unconventional manager of our time.

My list was only SS. 

Mattingly played a few innings at 3B.

I believe Mattingly also played 2B for the conclusion of the pine tar game.

Ah, but Mattingly actually started games at 3B. I think he did that the year he won the MVP, too.

By TotalZone I’ve got Mattingly as a +1 defender for his 18 innings at third.

-30 runs for a typical lefty fielder sounds about right.  I don’t want to assume that those 19th century guys were playing there because they were such great fielders that they could overcome their lefthandedness.  Rosters were smaller, most likely they were playing infield because somebody got hurt and there weren’t any other options.

I’ll guess a guy like Endy could play in infield at -15 to -20.

Of the three guys I listed, the first was a plus CF in a short career, and he seems to have been brought back to play only SS.  The second guy was a career 2B who played limited OF.  The third guy played the OF only in years after he played SS.

Hard to tell.

If you make Endy -20 plays as a LH and +20 plays as a RH, you are saying that his handedness costs him 40 plays.  That seems fairly high to me.  Then again, what the heck do I know.

Where are all the LH infielders in high school?  Do none of them read this blog?!?

There arent very many (if any) left handed ss/2b in high school. A left hander who is talented enough to be an average ss will most likely never play ss after the age of 10-12 -

Any manager,coach, etc. will move this kid to CF,RF, or 1B depending on speed and arm strength.

At 2b and ss you are missing the double play aspect. Turning the dp as a lh 2b is too tough for the majors. That’s why you see some in the 1800s, dps were much less frequent. 3b was a more defensive position than 2b in the early 1900s, until double plays became more common.

Let’s say the only disadvantage for a lh 2b or ss is that he cant turn the dp, and he cant throw it quick enough to start a dp.

A good total for dps is 100 - subtract 100 outs - the best you get is an average ss.

Now, this guy has all the tools - so do you make him an average ss, or a super cf/rf?

The old conventional wisdom says move thd kid to cf/rf/1b, and every coach/manager the kid has since the age of 10 has been following that.

And remember this average ss who wants to make it in the bigs would have to fight 100+ years of tradition/wisdom/stupidity/whatever

Also, you get virtually no reference points at 2b/ss because of this.

Mystery Player isn’t actually the last lefthanded “shortstop.” That honor goes to the Orioles’ starting SS in this game: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR197909130.shtml

He did the same thing Mystery Player did - batted in the top of the first and was promptly taken out of the game. Presumably that’s why he isn’t listed anywhere as a shortstop.

(My question is NOT whether a manager will ever do it.)

"If you make Endy -20 plays as a LH and +20 plays as a RH, you are saying that his handedness costs him 40 plays.  That seems fairly high to me.  Then again, what the heck do I know.”

I’m guessing being lefty would cost someone 30 plays.  I don’t assume that Endy could play infield at a +20 rate if he were right-handed, just because that’s what he’s worth in the outfield.

Theron/24: it gets better.  That guy did the same thing as a LH Catcher!

His fielding log shows the SS and another game as C:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/Mchist1010011979.htm

I’m using Endy, but I just mean simply making Adam Everett or Ozzie Smith or Mark Belanger lefthanded.  Had those guys worked out as infielders all their lives, and played college and pro ball as SS, but were lefthanded, what would have been the impact?

So, the challenges would be (1) a slower release for the throw and (2) harder pivot for dp.

So, for (1), how much impact is there on throwing with the opposite hand? Well, 1b have the opposite impact, and someone did a study on 3-6-3 dps based on info from retrosheet.org

http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/ChestnutC/The%203-6-3%20Double%20Play%20Summaries.pdf

The lh 1b were at 6.70% versus 6.27% for rh assuming the population is big enough to reduce other factors, the penalty is ~6.5% (.43/6.7)

Now, Adam Everett made 479 assists in 1293 ip or 3.34 assists per game - if he loses 6.5% that’s 35 assists in a 162 game season.

So, 6.5% of assists or about 35 throws for a great ss for the arm.

Ability to pivot and turn dp? With that being additional body mechanics, and a closer play than average, I would guess it is higher than 6.5% but any guess I make would be a complete guess.

For a SS, being lefthanded is an advantage to being the pivot.

If you want to think about it as a righty, think of the 2B being the pivot, receiving the ball from the SS, and the 2B has to throw to 3B.  That seems like it’s much easier to me, than a righty SS receiving a ball from the 2B and throwing it to 1B.

So, I’m not sure why it is being talked about as it being a disadvantage.

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Not all of Everett’s assists would be on throws to 1B or 2B (though obviously a large majority would be).  I’ll check out the linked study.

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Thanks for the continuing discussion guys.  I really enjoy everyone’s contributions.

If the ss is coming to the bag on the dp, there should be no advantage or disadvantage.

A huge % of Everett’s throws are to 1b/2b, instead of 35 ou might get 30-33, but remember the 35 is a rough number anyhow.

It would be hard to be sure of someone with Ozzie skills because when a left goes into the hole, they would snag the ball and spin around backwards clockwise to make a throw to first. I could see that causing a lot of throwing errors myself as a lefty.

Is the consensus the following, in terms of number of plays better than Frank Thomas:

100 Everett
70 average SS
60 Everett as a lefty
50 a current terrible SS
40 a really bad 2B/3B at SS (Weeks, Braun)
30 average SS as a lefty
10 a current terrible SS as a lefty
00 Frank Thomas

(Everett is Adam Everett, pre-injury.)

00 Weeks or Braun as lefties

FWIW, Ill be part of the consensus on the rating.

Bumping, for fun.

It’s funny you bump this, tango. It leads me to a tangential thought I had. I’m new to a lot of baseball stuff, and I’m slowly reading through The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Somewhere in there he mentions what he believes is the difference between left fielders, center fielders, right fielders, and first basemen. I can’t find the exact wording at the moment, but it was something to the effect that a player who can both run and throw plays center field, a player who can run but can’t throw plays one of the corner outfield spots (which one escapes me at the moment), a player who can throw but can’t run plays the other outfield spot, and a player who can’t run or throw plays first base.

I couldn’t help but notice that those four positions also happen to be the only positions (plus pitcher of course) that modern MLB allows left-handed throwers (hereafter abbreviated as LHT) players to play. Leaguewide, the percentage of innings from LHT at these positions in 2011 were 38.3% (LF), 35.2% (1B), 31.4% (CF), and 27.6% (RF).
The thought I had was if LHT might be noticeably better defensively than RHT at these positions, or at least at CF maybe. My logic is that the pool of RHT has already been diminished by all the RHT playing 2B, SS, 3B, and C. If you’re a RHT good enough defensively to play C, SS, or 2B, then you’re more valuable there than you would be in the outfield. Whereas, if you’re a LHT with all the same skills, the most valuable defensive position you can hope for is CF.

Now that might get canceled out because as you guys have noted, the majority of LHT also bat left-handed, at least part of the time. So it may be possible that a percentage of LHT are below-average defensively, because they are on the team for their bat and not their glove (and some of their bat value comes from getting the platoon advantage for a lot of their at-bats).

I also was making a list of LHT to play out-of-position like you guys were discussing. In the last almost-60 years, the most innings any LHT played in the field was the aforementioned Mike Squires, who played 38 innings at 3B in ‘83 and ‘84. There are some really great stories behind these guys playing out of position. Like Sam McDowell, a LHP who played 1/3 of an inning at 2B in 1970. This was done so that a RHP could be brought in to face a single RHB. He got the out, and McDowell returned to the mound to pitch the top of the next inning. So much more interesting than the reliever shuffle you’d see nowadays!
Or Nino Escalera in 1954, who was brought in in place of the shortstop (which meant that he was technically the SS), but instead played right-center in a four-man outfield designed to stop Stan Musial.