Analyzing Baltimore's Defensive Efficiency

[Jordan Tuwiner]

http://orioles-nation.com/2011/04/04/ge ... fficiency/


Just how efficient should we expect Baltimore’s defenders, about a third of whom are new additions, to be this year,and just what kind of impact might that have on the numbers of Mr. Britton, the rookie ground-ball-machine?

[BuckMagic]

Anyone else think Keith Law says stuff only for attention sometimes?

Well written piece Dan. Aside from the numbers to back it up I still don't see what Law is talking about here. If you take a look around the diamond and just eye ball it you'll think of good defense just looking at some of the names: Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters, Derrek Lee, Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy

Average: Brian Roberts

Below ave: Mark REynolds and Luke Scott

Looks like your stats proved Law wrong but also still unsure of what his statement was based off of...

[Tenth Inning]

Anyone else think Keith Law says stuff only for attention sometimes?

Well written piece Dan. Aside from the numbers to back it up I still don't see what Law is talking about here. If you take a look around the diamond and just eye ball it you'll think of good defense just looking at some of the names: Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters, Derrek Lee, Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy

Average: Brian Roberts

Below ave: Mark REynolds and Luke Scott

Looks like your stats proved Law wrong but also still unsure of what his statement was based off of...

Thanks, BuckMagic!

I also wanted to point out a few kinks in UZR that I found while researching for this piece.

UZR seems to have trouble quantifying defensive production in the outfield at OPACY. Consider our two mainstays in the OF over the last few years:

Jones career UZR at home: -8.1
Jones career UZR away: 1.1

Markakis career UZR at home: -14.6
Markakis career UZR away: +26.9

And here are the 3 year averages on Jones from the three metrics:

DRS: + 6.33

Total Zone: +8.66

UZR: -2.1

Is it possible that, for some reason, our outfielders are gold glove candidates on the road but below average at home? Sure.

Is it possible that UZR is catching some aspect of our outfielders' range that is going unnoticed by other systems? Sure.

But I think Ockham's Razor would suggest that UZR is a bit off in this case.

[Don]

Yeah but alot of outfielders will tell you that playing in Camden Yards is no cake walk. I think the wall angles, wind patterns, location of sun, etc... make it one more difficult parks to adjust on the fly. Take the Brian Roberts hit yesterday. It came off the bat like a can of corn; the slight breeze made it go from a warning track ball to a 3 run home run.

[Tenth Inning]

Also, here is a nice piece (aside from the use of "less" in place of "fewer") that is relevant to Baltimore's defensive efficiency.

In a nutshell, Baltimore projects to have the fewest strikeouts of any team in the majors. Potentially, the difference between the Dodgers (highest) and the Orioles could be 300 extra balls in play, which, on average, should result in about 100 more hits.

I think when a team is deciding what type of currency to invest in defense, it needs to consider the strikeout tendencies of its staff. Baltimore will allow A LOT of balls to be put in play this year, so it's important that they have a defense they can count on. One of my pre-season concerns was the need to either add more high-K pitchers or improve the defense (particularly the infield defense). Reynolds over what we saw last year is probably a wash, but I think the additions of Hardy and Lee help some. The BIP issue might actually have me reconsidering the efficiency of adding Cesar Izturis to the bench

Here is the link: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/4 ... l-tendency

[Tenth Inning]

Yeah but alot of outfielders will tell you that playing in Camden Yards is no cake walk. I think the wall angles, wind patterns, location of sun, etc... make it one more difficult parks to adjust on the fly. Take the Brian Roberts hit yesterday. It came off the bat like a can of corn; the slight breeze made it go from a warning track ball to a 3 run home run.

Sure, but enough to cause a 10 run swing in home/away splits per year? When other metrics don't show the same?

I doubt it.

[Tenth Inning]

Another point of interest: our outfielders looked like Gold Glovers in 2008, before dropping off dramatically in 2009 and having that carry over into 2010.

Does anyone know if there were any significant changes to the park between the 2008 and 2009 seasons? UZR obviously shows the most drastic decrease, but it shows in most other systems to some extent.

[A_K]

Any chance we start seeing Isturis replace Reynolds at third relatively early in games if we have a lead of 4 or so runs? Not sure what the advanced metrics say about defensive substitutions and that sort of thing.