Outfield defense is, at first glance, one of the easier things to measure. If there’s a fly ball and an outfielder catches it, they get at least one out, which is recorded statistically as a putout. But outfielders will almost never get a putout on a ground ball–the best they can do is pick it up and throw it to someone who will touch the base, or tag the runner. Can something that easy provide useful information?
In order to answer this question, I took the 2002 team totals for fly balls, subtracted the home runs, and looked to see what teams recorded the most outfield putouts. Now, there’s a couple of caveats here–one, an outfielder can record a putout on a line drive, and two, an outfielder can record all the putouts that they (or the infield) make on shallow pop-ups. However, if you assume that all the outfielders got X% of their POs on line drives, and that a proportionally larger number of fly balls dropped, that still won’t change the relative ratings and the interesting distributions we’ll see. The only thing this really isn’t going to guard against is if you believe that the distribution of fly balls between infielders and outfielders differs substantially between teams, which seems to me to be an unlikely possibility. (Or, if home runs aren’t counted as fly balls, but that seems like a reasonable assumption.)
What looking at putouts against fly balls gives us a sense of is how good different outfielders are at making outs without having to deal with the fly-ball/groundball staff issues that plague Range Factor (RnF) and Zone Rating (ZR), without having to break out the formulas.
Take the Twins, for instance. In 2002, their pitching staff got 1,929 fly balls and 184 home runs, for 1,745 non-HR fly balls, and their outfield produced 1,202 putouts: 415 in center field, 397 in right field, 390 in left field. It’s unusual, as we’ll see, for the center fielder to not be the easy leader. The Twins were by far the closest–only the Yankees, where Bernie Williams barely squeaked by Raul Mondesi and Rondell White, and the Marlins (Wilson-Floyd-Millar) had such a weird distribution.
But of the 1,745 hypothetically playable fly balls, 1,202 putouts were made, which comes out to 69%. How does that stack up against everyone else?
OF OF Putouts as Team Flies Putouts percent of Flies ------------ ----- ------- ---------------- Angels 1525 1181 77% Padres 1314 1013 77% Rockies 1378 1060 77% Cardinals 1424 1093 77% Reds 1393 1064 76% Orioles 1412 1069 76% Brewers 1440 1083 75% Royals 1459 1095 75% Braves 1411 1057 75% Indians 1406 1053 75% Expos 1332 988 74% Blue Jays 1484 1087 73% Giants 1576 1148 73% Dodgers 1395 1016 73% Cubs 1335 971 73% Red Sox 1355 984 73% Rangers 1470 1067 73% Devil Rays 1687 1215 72% Tigers 1602 1150 72% White Sox 1516 1082 71% Marlins 1474 1048 71% Mariners 1653 1172 71% Mets 1488 1047 70% Pirates 1293 907 70% Diamondbacks 1396 979 70% Twins 1745 1202 69% Yankees 1511 1032 68% Astros 1409 926 66% Athletics 1490 975 65% Phillies 1453 938 65%
To put it bluntly: Not so hot.
Just this rough sketch provides us with a ballpark figure for the impact of outfield defense, and it’s large: the difference between the best and worst is around 150 flies not turned into outs, and it’s reasonable to figure a lot of those were for extra bases. That pretty easily turns into five, even as many as 10 games in the standings.
I’m also surprised by some of the results–the Twins had a fearsome defensive reputation, for instance, yet show up toward the bottom of this list. The Mariners feature two supposedly excellent outfielders in Mike Cameron, The Amazing Ichiro, along with a rotating Left Fielder of the Week. Otherwise, the top teams shake out pretty much as expected.
What’s even more interesting is that I don’t see the park effects you’d expect; Astros outfielders don’t have a lot of ground to cover, for instance, but they’re 28th-best, while the Rockies, with all that territory where balls can drop around them, are still in the top-five. And both staffs allowed about the same number of non-HR fly balls (1,378 for the Rockies a ton of home runs, 1,409 for the Astros), so the logical conclusion here is that the Rockies outfielders are even better than they’re given credit for, while the Astros are really that bad.
The average outfield in 2002 played behind a staff that saw 1,461 of these possibly playable fly balls. The center fielder compiled 418 PO, 29% of the fly ball total, the right fielder made 324 PO, 22% of the fly ball total, and the left fielders made 314 PO, 22% of the fly ball total (again, caveats with regard to PO coming elsewhere, proportionality).
The top five teams broke down like this:
PO by CF Team Flies Primary CF all CF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Angels 1525 Erstad 529 35% Padres 1314 Kotsay 413 31% Rockies 1378 Pierre 442 32% Cards 1424 Edmonds 445 31% Reds 1393 -- 422 30% PO by RF Team Flies Primary RF all RF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Angels 1525 Salmon 324 21% Padres 1314 Trammell 273 21% Rockies 1378 Walker 337 24% Cards 1424 Drew 350 25% Reds 1393 Kearns 338 24% PO by LF Team Flies Primary LF all LF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Angels 1525 Anderson 328 22% Padres 1314 Gant 327 25% Rockies 1378 Hollandsworth 281 20% Cards 1424 Pujols 298 21% Reds 1393 Dunn 304 22%
Now, to staff-handedness, to make a quick point.
- Angels: starters mostly right-handed, 70% of starts by RHP
- Cardinals: starters heavily right-handed, 80% of starts by RHP
- Padres: starters heavily right-handed, 85% of starts by RHP
- Rockies: starters slightly right-handed, 60% of starts by RHP
- Reds: starters all right-handed (under 10 starts by lefties all year)
In that way you can kind of try to unwind some more meaning in those: with more lefties standing in and pulling balls to right field, Adam Dunn‘s 22% is far more impressive than Todd Hollandsworth‘s 20%, since Hollandsworth presumably saw many more balls hit to him. Similarly, since the Cardinals and Padres have similar staff composition, J.D. Drew and the Cardinals RF defense was that much better than Bubba Trammell and the Padres.
Cincinnati’s center field position was patrolled almost equally by Ken Griffey Jr., Juan Encarnacion, and Reggie Taylor. If Griffey can come back healthy, well-stretched and conditioned, it’s not outrageous to think that the Reds could field a premier outfield on both sides of the inning.
What surprised me most was that the Angels–who feature Garrett Anderson, a guy who doesn’t embarrass himself in center, as a regular left fielder–didn’t do so well at the corners. If there’s a case for any center fielder stealing outs from his mates, I think Erstad would provide it.
The Indians are also a little deceptive. With Lawton out, there was a lot of playing time for both Karim Garcia and Chris Magruder–who played a lot of left for Ben Broussard, not to mention some center field, where he and Coco Crisp seconded Milton Bradley. The Indians had an outfield-by-committee around various injuries, and it ended up working pretty well for them.
The Rockies came out well, even though recent speculation on the effects of playing consistently at altitude would lead one to believe that fielding would be much harder for the team.
The worst five teams broke down like so, from least-bad to worst:
PO by CF Team Flies Primary CF all CF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Twins 1745 Hunter 415 24% Yankees 1511 Williams 378 25% Astros 1409 Berkman 363 26% Athletics 1490 Long 395 27% Phillies 1453 Glanville 359 25% PO by RF Team Flies Primary RF all RF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Twins 1745 Mohr 397 23% Yankees 1511 Mondesi 304 20% Astros 1409 Hidalgo 333 24% Athletics 1490 Dye 289 19% Phillies 1453 Abreu 291 20% PO by LF Team Flies Primary LF all LF PO/FB ----------------------------------------- Twins 1745 Jones 390 22% Yankees 1511 White 350 23% Astros 1409 Ward 230 16% Athletics 1490 Justice 291 20% Phillies 1453 Burrell 288 20%
They all share a common characteristic: below-average centerfield play. Torii Hunter supposedly was fighting some kind of chronic hamstring or something with the leg all year long, and his play with the leather did seem markedly reduced from his previous prowess.
And then there’s the A’s. Maybe it’ll get better this year. I mean, at least left field should see an improvement, as long as Long hits well enough to…I give up. They sure could use Beltran in center, though. But I’ll bet Baird has all of Beane’s phone numbers blocked at the switchboard these days.
Besides the Twins, I was most surprised to see the Phillies in here. Doug Glanville‘s had an excellent defensive reputation for years (and has likely written another letter to Strat-O-Matic complaining about what is certainly another decline in his defensive rating), and Ricky Ledee‘s no slouch either. But they didn’t get much out of their center fielders in terms of putouts, and they lacked on both corners as well.
The Yankees I saw coming. Williams has been a corner OF in waiting for a while now, and the Yankees trotted out some bad defensive secondary players behind those three: Spencer, Vander Wal…hell, Gerald Williams appeared in 17 games in right field! Six in center! Gerald Williams! Twenty-eight defensive innings in center field! But I digress…
Daryle Ward led the Astros to having the worst LF, in terms of PO/FB rough stats, in the majors. I can’t imagine how Jimy Williams, of all managers, kept gouts of steam from coming out his ears as doubles rolled past Ward and Berkman.
Now for some really long tables and sparse commentary:
Center Field
PO by CF Team Primary CF tFB all CF PO/FB --------------------------------------------- Angels Erstad 1,525 529 35% Rockies Pierre 1,378 442 32% Padres Kotsay 1,314 413 31% Cardinals Edmonds 1,424 445 31% Braves Jones 1,411 434 31% Royals Beltran 1,459 447 31% White Sox Lofton 1,516 460 30% Reds -- 1,393 422 30% Brewers Sanchez 1,440 435 30% Rangers Rivera 1,470 444 30% Expos Wilkerson 1,332 402 30% Tigers Magee 1,602 482 30% Giants Shinjo 1,576 465 30% Indians Bradley 1,406 411 29% D'backs Finley 1,396 403 29% Orioles Singleton 1,412 407 29% Blue Jays Wells 1,484 422 28% Red Sox Damon 1,355 382 28% D-Rays Winn 1,687 470 28% Mariners Cameron 1,653 456 28% Pirates -- 1,293 351 27% Cubs Patterson 1,335 360 27% Mets Perez 1,488 401 27% Dodgers Roberts 1,395 375 27% Athletics Long 1,490 395 27% Astros Berkman 1,409 363 26% Marlins Wilson 1,474 377 26% Yankees Williams 1,511 378 25% Phillies Glanville 1,453 359 25% Twins Hunter 1,745 415 24%
Andruw Jones surprised me. Atlanta’s CF defense was fifth-best at 31%. In the past, you could look at nearly any defensive metric and Jones would rate with the best baseball has ever played in center–and now, well, he’s not. It’s hard to tell the difference between being historically great and being one of the best in baseball, but Jones just isn’t dominating his peers as he once did. Was Andruw cheating over to left to keep Chipper out of trouble all year, leaving Sheffield to make more plays? It’s possible. Of course, even if that were true, Chipper still almost made a left fielder’s share. I don’t have the answers here.
And as for Mike Cameron…well, that was just because Ichiro’s so good he’s stealing all of Mike’s flies. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Right Field
PO by CF Team Primary RF tFB all CF PO/FB --------------------------------------------- Dodgers Green 1,406 348 25% Cardinals Drew 1,424 350 25% Rockies Walker 1,314 337 24% Reds Kearns 1,411 338 24% Red Sox Nixon 1,412 323 24% Astros Hidalgo 1,511 333 24% Giants Sanders 1,576 370 23% Cubs Sosa 1,396 313 23% Braves Sheffield 1,440 330 23% Indians Lawton 1,470 323 23% Expos Guerrero 1,332 306 23% Twins Mohr 1,409 397 23% Orioles Gibbons 1,459 321 23% Rangers Gonzalez 1,484 334 23% Pirates Wilson 1,395 289 22% Mets Burnitz 1,488 331 22% Mariners Suzuki 1,335 365 22% Royals Tucker 1,393 322 22% Marlins Floyd 1,293 325 22% Brewers Hammonds 1,516 315 22% Blue Jays Mondesi 1,602 319 21% Angels Salmon 1,525 324 21% Padres Trammell 1,378 273 21% Tigers Fick 1,687 332 21% White Sox Ordonez 1,653 311 21% Yankees Mondesi 1,474 304 20% Phillies Abreu 1,745 291 20% D'backs McCracken 1,490 279 20% D-Rays Grieve 1,355 337 20% Athletics Dye 1,453 289 19%
Good stuff.
And Ichiro…well, that was just because Mike Cameron’s so good that he’s stealing all of Ichiro’s flies. Yep.
Left Field
PO by LF Team Primary LF tFB all LF PO/FB --------------------------------------------- Padres Gant 1,314 327 25% D-Rays Crawford 1,687 408 24% Orioles Cordova 1,412 341 24% Marlins Millar 1,474 346 23% Blue Jays Stewart 1,484 346 23% Yankees White 1,511 350 23% Brewers Jenkins 1,440 333 23% Indians Branyan 1,406 319 23% Twins Jones 1,745 390 22% Royals Knoblauch 1,459 326 22% Cubs Alou 1,335 298 22% Reds Dunn 1,393 304 22% Angels Anderson 1,525 328 22% D'backs Gonzalez 1,396 297 21% Mariners McLemore 1,653 351 21% Mets Cedeno 1,488 315 21% Expos O'Leary 1,332 280 21% Dodgers Jordan 1,395 293 21% Tigers Higginson 1,602 336 21% Cardinals Pujols 1,424 298 21% Braves Jones 1,411 293 21% Pirates Giles 1,293 267 21% Red Sox Ramirez 1,355 279 21% White Sox Lee 1,516 311 21% Rockies Hollandsworth 1,378 281 20% Giants Bonds 1,576 313 20% Phillies Burrell 1,453 288 20% Rangers Mench 1,470 289 20% Athletics Justice 1,490 291 20% Astros Ward 1,409 230 16%
Ah, finally, some counter-intuitive results! Of course, these are particularly masked by the effects of defensive replacements. Still, the Padres did well by their Gant/Lankford splitting, and the Orioles got a lot by spotting Cordova and Mora together. The gap here is particularly shocking: replacing the Astros outfield with the Padres outfield would have turned an extra 100 outs–or roughly three games in the standings. Think about that; three games for defense at one position. Jeez.
There you have it–it’s not too quick, and it’s not too dirty, but it’s also not super-complicated, and produces an interesting picture of what teams are getting out of their outfields, and offers us a more general picture of the impact good- and bad-fielding units can have at each outfield position.
Thank you for reading
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