This is my first post ladies and gentlemen. I will be primarily focusing on the Orioles but I may write about general baseball from time to time. Everything I write about will have a sabermetric slant to it. I hope you enjoy my writing.
During this offseason, the show Clubhouse Confidential hosted by the great Brian Kenny on the MLB Network has quickly become a favorite of the sabermetrically inclined baseball fan. Earlier this week, Dan Duquette, the GM of the Orioles was on the show to discuss the O's offseason and in particular his approach to advanced stats. While the whole interview was extremely interesting for any fan and I'd recommend watching the whole thing here, the part that interested me the most was when Kenny asked Duquette what he thought was the biggest change in statistical analysis since his time as GM with the Expos in the early 1990's. Duquette responded by saying the biggest change was in quantifying defensive statistics, and that he specifically likes John Dewan's Defensive Runs Saved.
Defensive Runs Saved measures how many more or fewer plays a defender makes than league average and uses the compilation of the player's statistics to come to a final number of how many runs each player saves over the course of the season. It is generally referred to as the plus/minus system. After all of the plays are added up, a players's contributions are summarized in a nice round number. Please follow the link for a more detailed explanation than I can provide here.
Since the General Manager of the Orioles claims to use the system, I figured I'd take a look at how the Orioles players fare to get a better idea of how the front office sees the players in terms of their defensive value. The 3 O's players who are generally considered the best defenders are Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy. Let's see if that holds up using DRS while looking at 3 years of data where possible. Even the folks who created the various defensive statistics state that you can't make a determination on defense with less than 3 years of data. The chart below gives some context to the numbers.
| Defensive Ability | DRS |
|---|---|
| Gold Glove Caliber | +15 |
| Great | +10 |
| Above Average | +5 |
| Average | 0 |
| Below Average | -5 |
| Poor | -10 |
| Awful | -15 |
Matt Wieters had a fantastic year with the glove behind the plate in 2011. Donning the tools of ignorance, Wieters compiled a DRS of +14, which led the league for catchers by a considerable margin. That total added about 1.5 wins of value to the team on defense alone. And he's gotten better each year in the majors, starting with a -1 in 2009, following that with a +5 in 2010 and finally ending with the +14 we just talked about from last year. Wieters has also gotten better each year at throwing out runners. Check out his percentage of runners caught stealing since his rookie year of 2009; it's pretty impressive.
2009 - 32%
2010 - 45%
2011 - 59%
Last summer, the Orioles traded Koji Uehara for Tommy Hunter and Chris Davis. Since Chris Davis is projected to start at 1B this year, let's see how he fares in terms of DRS. I'm only going to look at how he did at 1B since that is where he's projected to play this year, but it's safe to say he plays a below average 3B as well. The last three years, the 26 year old has put up the following marks: -5, +1, -4. Keep in mind that he hasn't been playing full seasons at 1B in the Texas Rangers loaded organization. I think it's fair to say the Orioles projected first sacker this year is average to slightly below average at 1B. If he's hitting for power, that's fine. If not, he doesn't have his defense to rely on to provide value. So he'll have to hit in order to keep his job.
It's impossible to know what the team is going to get out of Brian Roberts this year because of the concussion issues, but let's take a look at his defense if he does play. Mired with injuries over the past 3 seasons, Brian compiled marks of -4, 0 and 1 over the last 3 years. The 34 year old put up some great defensive seasons way back in 2003 and 2005, but it's safe to say his days of great defense are over. The best we can hope for is average defense from the keystone position this year.
Shortstop J.J. Hardy was known for his good defense before he exploded for 30 homers last year. In terms of DRS, he compiled a mark of +3 in 2011. The two prior years were very similar. It's safe to say that J.J. is still an above average shortstop but is no longer the gold glove caliber shortstop he was early in his career. While he's hitting the way he did last year, he's an extremely valuable player.
Much has been made of Mark Reynolds' miserable defense at 3B last season. According to DRS, the negative reaction was warranted. He cost the team 29 runs more than an average third baseman. That figure was more than twice the next worst third baseman. However, there is a theory that players have off years in the field just like they have off years at the plate. If there was ever a player who had a chance to test that theory, it would be Reynolds. The two years prior, he was worth -3 and -6 runs below average. Still not great, but not nearly the disaster we saw last season. For the Orioles sake, let's hope that he had an off year and won't be this bad going forward. If he is, I see a permanent move to 1B in his future.
Next time, we'll take a look at the outfielders.
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