Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Defensive Analysis of the Phillies
Arranged by Zone Rating, which is the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc.
1B Thome .735 (dead freakin' last in the majors)
1B Ryan Howard 1.000
Comments: Not enough games for Howard for that to be meaningful.
2B Utley .806
2B Polanco .923
Neither has enough games to qualify for a ranking, but Polanco's rating is very good. Utley, not so good.
SS Rollins .828 (16th)
Comments: You should know how I feel about Rollins by now. But for the record...solid, not great. Please don't overpay to keep him.
3B Bell .847 (3rd)
Comments: 3rd! I need to figure out how the Range Factor stat also comes into play.
LF Burrell .880 (14th)
Comments: For someone who was moved to the outfield, middle of the pack is very good.
CF Michaels .873
CF Lofton .837
Comments: Not enough games to get a ranking for either of them. But Lofton's numbers would translate to bad. Michael's rating is decent.
RF Abreu .818 (23rd)
Comments: 3rd worst in the majors.
C Lieberthal CERA (Catcher's ERA) is 4.95, which is coming down. Still, 5th worst in majors or the 3rd worst in the NL.
Stats from ESPN.
Update: Citizen's Blog does a similar analysis with a different defensive stat, DER. That is the percentage of balls a player turns into outs. I respect his work very much, and I encourage you to look over his analysis. Esp. the May 10th post about how Thome and Bell may have gone off the cliff offensively due to age.
Arranged by Zone Rating, which is the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc.
1B Thome .735 (dead freakin' last in the majors)
1B Ryan Howard 1.000
Comments: Not enough games for Howard for that to be meaningful.
2B Utley .806
2B Polanco .923
Neither has enough games to qualify for a ranking, but Polanco's rating is very good. Utley, not so good.
SS Rollins .828 (16th)
Comments: You should know how I feel about Rollins by now. But for the record...solid, not great. Please don't overpay to keep him.
3B Bell .847 (3rd)
Comments: 3rd! I need to figure out how the Range Factor stat also comes into play.
LF Burrell .880 (14th)
Comments: For someone who was moved to the outfield, middle of the pack is very good.
CF Michaels .873
CF Lofton .837
Comments: Not enough games to get a ranking for either of them. But Lofton's numbers would translate to bad. Michael's rating is decent.
RF Abreu .818 (23rd)
Comments: 3rd worst in the majors.
C Lieberthal CERA (Catcher's ERA) is 4.95, which is coming down. Still, 5th worst in majors or the 3rd worst in the NL.
Stats from ESPN.
Update: Citizen's Blog does a similar analysis with a different defensive stat, DER. That is the percentage of balls a player turns into outs. I respect his work very much, and I encourage you to look over his analysis. Esp. the May 10th post about how Thome and Bell may have gone off the cliff offensively due to age.
