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Author: Jon Becker

  • Which Teams Are Best at Drafting, Developing and Displaying DRS?

    Here at Sports Info Solutions, we have lots of data. One subset of data we have is MLB Draft data. In exploring it, it got me thinking: which teams are the best at drafting players who end up producing lots of Defensive Runs Saved for the team that drafted them?

    Here are the top five and bottom five teams since we began tracking DRS in 2003.

    TeamDRS
    Cardinals412
    Braves366
    Blue Jays294
    Red Sox293
    Giants277
    —–—–
    Rockies-58
    Tigers-61
    Phillies-77
    Yankees-122
    Pirates-182

    A lot of this checks out; the Cardinals are known for prioritizing good defense and also home-grow lots of players. On the other side of things, the Pirates have had a lot of really bad teams since 2003, and really bad teams tend to have really bad defenses.

    Now, let’s take a look at who the main contributors and culprits are for the top and bottom teams. Let’s start with the good: who’s padded that Cardinals number? Keep in mind there are plenty of other players who’ve posted a positive DRS, and also a handful whose DRS is negative.

    PlayerPosition(s)DRS
    Yadier MolinaC169
    Albert Pujols1B/3B/LF/RF119
    Brendan RyanSS/3B/2B52
    Kolten Wong2B/CF42
    Harrison BaderCF/RF27

    Just about every national broadcast–and Cardinals broadcast to boot–finds a way to talk about how good Molina’s defense is, and with good reason: he’s really good! More than any other aspect of his game, Molina’s value has come from throwing out runners on the bases, having saved 54 runs doing so. But he also excels at making Good Fielding Plays without making many Defensive Misplays or Errors (46 GFP/DME Runs Saved) and framing pitches (41 Strike Zone Runs Saved).

    Now with the Angels, Pujols is no longer the relatively fleet-of-foot multi-positional star he once was, but back in the day, he was the guy on defense. His 2007 season, in which he saved 31 runs, remains the single-season DRS zenith for a first baseman. Since DRS started in 2003, we’ll never know what Pujols’ all-over-the-diamond rookie season was like, but, for what it’s worth, most of his value came from his time at first base: he’s at -4 in left field from his time there in 2003, and at a net zero at 3B (-1 in his last season with the Cardinals, +1 in his first season with the Angels). Even without Pujols, though, the Cardinals would still be the sixth-best team; that’s how good they’ve been at drafting MLB-quality bats who can also produce positive defense.

    And now, for the not so good. Here are the five biggest culprits of the Pirates’ league-low defensive drafting.

    PlayerPosition(s)DRS
    Andrew McCutchenCF-68
    Jose Bautista3B/RF/CF-45
    Pedro Alvarez3B/1B-40
    Ryan DoumitC/RF/1B-36
    Nate McLouthCF/RF/LF-25

    McCutchen was a perfectly adequate center fielder in his first five years in the majors, with a DRS of -5; not good, but not horrible. It’s his last four years as a Pirate that really tanked his defensive value, with seasons of -13, -8, -28 and -16. He wasn’t even close to average in any direction in those last four seasons in Pittsburgh; his total Plays Saved in that time was -14 on shallow fly balls, -15 on medium fly balls, and a staggeringly low -28 on deep fly balls.

    For Bautista–the very same player who ended up slugging hundreds of memorable home runs while finding a home in right field as a Blue Jay–the main issue was in his time at third base. From 2006-07, he played about 1,300 innings at the hot corner, and combined to put up a -34 Plays Saved, including -11 on just 82 total defensive chances in 2006. His time in center field didn’t help either, where his DRS in 2006 was -10.

    Teams draft players based on not just offense, but projected defensive contribution as well, and while teams may be willing to give up a little bit on the defensive side of the ball when they have hitters as good as McCutchen, most teams can’t afford to. When looking at all 30 teams, it’s no surprise that the Cardinals are competitive just about every year, racking up homegrown DRS like nobody else. On the flip side, the teams at the bottom of the list are going to need better defense from their draftees.

  • Reintroducing FieldingBible.com

    By Jon Becker

    One of Sports Info Solutions owner John Dewan’s first and most impactful innovations was his creation of The Fielding Bible, which has published four volumes since the inception of Defensive Runs Saved in 2003. DRS and The Fielding Bible have been at the forefront of fielding analytics for over a decade and a half now, with DRS now appearing on the player pages at FanGraphs. And so, we are thrilled to announce the relaunch of FieldingBible.com!

    There are many sources and nuggets of information on the website, including past Fielding Bible Award winners and the Fielding Bible FAQ, which discusses the components of Defensive Runs Saved in great and easy-to-digest detail. But, if the numbers are your thing, the Statistics page is the place for you. Let’s take a look at what we think are the three best and most commonly used pages on that tab.

    DRS Leaderboard

    Want to know which outfielder has saved the most run with his arm? How about which fielder has the best combination of range and positioning? Or maybe you just want to know who the best player is across the board? The DRS Leaderboard can do all of that and more. Here are examples of some things you can find just by playing around with the filters at the top of the page and the sorting feature on the table (sort by a column by clicking on the column heading):

    • Padres catcher Austin Hedges has 11 Strike Zone Runs Saved this year, five more than the next-closest catcher (Buster Posey)
    • Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons has 188 Total Runs Saved since 2010, over twice as many as the next-best shortstop (Brandon Crawford, 78)
    • From 2003 until his career ended in 2008, Greg Maddux led all pitchers with 41 Range and Positioning DRS

    Fielding Bible Range & Positioning

    This page is where you can look even more in-depth at the Range & Positioning component of DRS. This includes looking at how a player performs depending on which direction he has to move, how a pitcher is at holding runners, or how many opportunities an outfielder has had to throw runners out on the bases, among many other things. Here are some more tidbits from that page:

    • The aforementioned Maddux was excellent at making plays to his right (+39 Plays Saved) and straight on (+16) over the last 6 years of his career, but was almost neutral (+1) to his left (meaning: along the first base side).
    • Dodgers right fielder and DRS darling Cody Bellinger has already accrued 19 Bases Saved in right this year, while runners have only taken nine extra bases on him in 38 opportunities (24%)
    • In his 2004 Gold Glove season, future Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter posted a Plays Saved of -24 on plays to his right (balls in the shortstop-third base hole); he managed +7 in the final season of his career, 2014

    Fielding Bible Runs Saved

    This page is similar to the Fielding Bible Range & Positioning page, except that it gives a much more basic, zoomed-out view of a player’s performance by position and by season. If you’re only interested in the individual components of DRS, rather than the sub-components, this is where you want to be. For example:

    • Cubs infielder Javier Baez won the 2018 Fielding Bible Award for Multi-Position players; that year, his value was pretty evenly distributed (2 DRS as a 3B, 5 as 2B, 3 as SS)
    • Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto spent much of the offseason working on his pitch-framing, and that shows in the data; his Strike Zone Runs Saved was -2 in 2018 and is up to +1 this year. His 10 Runs Saved overall ranks second among catchers.
    • Athletics 3B and 2018 Fielding Bible winner Matt Chapman was elite at fielding bunts last season. He had 3 Bunt Runs Saved, most in MLB.

    We hope you enjoy the new FieldingBible.com!

     

  • Who’s Hit More Homers Than Expected? Fewer?

    By Jon Becker

    Every batter loves hitting home runs, and every pitcher hates giving them up. On the flip side, hitting a ball to the warning track or knowing you “just missed it” as a hitter is surely infuriating while inducing a sigh of relief on the mound. On the scoreboard and in the basic stat logs, home runs are home runs, and outs are outs. But, with the help of batted ball data, SIS is able to assign an expected value on each ball in play. 

    This is similar to Statcast’s expected stats, though different inputs are used. Ours consider where the ball was hit and how far it was hit.

    For example, let’s take an absolute no-doubt home run: a ball in play that, based on ball speed, trajectory and location, will always be a home run. Something like this Vladimir Guerrero Jr. home run. This is basically a home run anywhere. And since it actually was a home run, the difference between his actual home runs and his expected home runs for that at-bat was zero.

    Then you get wall-scrapers, like this Jason Heyward home run from earlier this week. So, he hit one more home run than expected. If the expected home run value had been, say, 0.05, he would have hit 0.95 more home runs than expected.

    If a player hit a well-struck ball that was caught at the warning track (or was any other result besides a home run) that had an expected home run value of 0.75, he would have hit 0.75 fewer home runs than expected for that plate appearance. So, to end up with a player’s season total, we add up their actual home run totals, and then subtract out their expected home run totals.

    First, let’s take a look at who’s sneaking more balls over the fence than we think they should be:

    PlayerTeamActual HRExpected HRDifference
    Rhys HoskinsPhillies149.84.2
    Alex BregmanAstros1813.94.1
    Hunter PenceRangers1410.13.9
    Jesse WinkerReds106.43.6
    Clint FrazierYankees117.53.4
    Gleyber TorresYankees1410.53.4

    And now, some hitters who are hitting the ball well quite often but not getting to trot around the bases as much as we’d expect them to:

    PlayerTeamActual HRExpected HRDifference
    Adam JonesDiamondbacks1216.2-4.4
    Brandon BeltGiants912.7-3.8
    Josh BellPirates1922.7-3.7
    Paul GoldschmidtCardinals1215.4-3.4
    Josh
    Donaldson    		Braves912.0-3.0
    Joe PanikGiants35.9-2.8

    When looking at the hitters’ names in isolation, there isn’t really much of a pattern as to who’s on the first table versus the second. Hoskins and Bregman are both well-known for raw power; so too are Goldschmidt and Donaldson. Winker isn’t exactly known for being a slugger; neither is Panik. But, when digging deeper, with plenty of help from video of the balls in play, we can see an obvious trend: the ballpark matters!

    Take a look at this home run that Hoskins hit off of Diamondbacks closer Greg Holland earlier this week. Yes, it went 365 feet and went at least five rows into the stands, but it was just under 99 miles per hour off the bat; he clearly didn’t get all of it. It looked like a more impressive home run than it was because of the ballpark and hit location, but the reality of the matter is that it wouldn’t have even been a home run at every ballpark.

    Now let’s watch a clip of Panik hitting a double. He hit that pretty well! In fact, it was just three miles per hour slower off the bat than Hoskins’ round-tripper. But, unfortunately for the Giants’ second baseman, his own home ballpark let him down.

    Oracle Park is well-known for its jet stream knocking down fly balls, and if you look closely, you can see that those flags above the wall are indeed blowing in a bit. And, of course, there’s the height of the wall itself; at 25 feet, it’s the tallest right field wall in the majors. And so, despite a high expected home run value (higher than two of his three home runs this season), Panik had to settle for two bases.

    There are so many variables that go into hitting a home run. Next time you see one sail just over the fence, ask yourself: how fortunate was the hitter to have hit that one?

  • Which Pitchers Are Forced to Throw the Most Extra Pitches?

    At Sports Info Solutions, we put much of our baseball-related focus on defense—unsurprisingly so, since our flagship metric is Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). For those unaware, DRS factors in not only errors, but Defensive Misplays (DM), which don’t show up in the traditional scorebook.

    You’ll often watch or listen to MLB broadcasts on TV or radio and notice that a player makes an error. At some point, either immediately after that error or later in the inning, the pitcher will continue to throw pitches, even if the inning should have been over at that point. Many broadcasters and analysts will take note of how many extra pitches the man on the mound had to throw on account of that error. So, that got us wondering: since the beginning of the 2018 season, who’s had to throw the most extra pitches, due to not just errors but also Defensive Misplays?

    Here’s a look at the top ten in extra pitches thrown over the past season-and-a-third:

    All stats through Sunday’s games

    PitcherTeam(s)Extra
    Pitches    		% of
    Total Pitches
    Marco GonzalesMariners2476.6%
    Jake ArrietaPhillies2466.2%
    Rick PorcelloRed Sox2255.3%
    CC SabathiaYankees2226.8%
    Mike LeakeMariners2185.5%
    Lance LynnTwins/Yankees/Rangers2085.0%
    Kyle HendricksCubs2075.1%
    Reynaldo LópezWhite Sox2034.7%
    Jacob deGromMets2014.5%
    Trevor BauerIndians2004.7%

    Gonzales has seen the defense behind him change dramatically over the past two seasons: not a single player started both Opening Day 2018 and Opening Day 2019 for the Mariners while playing the same position both years (Dee Gordon started 2018 in CF and 2019 at 2B; Mitch Haniger started 2018 in RF and 2019 in CF). Clearly, though, no matter who’s playing behind him, he’s being forced to throw a lot of extra pitches; he’s leading pitchers in 2019 with 104 extra pitches thrown, after ranking at 13th-most in 2018.

    On the flip side of the same coin, the extreme roster turnover the Phillies experienced from last season to this has served to better Arrieta’s extra pitch numbers. After leading all pitchers with 180 extra pitches thrown in 2018, the right-hander is down to 10th on the list for 2019 (tied with the Rockies’ Germán Márquez) with 66 extra pitches thrown. That’s still not great, but it’s a slight improvement that helps to verify that trading Carlos Santana and moving Rhys Hoskins from left field (where his DRS was an astounding -24) back to his natural position at first base was probably the right move.  

    In terms of percentages, though, it’s Sabathia who reigns supreme amongst the ten names above since the beginning of last season. No longer the hard-throwing power-arm he once was, the big pitch-to-contact lefty has had to rely on his defense more and more with each passing season as he wraps up his career in 2019. The oft-reviled defense of Miguel Andújar (-25 DRS at 3B in 2018) was a main culprit last season; Sabathia’s most common pitch thrown to righties is his cut fastball, which bears in on the batter’s hands and leads to many ground balls to the left side and thus many opportunities for Andújar. But, not everything can be pinned on one defender. Thus far this season—largely without Andújar, who is now out for the season with a labrum tear—Sabathia has had to throw 71 extra pitches out of 751 total: an astounding 9.5%!

    So, the next time you’re watching or listening to your favorite MLB team play, pay extra attention to those pesky errors and misplays. They may end up coming back to bite the pitcher in more ways than one, whether it’s in the form of an earlier move to the bullpen or more runs coming in. These extra pitches affect more than just the man throwing them, and might just be the difference in more games than you’d think.