|
We are fortunate today to be joined by Bill James. Bill was gracious enough to answer a few questions we had on defensive metrics and the 2006 Fielding Bible Awards!
Baseball Digest Daily (BDD): With the increasing amount of data becoming available, how far are we from using objective fielding metrics as THE method for evaluating defensive ability? Bill James (BJ): Well. . .that depends on who is “we”. I think a lot of people are there. A lot of people are not on the road toward there. BDD: The BIS +/- system takes into account many factors in determining a player’s fielding ability. Are there any shortcomings you see in the system? Can we do anything to perfect the system?
BJ: There are many things the system measures; there are many things that it doesn’t measure. Is this a “shortcoming”. . ..not exactly. It’s a fact of life. All statistics measure some things and don’t measure others. Batting average doesn’t measure speed, power, or the tendency to take a walk. This doesn’t make it a flawed statistic. It just doesn’t measure that.
BDD: From your interactions with front office personnel, what is the general feeling toward analyzing defensive ability through the use of data and metrics?
BJ: I shouldn’t answer that. We don’t do a lot of chatter about what we’re doing in the Red Sox front office. BDD: What data, which hasn’t been collected yet, do you feel would allow us to advance fielding metrics to an even higher level of reliability? BJ: There are a lot of specific measurements. . .measurements of specific events. . .that need to be collected and published for generations of players. For example, we would be in a better position to evaluate the defense of all first basemen if we had counts of the number of 3-6-3 and 3-6-1 double plays started by each first baseman. It seemed like Keith Hernandez started 35 of those a year, Steve Garvey zero, but we haven’t seen actual counts. If we saw the actual counts, it would probably be more like 20-17, and it might well be 20-17 in favor of Garvey, who knows. We’d understand third base fielding data better if we had actual counts of the PO5 foul caught by each third baseman. We’d understand outfielder’s assist data better if we knew how many of the assists were “primary” assists and how many were “secondary” assists. . . that is, throws to another fielder, who then threw out the baserunner. Remember the year that Mickey Rivers, who threw like a pigeon, led the American League in assists with like 19 or something? How many of those were just throws to the cut-off man, who then threw out a runner? BDD: Moving on to the Fielding Bible awards published in The Bill James Handbook 2007…how much did the plus/minus rankings that John Dewan distributed prior to the vote play into your selections? BJ: Quite a lot. I studied all the data I could find before I cast my ballot, but I also look at scouting reports as a part of my daily work routine, and I took notes on fielders much of the summer, knowing that I would be voting at the end of the season. BDD: How did you arrive at your selections? Did you base your votes exclusively on objective data? Or did you incorporate some subjective analysis? BJ: A great deal of subjective analysis as well. BDD: One of your more interesting votes has Orlando Hudson ranked as the 5th best second baseman behind Aaron Hill, Mark Grudzielanek, Chase Utley, and Mark Ellis. Six of your ten colleagues had Hudson ranked first. Can you give us your reason for dropping Hudson down so far? And for having Hill that high? BJ: No. I always liked Orlando Hudson, and I don’t have any idea why I didn’t rate him as high as some other people did. If you’d asked me the day after I voted I might have been able to tell you. BDD: You have Mike Lowell rated as the top defensive third baseman. Do you feel that your selection may have been slightly biased because you see Lowell more regularly, than, say, Adrian Beltre or Eric Chavez? BJ: Mike Lowell is the best defensive third baseman in baseball. He’s extremely interesting to watch. He keeps his glove hand, his left hand, very relaxed, and he doesn’t appear to anticipate the hop at all. What I am saying is. .. the announcers, the veteran baseball people will tell you that the key to making the plays is to get your body in the proper position to make the play. But in fact, if you actually watch the fielders, very often they can’t handle a tough hop or a line drive at an awkward angle precisely because they’re trying to play the ball with their whole body. They’re relying on positioning their body to make the play, and when something happens that makes that impossible, they’re just SOL. Lowell, if you watch him, seems to be saying “it is easier to react with my left arm than it is to re-position my whole body in anticipation of the play.” He stays balanced, stays loose, reacts late and has extraordinary confidence in his ability to snag the ball with his glove at the last moment. I’ve never really seen anything like it before, but this looseness and unusual confidence, for example, gives him a remarkable ability to charge a ground ball. He can change a slow grounder top speed because he knows that, bad hop or good hop, in-between stride or on stride, he can slap at the ball with his glove and pick it out of the air. He also has a remarkably good arm...throws easy, not much motion, but on target. He’s not fast, obviously, and he doesn’t move to his left well. BDD: There is a lot of criticism of the Gold Glove Awards and the voting process. Yet, even when BIS put together ten “experts,” the rankings for a particular player can vary greatly among voters. For example, you had Lowell as #1 at 3B and Rob Neyer had him at #10. And Nate Birwell ranked Gary Matthews Jr. #2 in CF and Mat Olkin had him as #8. Do you feel we’ll ever get an acceptable consensus of the league’s best defenders? Why or why not? BJ: Well, first, a perfect consensus is not the sign of a good understanding of the problem. Knowledgeable people disagree. Experts disagree. And second, we have a very good consensus right now. You're citing the fact that a player is second in one person's opinion and eighth in another as if this was a huge difference, but it isn't. It could be, in some cases, a very small difference. Brad Penny was tied for the National League lead in wins last year, and Tom Glavine was tied for 11th in the league in wins, but that doesn't mean there is a large difference between them. It's one win. BDD: Outside of Derek Jeter, are there any Gold Glove winners who you feel should not have even come close to receiving the award this year?
BJ: No. One of the surprises was that we matched the Gold Glove voters as much as we did. Because the Gold Glove voters picked Jeter, which is basically unforgivable, that draws a lot of attention, and people tend to assume that the Gold Glove voters are systematically wrong, when actually it’s just an anomaly. There isn’t any obvious Gold Glove shortstop in the American League...Alex Gonzalez, but he was new to the league and most people haven’t had a thorough look at him. The well-established shortstops of the league—Michael Young, Angel Berroa, Miguel Tejada, etc.—are almost all non-Gold Glove candidates. In this odd situation where there isn’t anybody obvious to give the award to, the voters split wildly and give the award to the Hall of Famer.
|
