Andre Ethier’s Offensive Defense
Andre Ethier has been a keystone in the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup during their playoff runs over the last two years. He has been an above average hitter since reaching the major leagues in 2006, but in 2008 he took a major step forward, becoming a legitimate offensive star. His 53.3 wRAA since 2008 ranks 24th in the major leagues.
Over the last two seasons, there are 10 players within 6 wRAA of Ethier’s 53.3. Of these players, the average WAR is 8.4, or 4.2 per season. Evan Longoria leads this impressive pack of players at 12.6 wins, having contributed 37.7 runs of defensive value.
At the bottom of the list is our subject, Andre Ethier. As he plays the corner outfield positions, he already starts out with a position adjustment of -13.9 runs. Combine that with a -21.7 UZR over 308 games in the outfield, and Ethier has cost the Dodgers 35.6 runs with the glove.
Ethier’s first two seasons suggested some defensive talent. Over his first 271 games (212 starts), Ethier compiled a +6.5 UZR in the outfield. Of course, this is not the only example of a UZR sample of this size showing a significant deviation from the following two seasons. However, we can ask: what changed?
First of all, let’s look at the biggest component of the statistic: range. Ethier showed fantastic range in 2007 after showing average range in 2006. His range fell off a cliff then in 2008 and 2009, at -6.6 and -6.9 runs, respectively.
Similarly, Ethier’s arm looked fantastic in 2006, at 6.8 runs in merely 92 DG (defensive games adjusted for attempts). He has not shown that skill since, and his arm dipped below -5 runs above average this season. It is possible that his arm was better suited to left field – his ARM in 154 DG is +4.1 in LF vs. -6.9 in 371 DG in RF.
It appears that we have two major outliers skewing his results from 2006 and 2007. Ethier’s +6.8 ARM rating may have been a product of both his time in left field as well as random variation in the statistic. Since his move to playing primarily right field in 2007, his arm has rated as nearly 10 runs below average, the ninth worst overall mark over the past three years.
The other outlier is Ethier’s +5.2 range score in 2007. Ethier has never showed the skills of a fast player. He’s been caught stealing (16 times) nearly as many times as he’s stolen a base (17). His 32 infield hits since 2007 is nearly average among qualified players, and he’s only attempted one bunt since 2007 and didn’t get a hit on. As mentioned above, Ethier’s range score in 2008 and 2009 was a combined 13.5 runs below average, a far cry from his excellent 2007 mark.
Ethier now has a sample of 371 DG in RF and 525 total OF DG. That’s a sample of roughly 3.5 total seasons and roughly 2.5 RF seasons. A better guess than looking at last year’s -15 season is to look at his career as a whole. Ethier now has a -4.4 UZR/150 for his career, but a -6.8 UZR/150 in RF. The Fan’s Scouting Report rates Ethier as a roughly average fielder. Given these two sources of data, we can conclude that Ethier is probably a below average fielder, but probably not as bad as 2009 would suggest. A conservative projection would probably call Ethier a -3 to -5 run fielder in RF going forward.
This is not to say that Ethier has not been a valuable player for the Dodgers. His 7.6 WAR since 2007 place him in the top 100 position players in the league. With 30 teams, players of Ethier’s talent level are difficult to find and are an asset for any team.
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Ethier is Shawn Green… Thankfully he is a stud with the bat (vs righties)…
Solid work Jack. We have to take into account some other sources of data, such as the FSR. For what it’s worth, TotalZone using Retrosheet data generally agrees with UZR here. -10.7 last season in total, +2 the year before, and +5.4 his rookie year.
his defense hurt the dodgers in the phillies series.
First of all, let’s look at the biggest component of the statistic: range. Ethier showed fantastic range in 2007 after showing average range in 2006. His range fell off a cliff then in 2008 and 2009, at -6.6 and -6.9 runs, respectively.
- See the above statement is what leaves me in doubt regarding taking defensive metrics seriously. How could a young player’s range deviate that much over a brief period of time? If it’s because of injury, well, then, as outsiders looking in, we have no way of knowing. I don’t trust defensive metrics.
It’s small sample size. How could a young player all of a sudden go from wOBA-ing .330 to .380? The same thing happens with offensive metrics. The key is understanding when the samples are giving you data without random variation, and that’s just not happening with a half-season of range data in UZR.
Wouldn’t part of Ethier’s poor range be explained by the fact that Matt Kemp plays center and has amazing range? I watched almost every game this year, and there are a ton of balls that Kemp called Ethier off on, but Andre was standing behind Kemp waiting to back him up.
Ethier seems to me to have gained weight since his debut in 2006. The guy loves to eat. He has a restaurant blog, even http://diningwithdre.mlblogs.com/
I think he’s just not moving as well as when he was slimmer. His power has increased though, so maybe it’s muscle weight as well.
Nice post. Be careful with labeling certain seasons “outliers,” though.
I agree. Just because they don’t match up doesn’t mean you should discount them.
“As he plays the corner outfield positions, he already starts out with a position adjustment of -13.9 runs. Combine that with a -21.7 UZR over 308 games in the outfield, and Ethier has cost the Dodgers 35.6 runs with the glove.”
Is this really the best way to word this? Is it really fair to penalize him for the positional adjustment in terms of “costing” the Dodgers all these runs? After all, someone has to play right field. If his UZR were 0.0, would it really make sense to say that he “cost the Dodgers -13.9 runs with his glove”? Something’s not right there.
Good article. Noting indications of Ethier’s speed is an important thing to do when trying to assess his true defensive ability. When I do defensive projections, I regress a player’s long-term UZR toward the UZR mean of a player with similar speed. If, for example, a RF’er has below average speed, according to a speed score, his sample UZR might get regressed toward -2 per 150 rather than 0.
I also don’t like the use of the word or the concept of “outlier” when discussing samples of player performance. Everything counts.
And, like WY above, I don’t like the wording, “cost the Dodgers 35.6 runs…”
The arm ratings are always “as compared to an average player at that position.” So, when a player moves from LF to RF, we expect his arm rating to do down by X runs since the average RF’er has a much stronger arm than the average LF. I forgot how much X runs are, but it is probably 3-4 runs or so. It is like moving from 2B to SS. You expect a player’s range runs to go down by a few runs..
Confused. On Ethier’s player page, his wRAA was 26.5 in ’08 and 23.3 in ’09 (49.8). On the sortable leaderboard, if you select “Past 2 Calendar Years” Ethier’s wRAA is 49.4. Why are they different, and where did you get 53.3?
Park adjustments.
Ethier has a plus arm, based on the games I’ve watched. I’ve seen him make several outfield assists. Not sure where he ranks on an outfield assists tracker, and even if he was near the top if that is a good thing, since 3B coaches don’t even attempt close plays against the best RF arms. But I’m still not sold on any defensive metric to date.
“It’s small sample size. How could a young player all of a sudden go from wOBA-ing .330 to .380?”
No – players develop with age. If you enter the majors at age 20 and your wOBA is .330, and 3 years later your wOBA is .380 – that’s not unexpected. How many players at that age experience that kind of swing in fielding ability due to random variation? Off the top of my head, the other obvious example is Yuniesky Betancourt – but that was certainly not just random variation (his hitting fell off at a precipitous rate too).
Wouldn’t it have been relatively simple to take the difference between Ethier’s first two and last two years, compare that to the average difference in UZR/150 for right fielders of a similar age and playing time (assuming the sample size is large enough), and run a t test or something? I’d venture to say this data point is pretty significant.