SI Gives Defense Some Love
From the most recent Sports Illustrated: Baseball’s Next Top Models
This winter Lichtman, who left the Cardinals after the 2005 season, made UZR—considered by many to be the most comprehensive defensive metric out there—available to the public on the website FanGraphs, which will update player stats weekly during the season. “The funny thing is, all this information is now available free for anyone to see, so there’s really no reason for teams to do their own thing,” says Lichtman. “Yet it’s clear that half to three quarters of the teams still have no clue how to evaluate defense on that level and how to interpret that into a player’s overall value.”
It’s nice to see UZR and the others becoming more mainstream!
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
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Nice to see FanGraphs getting some love too. Congrats David.
“Yet it’s clear that half to three quarters of the teams still have no clue how to evaluate defense on that level and how to interpret that into a player’s overall value.”
No s***.
Its really crazy the gap between the old school and new school. The old school is quickly becoming road kill.*
Ruben Amaro: Are you reading this???
*-This has NOTHING to do with Stats vs. Scouting. Good scouting is new school now!
Check out the current ESPN the magazine. They have a neat little defensive grid for each team color coded for the general ability of each starting fielder as well as a projected overall runs gained/losted by the teams defense for 2009.
They also have a story about how the corner OF market didn’t pay like the sluggers wanted and mentioned +/-, RZR, and UZR as reasons why.
I read that. I completely disagreed with the Cardinals one as all of there outfield spots were projected to be terrible. If Rasmus plays center than everyone will be above average in that outfield. If he doesn’t than him in left and Ludwick in right will be very good.
I also saw the ESPN the magazine ad. The projections they gave were pretty horrible. They said right field for my Giants was a weak spot, that’s Randy WInn territory, come on!!!!
I didn’t claim their projections were accurate. I just thought it interesting that they tried to quantify defense and put it in a runs saved format.
A well deserved congratulations to all of the authors of this site. I enjoy, literally, everything written on here and have learned a tremendous amount about the game from reading discussions, the glossary, and everything else beyond casual, evidence-devoid claims made primarily by mainstream media outlets. Bravo.
Defense is the new black.
Lichtman, once again showing off his people skills and diplomacy.
ESPN the magazine gives defense a lot of love too.