Statues in the Outfield
After getting swept over the weekend, the Dodgers have now dropped four straight games and sit two games out of first place in the National League West, behind both San Diego and San Francisco. With the league adjusting to John Ely, the focus has once again turned to LA’s need for some pitching to stabilize their rotation, but there’s another problem with this Dodger team that gets little notice – their outfield defense is atrocious.
The Dodgers OFs have combined for a UZR of -27.5 so far this year, easily the worst in the majors. It’s even worse than that number claims, though, as Reed Johnson‘s +6.3 is propping up the starters. The regular trio for LA are posting fielding numbers that will make your eyes bleed – Manny Ramirez is at -4.1, Matt Kemp has a -13.8, and Andre Ethier is the king butcher to date with a -16.5 UZR. Ethier and Kemp have the two lowest UZRs of any players in baseball so far in 2010.
Of course, we’re less than halfway into the season, and you need large sample sizes to judge a defender’s abilities using a metric like UZR. But all three of these guys have been in the league for a while, and the big picture isn’t much prettier.
In over 8,000 innings in left field, Ramirez has a career UZR/150 of -20.4, and while there were a lot of cries about the Green Monster making him look worse than he really was, he has posted a -22.6 UZR in 1,549 innings with the Dodgers.
Kemp doesn’t have the same track record of being terrible, but he’s played nearly 3,000 innings in center field, and his career UZR/150 is -10.1. Toss in another 1,300 innings in the corner outifield positions with a below average UZR as well, and it’s pretty clear that Kemp is not much of a center fielder.
Finally, there’s Ethier, who has spent nearly 5,000 innings in the corner outfield spots in his career, racking up a UZR/150 of -9.1, and he’s trending the wrong way, posting the 5th worst UZR total since the beginning of 2008, beating out only Adam Dunn, Brad Hawpe, Jermaine Dye, and Bobby Abreu. Not really the kind of company you want to keep when talking about defensive prowess.
Essentially, at this point, the Dodgers are running out an outfield that consists of a right fielder and two designated hitters. While all three are quality hitters and help the team score runs, they are giving back a lot of value with their lack of range in the outfield. The team’s run prevention problems do not fall on just the pitchers, as they aren’t getting much support from the guys behind them.
As the Dodgers pursue a starting pitcher for the stretch run, may I suggest they target a guy who gets a lot of groundballs?
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Also of note, Joe Torre has (unsurprisingly) made his team worse by giving consistent at-bats and outfield innings to Garrett Anderson.
What’s your take on Torre slotting possibly the worst OF in the big leagues in the 5-hole and putting him in right and left field over and over?
The Yankees will gladly trade you Gardner for Ethier so you can move Kemp to a corner.
Joe Torre falling in love with a bench player and giving him a ton of ABs over a better player? I’m shocked…SHOCKED!
On the Dodgers OF…is Kemp maybe battling an injury or something? Its been a pretty big drop in his UZR from 08-09 in CF. Something must be up to make him that bad so quickly…or its just a quirk of sample size.
UZR/150:
08: -2.5
09: 3.9
10: -34.2
I would lean towards either the undisclosed injury theory or that of sample size in his case.
UZR is generally regarded as needing three years of data to stabilize. Right now for 2010 we have less than half of one year. It’s possible that Kemp turns out to be more like a net zero UZR/150 player over this three year span, when all data is in, and last year was as much an aberration as this year looks to be right now.
Of course your hidden injury theory is equally valid with the information we have so far. (Or maybe it’s the AllStar-famous-girlfriend LA lifestyle).
Well, the 4,290 outfield innings Kemp has accumulated in the major leagues indicate he’s a below average defender.
Well, Manny will gone next year so they will likely move Ethier to LF to mask his butchery. If they were smart, they’d sign Werth or Crawford (if they had any money that is) for RF and improve defensively at 2 positions…assuming Ethier can do a better job than Manny in LF that is. I have to assume he can as he has 2 working legs and a glove on most of the time.
I admit that I don’t watch the Dodgers often, but isn’t the solution to get a true CFer and have Kemp and Ethier in the corners? I’ve always thought the book on Kemp was that he is a little stretched in CF.
Yes, I can look up the UZR’s myself, just wondering if there isn’t something to the CW here.
Kemp was perfectly fine in CF in 08 and 09. Not a gold-glover but not a butcher either. A big part of his value is that he can play a decent CF…at least until the first couple months of this year apparently.
article. of. the. day.
only thing that would improve it was if it was about the angels, since from the title that’s what I was really hoping, before realizing that abreu hasn’t really played as much in the field this year for them.
big Tony Danza fan?
C’mon, Adrien Brody and Matthew McConaughey, plus Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Danny Glover? It’s a an all-star cast!
comeone, that was a cinematic masterpiece! almost as good as Major League 3 even!
“come on”, not “come one”
and joser: what did danny glover do wrong to need a paycheck that badly after lethal weapon?
You know, the only thing I remember about that movie was the dramatic theme music that every baseball stadium now plays whenever a late-inning rally starts to happen.
Manny Ramirez has the least bad UZR of the starting outfield. This is a sign that the end times draw nigh.
When UZR was revised going into 2010 giving Bay/Jacoby better ratings for 09, did those changes go back to the manny years in boston?
“In over 8,000 innings in left field, Ramirez has a career UZR/150 of -20.4, and while there were a lot of cries about the Green Monster making him look worse than he really was, he has posted a -22.6 UZR in 1,549 innings with the Dodgers.”
Ironically, over his last two seasons with the Red Sox- there is the possibility that the Green Monster made him look BETTER than he was (at least compared to other fielders playing the same position in Fenway). Somewhere around 2007 it seemed like he spent a lot of time doing fielding drills where he practiced handling balls off the wall. From what I can tell, the only way to really “get” the wall is to practice with it so this gave him an advantage over visiting fielders. Additionally, Fenway’s LF is fairly small compared to many parks- mitigating some of his horrible range.
This probably means that the defensive dropoff from playing Manny in Fenway was not as big as it seemed. Fielders with more range than him wouldn’t provide as much benefit due to the small field. Fielders with less wall-ball experience would suffer more misplayed balls. So, if you start adjusting for parks- Manny playing in Fenway could easily make him seem like a better fielder. Which, by the way, makes him downright brutal in the OF.
Personally, I disagree with MGL that UZR is meaningless in smaller samples. If the measure has any validity at all, and I assume it does have some, small samples are just a measure of how a player has fielded over a smaller period within the uncertainty of what the metric measures. So while you can not say a player over 1/2 a season is bad hitter or good hitter based on his offensive stats after a 1/2 season, you can say he has hit well or not (even if it is due to luck, good or bad). Same with fielding.
All you can say about the Dodgers is that they are fielding fewer balls in the OF than average teams. Don’t overlook the importance of scouting and coaching. I suspect teams with goods scouting and coaches who make sure their players are well positioned tend to increase the teams UZR, and may be more important than park factors. Also important is the command of the pitching staff. If the scouting report says to pitch him away, and the pitcher misses location and pitches in, this affects where a ball is hit. Maybe we give the players in the OF too much credit/blame for their UZR. This may be less important for IF’ers since positioning depends more on game situation and ROB except when shifts are employed.
As for Manny, having watched him for many years, he was a decent fielder when he wanted to play. Played the wall great and had good hands on balls hit on the ground or LD that bounced in front of him. Had a quick release and accurate arm. During the recent trip to Fenway I thought he looked like he had gained some weight and looked like he is slowing up some (he was at DH though). I don’t believe how he is playing with the Dodgers in 2010 reflects on his performance in Boston from 2000-2007.
As bad as some believe Manny to have been, Red Sox teams came close to winning 3 rings. 2003 should have been the first one. But 2 rings are not bad.
Jason Bay was actually worse in LF than Manny in 2008 (he imrpoved greatly in 2009 as he learned to play the wall). Red Sox might have had another ring in 2008 if Manny played the 2nd half as hot as he did with the Dodgers.
Looking forward to the UZR H-A splits.
Both Manny and Ethier are pretty putrid with respect to range. Both allow scores of looping singles to land in front of them due to poor foot speed and reaction time. Kemp is supposed to help cure or at least mask their deficiencies but he has tons of miscues this year. In that ballpark their OF defense is a major concern moving forward.