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Actually, Billy Butler Has Been Pretty Bad Defensively

Billy Butler's offensive breakout, evidenced by a .306/.367/.501 line, has been one of the real bright spots for the Royals this season. Butler's been a patient hitter to go with a .300 average, and he's shown some of the power we've been waiting for. After all, the guy slugged .400 last season.


G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG
2009 - Billy Butler 156 595 78 182 51 1 21 93 58 99 1 0 .306 .367 .501

 

As has been noted by many, Butler's ability to post these kind of numbers in his age 23 season is a hugely positive sign, and makes him a likely bet to be a productive hitter for the next decade. Somewhat amazingly, Billy Butler has emerged as a Royals position player prospect that hasn't been a disappointment. 

Star-divide

While most expected Butler to hit, there have been questions about his glove from day one. When the Royals acquired Mike Jacobs last offseason, most assumed that Jacobs, one of the worst fielders, at any position, in baseball, would become the regular first baseman. Butler's defensive reputation was that bad. The Royals should be held partially to blame for this, as it is clear that they've largely mismanaged Butler's defensive development. Rather than hedging their bets, and admitting that he would be a 1B at best, the Royals wasted everyone's time by playing Butler at third and in the outfield for way too long. Then, when he was promoted, time at 1B, in the hundreds of meaningless Royals games he'd participated in, was suprisingly hard to find.

And then, the Royals made Butler the starting 1B for 2009. Whoa.

For months, judging from the thousands of comments here on the game threads, as well as my general sense of the opinion of Royals writers, fans, etc. has been this: hey, Billy Butler has actually been ok at first! Cool!

According to the defensive stats however, he really hasn't been. While no one is arguing that Butler is a net positive at first, we may need to revisit our assumption that he's non-bad. He's probably better than Mike Jacobs, but then again, 99% of all first basemen ever to play the game have been.

To conclude, Butler was 25.3 runs above average in 2009, but he gave back 5.9 runs with the glove. First base is not a hugely important defensive position and guys like Butler have been hidden at first base for over a hundred years. In some ways, a -5.9 score, well out of the Giambi/Jacobs zone (Jacobs posted an otherworldly -13.6 in 2008) is still better than might have reasonably be expected. Unlike his comps, which are mostly older players, Butler might be expected to improve, and perhaps could some day emerge as a player like Paul Konerko, a player who started out bad but worked his way to average.

So let's be real: Billy Butler is one of the worst defensive 1Bs in the American League. He's been so good with the bat that he's still one of the team's best hitters. Nevertheless, with poor defensive players like Alberto Callaspo and Yuni Betancourt seemingly guaranteed of playing time, the Royals have an anti-foundation in place to again be the worst defensive team in the American League again in 2010.

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The funny thing about Butler...

is that even though he is the worst 1Bman in the AL he is still better than we expected, which was more along the lines of worst 1Bman in the last 10 years.

Desperately hoping for Desperate Measures

by averagegatsby on Oct 1, 2009 5:06 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

yup.

When people say “defense at 1b isn’t that important,” this is only true to the extent that relative to other positions on the field, 1b requires the least defensive skill.

But 6 runs “lost” at 1b counts the same as 6 runs lost at ss. It’s just a lot harder to find a -6 ss than a -6 1b.

It’s about what we expected, and as noted not in the Jacobs/Giambi/Dunn “WTF” realm. 1b defense doesn’t drop off as quickly or as early as other positions, and Butler’s still young, the simple is small, etc. But, not he has been no where closet “good enough” with the glove at 1b.

Unless, of course, the alternative is Mike Jacobs.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 5:14 PM EDT via mobile reply actions   0 recs

"nowhere close to 'good enough'"

Stupid stubby BlackBerry fingers.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 5:16 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

maybe that is Billy's problem as well...

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Oct 1, 2009 10:49 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

yea, the runs are the same

but there’s also a lower standard and (maybe, sorta guessing on this) less gained or lost, because of the # of balls hit there

by royalsreview on Oct 1, 2009 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

The lower standard is only on that the least defensively skilled players play 1b when they aren’t DHING. His UZR is linear weights runs below average for the balls hit to him. It’s adjusted for way the plays made or not cost on average.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 5:36 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

Do you know what the adjustment is as far as number of runs per play made/not made?

Are there any technical reports on how UZR determined the ‘zone range’ for each position?

I have a feeling those two numbers are a big reason that one season of defense is still a relatively small sample size. The error in measurement in those two numbers alone would have to cause havoc.

Turning Kool-Aid to Jesus Juice since 2009.

by Discodave on Oct 1, 2009 10:06 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

it's a small sample size because of the number of each chances each defender gets in a season

combined, I imagine, with the high variance between defenders and also the amount of correlation fromn season-to-season.

Here’s MGL’s original primer on UZR: Part I, Part II

He may have changed some things since then. The version he’s discussing there uses STAT INC data, the version at FanGraphs uses BIS data, but the methodlogy is the same.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 11:36 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

those were some really interesting articles and comments from back in the day

here’s MGL commenting on a question that occurred to me as I was reading Part I:

One more thing. I did not mention in the article (because I hadn’t thought of it at the time) that there is one other defensive skill (besides OF arms and IF DP) that UZR does not cover (and I don’t cover at all). That is ability of the first baseman to catch (or not) bad throws from the infielders. For example, it had been suggested that J.T. Snow (who has not have a good UZR rating for several years, BTW) is so good at catching bad throws, that he may save 5-15 errors or hits per year with that skill. That may be true, and I am working on seeing if I can somehow measure and quantify that skill to any reasonable degree…

now, I don’t know that Billy is a super catcher of bad throws, but I do remember repeatedly seeing comments about him picking throws out of the dirt, and it would be interesting to see if maybe that would offset some of his subpar fielding.

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 2, 2009 12:10 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

looks like Jim M from US Computers should become a Royals fan for the duration of the GMDM ear (couldn't resist)
Jim (jimmuscomp) Posted: March 20, 2003 at 09:48 PM (#609847)
I really mean no offense, but there isn’t an NL SS within 12 runs of Juan Uribe except Jose Hernandez?

Mike Bordick is Ozzie Smith?

Yeah they are numbers and it took a million crazy calculations to figure them out – but they look pretty worthless.

I know you guys love to pat each other on the back but come on – trying to apply numbers like these to the ‘real world’ and speak about them as truths is why so many mainstream baseball types are so skeptical of statheads.

or is that Jim Muscomp

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 2, 2009 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Oh the irony

last season, when it became apparent that, despite what some wanted to assert, Ross Gload wasn’t anything like an “awesome” defensive 1B, people made a very similar argument about “scoops” on G-Load’s behalf to show that he was a “Gold Glover” and that Dayton Moore was, at least, right about that. You know, because we still “didn’t know” how good he was at scouting talent.

UZR doesn’t include scoops (it’s im plementation at FanGrahs does include OF Arms and DP Ratings).

But this past offseason MGL did a study of first baseman throw-saving. Long story short — there isn’t much variation. The conclusion?

So before you start opining about how your favorite first baseman is so great defensively because he "saves so many errors," consider that scooping ability is probably worth less than a ΒΌ of total defensive ability or value at first base. Fielding grounders is at least 75% of the package and "scooping" is the rest. But every little bit helps.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

let's focus on the

“every little bit helps” portion

(though for all we know, he may be worst-in-the-AL at scoops, too)

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 2, 2009 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

it looks to me like Billy hasn't missed too many opportunities to scoop

ice cream, mashed potatoes and gravy ….
(sorry, could not resist)

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Oct 2, 2009 3:14 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

25 % is hardly an insignificant amount

Not huge, obviously, but not something you just dismiss out of hand.

by kcbottom9th on Oct 2, 2009 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

well, that's "at most"

and that would be about 1 run for Butler

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I'm more interested in the variation part

Are we talking like, it varies year to year so much that you can’t predict who’s good, or are we just talking the best scoopers aren’t that far from the worst scoopers.

And I don’t like this word, scoopers. Let’s call them diggers. Wait, I need to think about this…

by awolfson on Oct 2, 2009 10:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I think you might be bringing in my comments from another issues

but as far as “saving errors” on bad throws, there isn’t that must difference bewteen the best and worst 1Bs.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 11:05 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Thank you.

Those answer my questions. I did think it was interesting that UZR recalculates average expected outs yearly, instead of a historical aggregate of multiple seasons. This may have changed since the primer from 2003, but I would think you would want as many years of data as possible to reduce any potential year-to-year variance. Either way, interesting stuff, thanks for posting the link.

Turning Kool-Aid to Jesus Juice since 2009.

by Discodave on Oct 2, 2009 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I thought the same thing at first

but if you’re trying to get year-to-year value, you have to do the same thing. It’s the same principle as using year-to-year averages for offensive lwts.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

but how many 3-6-3 DPs does he turn

can’t wait for Guillen in RF, Teahen at 1B and Butler at DH

Graduate with a B.S. from the Dayton Moore School of Stats Analysis

by BHWick on Oct 1, 2009 5:14 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

or the alternative rumor

Callaspo at 3B
Aviles at 2B
Gordon at 1B
Butler at DH

Unless I'm wrong...
My Twitter feed

by Top Ramen on Oct 1, 2009 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Not really that concerned about Butler's D at 1B

But man, look at Yuniesky’s -20.7 at SS!!!

Interesting thing, Derek Jeter’s UZR is +7.2(6.4 in UZR/150) this year at SS, almost as good as Alex Gonzalez of the Red Sox (7 UZR/150) and better than Jimmy Rollins and Christian Guzman

Mourning Guy Carbonneau...
Royals obscure player to watch in ST: Lenny DiNardo

by playingwithfire on Oct 1, 2009 5:20 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

pro-Jeter bias at BIS!

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 5:32 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

Jeter's RZR/OOZ reveals a tale of two SSs

The numbers show Jeter is easily the most dependable mlb SS on balls hit in the shortstop zone, while being far and away the worst in mlb at making outs from balls hit out of the zone. In other words, this probably backs up what your eyes tell you about Jeter – not much range but always makes the routine plays, sort of the anti-TPJ, if you will.

Baseball's that swingy stick game, right?

by royalsroyalsroyals on Oct 2, 2009 7:03 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

His career UZR looks a tiny bit better

For UZR, you really want three years of data if available. Adding his ~350 innings from 2007 and 2008 combined, Butler improves slightly to -4.7 runs (or -3.6 UZR/150). Dewan also has him at -5 runs this year (but -1 for the previous ~350 innings). If Butler is a roughly -5 runs per season on defense, you can probably live with that for now. The concern would be as he ages because, eating habits aside, men naturally gain weight through their 20s and 30s.

by Gopherballs on Oct 1, 2009 6:15 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

agreed

Although as i’ll try to make clear in my 2009 Gold Glove DH post, -5 at 1b implies that a guy is probably better of Dying (it’s definite at -10). Not a brilliant or original insight, I know, but good for some Brad Hawpe-related comedy.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 6:34 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

Wow.
better of Dying

I used to work with an old man that told me. Son, every workplace has a dumbass, if you don't have one where you work, then I'm afraid you're it.

by Warden11 on Oct 1, 2009 8:29 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

Dyeing? maybe?

Though I don’t see Billy with black hair.

by BrRoyal on Oct 1, 2009 8:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

stupid BlackBerry auto-correct

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 8:43 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

Isn't this a SSS?

Doesn’t UZR fluctuate from season to season? I’m not going to argue that BB is average at 1B, but he is sort of new-ish to the position, hasn’t had a ton of time there, and is young and can get better. He went from probably worse than Mike Jacobs last year to much better this year. I would think he’d be more like Paul Konerko as mentioned at the end of the post. He’ll work hard again this offseason, become an average 1B, and become an absolute stud superstar with the bat next year. Balboni better watch out.

by AxDxMx on Oct 1, 2009 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

depends on how definitive we want to be

I think there’s enough of a sample to say “he’s one of the lesser 1Bs in the AL, possibly the worst”. I think the margins of these stats are pretty fuzzy… a guy with a -4.0 rating and a guy with a -5.76 rating could be very similar, or even reversed

nevertheless, they are both probably not good defensively

More broadly, these stats are like any other, its a bigger question how predictive they are, etc.

by royalsreview on Oct 1, 2009 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

Well yeah, that's fine, but when you are talking about the difference between best and worst being 10 runs

I can’t say that I think Billy Butler is horrible at the position and at least he has the chance to improve.

By the way, Adam Dunn had a 7.2 UZR in LF in 2002 over 113 games. He hasn’t posted a positive UZR in any other year (with more than 20 games at the position). So did he suddenly get good that year? Why the fluctuation? Was he just incredibly lucky with balls hit to him? Or did he get fat and slow in the offseason? I have no idea, but I think it suggests that maybe 1 year isn’t enough data. And even if Billy is terrible over there, he makes up for it with the bat.

by AxDxMx on Oct 2, 2009 1:38 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Brady Anderson hit 52 home runs in one season, too

this isn’t just an issue for defensive stats. There are random variations. Mike Aviles iin 2008 comes to mind.

As for Dunn… defense does fluctuate, he might have gotten lucky, but defense also declines relatively early. So you’re seeing hte combination of fluctuation, aging, and regression to true talent.

It’s worth noting that Butler’s performacne is in-line with the scouting reports, and that’s important.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Exactly the point

I’ll reserve judment on Billy’s defense until after next year. But unless he gets worse, I don’t think he hurts the team at all at 1B. There’s something to be said for playing the field and hitting better I think.

by AxDxMx on Oct 2, 2009 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

there are two different issues

1) the stats themselves
2) predictability

If someone goes 0-15 at some point, they did, in fact, go 0-15. The mistake is to say, “he’s cold, needs to be benched for good” or something like that.

So yea, Butler could be awesome someday. And yes, relatively speaking, a season is a small sample for defensive stats. That being said, the odds are extremely small that Butler was actually good, and that the numbers didn’t reflect it.

by royalsreview on Oct 2, 2009 12:27 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Like I said above, I'm not going to argue that he was even average

He looked bad at times, but at others he surprised me. To me, it shows that maybe he can improve somewhere down the road.

by AxDxMx on Oct 2, 2009 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

What do we know about Butler's defense?

All we know is 1) the information we can glean from a small sample of data, and 2) what we see with our own eyes (and the opinions of others seeing with their eyes). Let’s leave #2 out of it for a moment. With regard to #1, a small sample of data doesn’t give you enough information to determine a player’s true talent level with any degree of accuracy or confidence. With the ability to assess true talent level, one cannot then project the player’s future performance (even near future). For instance, let’s say a player came up to the majors and hit poorly for two months of full-time play. Could one fairly say that such a player is a poor hitter and should be expected to hit poorly in the future? Certainly not. Of course one could look at the player’s minor league performance to get more information, but we don’t have that option for Butler. He’s relatively new to first base. We have little data. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on that small amount of data, merely because it is the only data we have.

The immoderate moderator

by NYRoyal on Oct 3, 2009 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

No, but when that data (even in a small sample)

agrees with what almost everyone sees in their eyes it carries some weight.

I used to work with an old man that told me. Son, every workplace has a dumbass, if you don't have one where you work, then I'm afraid you're it.

by Warden11 on Oct 4, 2009 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I don't think they do agree

I don’t think it is accurate at all to say that “almost everyone sees” that Butler is a very bad defensive first baseman. I think the scouting eyes of most people would say that he’s a decent, perhaps average or a bit below average defensive first baseman. I think he handles himself pretty well out there. His range is limited, but the range of most MLB first basemen is limited.

The immoderate moderator

by NYRoyal on Oct 5, 2009 1:47 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

whatever his true talent is

keep in mind that many projected him to be about -5 this season, he’s been -5, and -5 is the point at which DH becomes a consideration.

-5 runs below average is, at RR pointed out, -5 runs below. That hurts the team in general. But of course, if the only alternative is Mike Jacobs then, yeah, I guess it isn’t.

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

For an illustration

Maybe you could show us how 2009 Billy DH and 2009 Doug Mentkievichrwskiir (sp?) would compare to 2009 Billy 1B and 2009 Jacobs/Guillen DH platoon.

by BrRoyal on Oct 2, 2009 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

We can also hope that he's got some developing to do at the position

more reps and more experience could still have a positive effect on Butler’s D, unlike a veteran such as Mike Jacobs who’s older and has been playing the position his whole life

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 1, 2009 6:36 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Jacobs was actually a catcher for most of his minor league career until an injury

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by devil_fingers on Oct 1, 2009 6:50 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

What if

If he turns a couple more 3-6-3 double plays and gets a bit smoother on the 1-3 putout…that’s gotta be worth like 10 runs right? Problem solved.

by PopeSoria on Oct 1, 2009 6:50 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

+999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.

by philofthenorth on Oct 1, 2009 11:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Sample size is important here

And one season’s worth of defensive stats is a small sample. It is certainly not enough to draw the conclusions above. We don’t know that Butler sucks defensively at 1B. Nor do we know that he’ll suck next year. It’s not a good idea to draw conclusions from insufficient data merely because that is all the data you have.

The immoderate moderator

by NYRoyal on Oct 1, 2009 6:56 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

what conclusions do you have a problem with?

there is very good reason to believe that he has been one of the worst defensive 1Bs in the AL this season

beyond that, I did not actually say much as a conclusion, other than, that this jives with scouting observation/general perception and that he could improve, or not improve

by royalsreview on Oct 1, 2009 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

Definitive Analysis

I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.

by philofthenorth on Oct 1, 2009 11:36 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

The conclusions that I have a problem with:
So let’s be real: Billy Butler is one of the worst defensive 1Bs in the American League.

You did not limit your conclusion to "one of the worst defensive 1B’s in the AL this season. The conclusion I quoted describes how good Billy is defensively, period. A small sample of data tells you how well a player performed over that period. It does not give you information from which you can draw the bigger conclusion (such as, that he sucks defensively).

Nevertheless, with poor defensive players like Alberto Callaspo and Yuni Betancourt seemingly guaranteed of playing time, the Royals have an anti-foundation in place to again be the worst defensive team in the American League again in 2010.

I assume your conclusion that Butler sucks defensively is a partial support for the above statement. I assume you’re saying that Butler’s horrible defense is part of that horrible infield defense the Royals should have next year. This assumes that the limited data we have is sufficient to project Butler’s defensive suckitude in the future. It does not. Basically the sample of defensive stats we have for Billy are about the equivalent of about 2, maybe 2 1/2 months of hitting stats. That is an insufficiently large sample size to draw meaningful conclusion about how good Butler truly is defensively or how good he’ll be in 2010 or beyond.

The immoderate moderator

by NYRoyal on Oct 2, 2009 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

This article is a bit misleading...

Sure Butler has been worth about -5 runs this year defensively, but for a first baseman thats not bad. For example, no first baseman has more than 5 runs saved and half have a negative value. So the diffrence between a “good” first baseman and a “Bad” one, is barely a win, a tiny gap compared to say left field(15.5 to -12.3) or 3B (18.2 to -11.5)

I refuse to set up a signature....DAMMIT

by RoyalPug on Oct 1, 2009 7:11 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

So basically we could use Billy as either a DH or at 1B

and he has around the same value. So basically we need to move Billy to DH, Gordon to right, Callaspo to third, Aviles and Bianchi to play up the middle, Kila at first, and Bloomy and Yuni as backups. Of course, that makes too much sense for it to happen.

Go Royals!

by BabyBlues on Oct 2, 2009 2:43 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

There's an even smaller sample size of Callaspo at 3B

and his performance at 2B suggests he would suck there, too. Gordon’s -3 the last two years (and about average for his career) isn’t great, but Callaspo is a defensive disaster at 2B

If his arm is actually good enough to play 3B, why not try him in RF?

Bianchi’s bat isn’t ready.

Kila may not be any better than Butler at 1B

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by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 11:40 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Weird article...

You’re talking about Billy Butler right? The same player who was rated by some scouts as the worst defensive player they had ever seen? It seems like you’re setting up a straw man here. Everyone knows that Billy is not a good defensive player. What’s been surprising is that he’s not historically bad and that he may actually have it in him to become an average defensive player.

by billexgordler on Oct 2, 2009 9:55 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Wow, all these comments about defense and no

Dayton “I don’t even know how they come up with these stats” Moore,
Ryan “any system that doesn’t rate Torii Hunter as the best CF in baseball is not a good system” Lefeibvre, or
Frank “all I want to know is ‘can he play baseball?’” White
remarks

We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view, Tangled up in blue.
-Bob Dylan

by Royal Kingdom on Oct 2, 2009 9:59 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

we're taking the high road

and i, for one, am proud of us

Blank

by benfunke on Oct 2, 2009 11:49 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

since you asked...

I really do like Billy’s “grit” at 1st base.

His ability to turn one 3-6-3? Not so much.

StonewallPDS

by StonewallPDS on Oct 2, 2009 10:49 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

My take on this

1. Billy isn’t the best out there, but after getting hosed around in the minors for years to different positions, I would give him one year.

2. Billy’s 1st base defense is the least of our problems. Besides David in LF and CFer’s (suprisingly) — combined yearly numbers

1B -5.4
2B -10.5
3B -7.3
SS -19.7
LF 17.1
CF -2.1
RF -18.9

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Oct 2, 2009 1:09 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Concerning Hardball Times' RZR...

I’m a fan of this stat, but it’s kinda tricky to read. Butler’s RZR is second lowest among 18 qualified mlb first basemen. HOWEVER, RZR separates out balls hit in zone (which is used for RZR) and balls hit out of the fielder’s established zone (OOZ, for Out Of Zone), which gives the reader/analyst a nice snapshot of a player’s range vs. his dependability on balls commonly turned into outs.

Anyway, BB ranks tied for third best among the 18 in OOZ (insert joke at the expense of acronym if you wish). Point is, that’s a good thing and it translates to about 12 hits a year that BB takes away because of his range advantage over the average 1Ber. That offsets the 12 hits a year he yields to the same average 1Ber on balls hit in the zone.

Unrelated notes: Pujols is the undisputed king of 1B OOZ, while Betancourt ranks ridiculously behind every other SS in RZR, while being only mildly bad in OOZ, which is odd because I tend to OOZ a little every time a ball is hit to him.

Baseball's that swingy stick game, right?

by royalsroyalsroyals on Oct 2, 2009 2:50 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

one problem with using RZR/OOZ

While they are decent, among the many disadvantages is that it isn’t clear what the OOZ denominator. For RZR it’s BIZ. But 12 OOZ plays doesn’t mean 12 above average. It means 12 total. There are ways of dealing with it, but none are satisfying. UZR is clearly and by far the best freely available defensive stat available.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 3:04 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

I wasn't saying BB has 12 OOZ plays this year.

He has 49, which is 12 above average when you normalize fielder-innings to a full season. So pretty good, really.

Baseball's that swingy stick game, right?

by royalsroyalsroyals on Oct 2, 2009 6:45 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Just ran a plus/minus RZR OOZ

it does’nt take into account much (like type of batted ball, and only has two “zones,” in and out), but assuming that opportunies out of zone are proportional to opps. in zone (a big assumption, and one of the biggest problems with trying to convert RZR/OOZ to plays/runs, Butler comes out almost exactly average — he’s about -6.5 RZR< and +7.4 OOZ. that doesn’t include double play ratings, etc. About +1 pays (less than a run) above average.

It’s not a terrible system, and gives hope, but just so everyone sees how dicey this is, Daniel Murphy comes out to be about a +19 play defendre at 1B in just 831 innings.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 7:32 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

even more damning

Mike Jacobs comes up as about +6

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 7:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

...

112 innings at first base isn’t a clear sample size at all for Jake, but yeah the system clearly has its flaws, I just like it for the in-zone/out-of-zone splits.

Baseball's that swingy stick game, right?

by royalsroyalsroyals on Oct 3, 2009 1:07 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

yeah, that was the joke

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 3, 2009 2:00 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Just for fun

ran the same thing for SSes

The top defenders at SS according to this (approx. plays above/below average):
Jeter and Andrus +16
J.J. Hardy +13
Yunel Escobar +12

The worst SS?

Yuni is about – 20 plays.

Oh, and that’s just in KC. He was also about -12 in SEA.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 7:46 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

i dont necessarily 100% buy into a defensive metric on its own....

bc they all seem to have their flaws. But, when every single one agrees that you’re fucking godawful…then I’m pretty confident….yuni sucks

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Oct 2, 2009 8:40 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Lawl. Rec'd.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Oct 2, 2009 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

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