but they would need more than Rosa. Gardner’s at least as good as Crisp projected last season, and he has a number of years of club control. I like Rosa, but he’s not that good.

for Gordon’s bad attitude?

I didn’t think the defensive statistics were valid until after 3 years. Perhaps I’m getting something confused.

Anyway, I believe Mitch was repeatedly named best defensive outfielder in the Royals organization by Baseball America. Maybe he’s gotten worse, or maybe the scouts were wrong. I’m still not sold on defensive statistics being reliable — not suggesting they’re not important, but that they seem to fluctuate wildly for certain players. I mean, Gardner had a UZR/150 of +68 a year ago, then +15 this year. Maier went from -8.9 to +1.7. And oddly, Maier played worse in the corner outfield spots. (Though that could be due to unfamiliarity.)

Anyway, I feel that UZR isn’t terribly accurate, or at the very least, is not nearly as reliable at predicting future success as most offensive statistics. That is to say, fielding statistics are not nearly as consistent as offensive statistics on a year to year basis.

Take, by way of example, Mike Cameron. Here is the value of his batting and fielding, courtesy of fangraphs:

Year Batting Fielding
2002 15.1 9.5
2003 9.7 14.1
2004 8.4 4.0
2005 11.2 0.7
2006 22.1 0.1
2007 8.4 -10.2
2008 10.3 11.3
2009 9.8 10.0

Aside from a freakish 2006, his runs above average were pretty consistent. His fielding, on the other hand, is all over the map. If you look at his UZR/150, the difference is amplified even more. You see similar fluctuations with other guys who in the past had been considered premiere centerfielders (Beltran, Hunter, Edmonds). Andruw Jones seemed to be the one outlier there.

Now, it could be that UZR is right on the money, and that players are just that inconsistent from year to year. Or it could be that UZR is an imperfect stat. Intuitively, it would seem that a players defensive ability should remain much more static from year to year. But, things like injury, weather conditions, etc, could play a part in seeing dramatic changes to the ratings from year to year.

However, in either scenario, it seems like it could be problematic to rely too heavily on it as a tool to say that Player X will be more valuable than Player Y going forward, particularly when the sample sizes we’re looking at are less than 700 innings. Maybe hitting is weighed more heavily than fielding when it comes to evaluating WAR, I dunno.

While UZR is probably a pretty good measure of how a player performed in a given year, I would be hesitant to use it as a tool to predict future defensive success or failure. Gardner had an unbelievable year in 2008 and a great year in 2009 according to UZR and WAR. But considering all the platitudes that Mitch received from scouts for his defense, I find it hard to believe that Gardner is really significantly better than Mitch at defense. Then again, maybe Mitch has gotten fat, or complacent, or his defensive skills have atrophied for some reason. And maybe Gardner really is as good as his numbers suggest (and there’s no reason to really believe he isn’t, as he has a good reputation.)

I know I’m dangerously close to treading in Dayton Moore territory with my apparent disregard to defensive statistics. I am not at all trying to suggest there’s no value in the stats. I just feel we still have a little way to go before they are perfected, and that we can not necessarily rely on them to determine how a player will play from year to year, at least not as reliably as we could when it comes to that player’s ability to hit.

and it makes sense.

They point out that while good basestealers are usually good baserunners, this isn’t always the case. It’s nice when they aren’t the same guys, because you want your good baserunners at the top of the order, or at least in front of hitters who make a and hit lots of singles and doubles (baserunning is also sort of wasted in front of Adam Dunn and Russell Branyan) — Callaspo, DeJesus, Maybe Butler (although his power is coming around). If you want to leverage your basestealers best, you want them in front of crappy hitters — Getz, MITCH, well, pretty much everyone else but Gordon. That’s usually the fifth of sixth spot.

Gordon’s actually a good baserunner and stealer, and with his hitting skills, I think he actually fits best as the #5 hitter (whom The Book says should be bettter than the #3 hitter for various reasons). Assuming the Royals current players (assuming BUck is gone) and not worry about killing people’s value in trade, here’s my batting order vs. RHP. No, it doesn’t matter all that much, but whatever.

1 DDJ LF
2 Callaspo RF
3 Kila 1B/DH
4 Butler 1B/DH
5 Gordon 3B
6 Pena C
7 Getz 2B
8 Aviles SS
9 MITCH CF

DDJ can’t steal, but he’s actually okay at advancing, and there aren’t better options (actually, one could make a good case for Gordon leading off vs. RHP, but he has better power than DDJ for getting Butler and Kila along the basepaths). Kila Ks a lot, but also avoids DPs, which the #3 spot faces the most. Butler in #4 because he’s the best hitter, and also #4 sees a lot less DP situations than #3. Gordon at #5 put him in a position where he’ll come up with slower guys on base — he doesn’t have a lot of power, but for the Royals, well… Also, his basestealing/running ability works well in front of peashooters like BPJ and Getz… blah blah blah. I sure waste a lot of time on this crap. Sorry.

or, if you want Bert still at 2B, put Fields in RF then rearrage 6-9 by handedness