Let me be a little more specific about Ibanez’s suckiness
Ibanez is essentially making an argument that for a set of reasons, the systems are stacked against him. That it’s based on probability, doesn’t consider defensive positioning, that people doing the stats are evaluating it off TV, and that they don’t do enough on how hard balls are hit.
All of which is fine. These are flaws in the system that we can consider.
How is it, though, that these flaws have conspired year after year to show Ibanez as an increasingly crappy fielder? Wild coincidence? Horrible luck?
Ibanez mentions the ballpark factor. But as Dave’s alluded to, if there’s any bias in measurements of outfielders at Safeco Field it’s in their favor, as the wind hangs up balls for easy outs. And again, there’s no reason why this factor makes Ibanez particularly look bad and didn’t make (say) Randy Winn equally bad.
He mentions that people are prejudiced about him. This is — frankly — bunk. If there’s going to be a strong perception bias, what you’d see is that defensive stats wouldn’t disagree so vehemently with Gold Glove voting (which Ibanez thinks suck too). Defensive stats showed that a number of guys who have media perceptions as good defenders stink. Michael Young is awful out there, for instance — but if there was a bias in the measurement of stats based on how he was perceived, you’d see the defensive stats agree.
Or if you want to argue there’s some bias effect, then it wouldn’t explain how Ibanez, who is not the marquee name other fielders carry and is certainly not well known as a defensive butcher in the Manny mode, has been so consistently rated poor and gotten worse over the years.
That’s the big thing. Also,
But if you go around the game, and you ask the players, you ask quality major league scouts, you ask managers, they’ll tell you I’m the type of player they want on their team.
Ibanez never says he’s good defensively, we should note. Or, to be snarky, why they want him on their team or in what role. He’s taking offense at the suggestion that he’s one of the worst fielders in baseball, which he is. And I don’t blame the other players and managers and whoever he’s talked to for not breaking the news to him. It’s not polite.
But if Ibanez seriously believes that if I went out and asked a couple of quality major league scouts who’d seen him play left field for a couple of games what they thought of his defense that they would rave about it, well, he’s delusional. Remember Peter Gammons quoting someone describing Ibanez’s routes in the outfield as someone being chased by a swarm of bees? That was years ago. He hasn’t gotten faster, or better. He’s older, slower, and worse.
I like Ibanez as a guy, and he’s been one of the few offensive threats on this team over the last few years except when he wasn’t pretending he was healthy but actually injured. I don’t blame him for wanting to try and maintain some dignity about taking a huge deal to play the outfield every day. But I really think that he might have been better off looking for a DH job, because he wipes out so much of his contributions by being worthless with the glove that it’s going to become a big deal at some point, and all the animated GIFs and whatever other mockery he’s endured so far will pale in comparison to what they’ll dish out in Philly.
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Yes it’s bunk, but no one wants to admit they are not good at something, especially when it’s part of the job they are getting paid millions of dollars for. Heck, he may have actually deluded himself into believing he’s actually good! (I doubt his friends & agent tell him the truth. “Dude, you blow.”)
It’s like asking him if his girlfriend/wife is ugly.
I guess it depends which one of them is present at the time.
If they’re not winning out of the gate, Philly will want to castrate him after April.
Of reputations garnered around the world of sports, I firmly believe Philly fans being rude and proud of it is the most 100% warranted.
As a career junior-circuiter who’s only played for places like KC and Seattle, he’s never encountered anything on a daily basis quite like what he’ll go through if they lose- not even Yankee fans (whom I largely despise) are close.
Good luck, Raul. Hope it works out.
hahah. I’m so glad I wasn’t taking a sip of my coffee when i read that!
I think that he probably thinks he is good…
Reading the comments on Baker’s blog is funny…all the people bashing this site or the stats based snalysis…
I listen to what the authors here have to say, read the data presented (although I admit to not understanding a ton of it), but I just want to ask them (the Ibanez supporters)if they’ve actually watched a game?
Just watching him out there is embarrasing…I don’t need stats or scouts to tell me he is awful…I have two eyes…
But it’s nice to have concrete evidence provided by Dave and Derek to tell his fanboys that he is a great hitter and one of the worst defenders in the league…
sorry for the double post…
Does anyone have statistics on this: number of balls hit to left field in Safeco in 2008 and results, then divided by fielder.
As a general rule, balls that aren’t caught that are hit to left unless they’re grounders or liners that go down the line or liners to the gap should all be singles. My impression from watching last year, and it’s only an impression but I’ve been watching baseball a long time and you get an instinct, is that there were an awful number of doubles hit to left in Safeco last year that weren’t down the line or in the gap and that they were nearly all hit by the opposition when Raul was manning left. I don’t have the stats to back that up, but they must exist somewhere.
I think Raul Ibanez thinks of “bad defense” in the obvious sense. Guy who make a lot of errors and doesn’t give 100% effort on every play.
If I’m not mistaken defensive metrics, like pretty much all of the more advanced stats, compare players with each other. Raul is listed among the worst not because he doesn’t give it his all or makes a lot of errors. It’s because he can’t field his position anywhere near as well as the average LF defender. And it’s pretty much due to factors he can’t do much about. His lack of speed and range is what dooms him.
Thankfully, this is no longer our problem. I will always be thankful for Raul’s offensive contributions but to maximize his value to his ballclub he needs to stay off the field.
Let me raise an issue I doubt anyone is going to like to hear: the body of people posting on this site give Raul and those who comment on the Times site cover when we insist on having it both ways.
Example 1: yesterday, there were a lot of (rightfully) critical comments aimed at one commenter who claimed that outfield defense was less important than the quality of a bullpen. The thread among those who disagreed was that this guy had to bring some sort of statistical evidence (again rightfully) for his assertions in order to have any standing.
But in assessing Raul in the field, there have been several comments in this and the previous post that say, in essence, “I don’t need sabremetrics–I’ve seen you play, Raul, and you just suck out there”.
If you don’t want to state the statistical reasons for this statement, you’re doing the same thing you criticized the defense-vs-bullpen guy for doing yesterday.
Yes, I understand that these Raul stats have been dealt with repeatedly at USSM…but for people just dropping by, this gives credence to posters on other sites saying USSM has an axe to grind or a bias against a specific player.
To conclude, you may all say you don’t give a damn what those other people think…but it still doesn’t diminish the hypocrisy. If you want to devolve into ‘gut feel’ from watching either at the ballpark or on TV, you’re retarding progress in making the team better.
Obviously I agree that Ibanez is wrong about his defensive limitations, but I would disagree about the perception bias point. There is obviously a serious gap between the worldview of the “sabermetric community” and the “media community”, so it would be natural for their own personal biases to diverge as well. The fact that defensive statistics are often at odds with perceptions in the media doesn’t necessarily prove that defensive metrics are bias free.
Personally, I think bias represents one of the most likely ways for defensive statistics to be skewed. It doesn’t have to be about personal bias against certain players either, it can be the bias introduced by overvaluing certain skillsets at the expense of others. The bias towards players who make relatively few errors, or who have a flare for the dramatic is readily apparent in the media camp, but there will inevitably be less visible biases present amongst those involved with the more advanced defensive metrics as well.
With that said, I can’t think of any particular reason why there’d be bias against Ibanez: he just isn’t very good.
No.
If you read yesterday’s thread, you’ll see that people were asking Lance for any kind of evidence, observational or not, that would support his arguments.
Here, if Ibanez wants to discard defensive statistics and rely on observation — and he does, because the stats are mean to him — it’s entirely valid to counter “okay, let’s accept your argument for a moment, and consider that even that standard of evaluation results in you being branded a bad defensive outfielder.”
w/r/t bias –
Okay, but you’re now arguing that there’s a stathead bias and a media bias and for some reason these differ. But why? How does the stathead bias diverge? Given the vast power of media engines like ESPN, do you really think that one year random chance brands Michael Young as bad and then there’s a band of hardy dissenters who forever taint all data afterwards to show that he’s bad?
That seems needlessly complicated and a lot less likely than “Young sucks defensively”.
Moreover, the skillset issue doesn’t matter. If a player is amazingly fast and catches everything he gets to but runs in the wrong direction 75% of the time, that’s just as not valuable as being really slow, or of average speed and unsteady technique. It’s the wonder of advanced defensive stats: they even all that out into “how many outs did this fielder produce compared to his peers?”
Derek,
I think you make my point:
In other words:
Critic A: I saw you play and you stink
Player: I’m OUT THERE playing, and I don’t stink.
Two observations. How do you prove one wrong? I think statistics. If not, it all appears subjective.
I think USSM gets a bad rap as a place where people who inordinately hate Raul Ibanez come to share their hatred.
That’s an undeserved reputation.
I’ve witnessed countless occasions where the writers on this site and many of the main contributors to the comments on their posts have complimented Raul for what he does well.
However, there is an unwillingness for most of us here to automatically buy into the unswerving “You Gotta Love These Guys” mentality that tends to be so pervasive in the mainstream coverage of the team, fueled by many of the average fans.
If even Saint Edgar would have played third base throughout his glory years, there’d have been a resounding chorus of “But he’d be so much better as our DH” here on USSM.
(And when Raul wondered why, if he was so bad at defense, were so many National League teams trying to sign him…the snarky answer is “Because they didn’t get to watch you game after game in KC or Seattle.” But saying that would suggest that I don’t like Raul…which I’ve assured my wife countless times isn’t the case.)
And diderot, I think you…like Raul…are missing a step or two.
Here’s what you broke it down as…
But here’s a more accurate break down
Critic A: The numbers say you’re not a strong defender.
Player: Forget what the numbers say…they’re just numbers. I’m OUT THERE playing and I don’t stink.
Critic A: Well, even if you dismiss the numbers, you’re observably not very good.
You’re right, that last statement is just an opinion–but it’s an opinion offered after the unilateral and subjective dismissal of the previously offered statistical evidence.
You can’t, taking the side of the player, say “Oh, well, that’s just an opinion…where are your numbers?”–after the use of numbers have been dismissed.
But that wasn’t my point. I think most people, here or elsewhere, think Raul is a worthy enough human being as to be above ‘hatred’. The idea is the basis on which his defense is viewed, and all I’m asking for is consistency–it’s either by someone’s numbers or someone’s personal opinion/observation.
Nnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooo, I don’t prove your point at all. I see what you’re saying, but the observational is not “good/bad” and you shrug your shoulders and call it even. It’s “I’m a good defensive outfielder” versus “compared to your peers, anyone who watches finds that you run extremely slowly. You would lose a 50m run to an arthritic tortoise towing a trailer of lead ingots. In fact, if I remember, you did, during a mid-season promotion.”
And again — we’re not an only-stats author group. The consistency is we’ll seek any information we can get that’s useful and applicable.
If you’re looking for consistently pure numbers-based analysis, this is not the site for you.
Are TD spikes in the outfield not covered by sabermetrics? Maybe he was trying to crush one of those bees that Gammons was talking about.
OK, I can see I’m not being very clear on this…it’s not about Raul at all, it’s about how others may view this site (assuming that this a concern to you guys at all)…
pgreyy…exactly…but if it’s ‘previously offered statistical evidence’, then it assumes that everyone who drops by here is familiar with that previously offered evidence. Thus, the observation has a basis in fact. If that’s not made clear, it feels like pure opinion.
Derek…The reason I agree with you that you can’t call observation even is because there are underlying data that tilt the scales one way or the other. Otherwise, you have people who went a game once (or even people in the organization who watched every game) who say that they saw a guy out in left who day in and day out hustled, dove for balls, leaped against the fence without fear…and even made a few catches that were worthy of inclusion on web gems a few times a year.
In order for that ‘eyewitness observation’ to be discounted is to prove to those people that other fielders would have made that catch against the wall look easy…because they already would have been standing there waiting for the ball to descend.
So, to return to my main thought: there are people who visit this site daily, who understand or want to understand baseball statistics better, and this seems like the best place to learn through the prism of the Mariners. For them, all of the ‘previously offered evidence’ is known.
But there are also people who stop by who are fans, and probably members of the Mariners organization, who could also actually learn something.
Maybe Z has already cured that issue inside the Mariners. The early evidence is good. But it also seems beneficial if the everyday fan understands that sometimes moves are made for ‘no names’ that actually help.
Why should it not be your goal to make Street and the Times commenters knowledgeable too?
I’ve never observed USSM as a place where there was Raul hate. He wasn’t Turbo or Sexson or WFB or Silva. Derek and Dave and most USSM commenters are, in general, fans of Raul as a hitter and loved having him as a Mariner. What we have done consistently is to acknowledge that despite the good things he did, he was (a) a poor fielder who belonged at DH; and (b) the Mariners were losing games because he was not playing DH and instead was playing left field. Moreover, we in general opposed giving him an extension (certainly not one as long or as expensive as what he got from the Phillies) because of his age and likely downward curve of production. That’s not hate, that’s a reasoned position that has been supported with statistics.
At this point, diderot, I don’t understand what you’re saying any more.
As to the last comment, I’m a little annoyed that you’d imply that we’re not trying that now– that our many-year attempt to build an educated, passionate fan base for the M’s somehow excludes people who comment on the Seattle Times website.
There’s no pay barrier here, and you can read every article we’ve written since day 1 if you’re inclined. You can argue that we’ve failed to educate or bring in everyone, but I absolutely reject any contention that we haven’t tried or aren’t trying.
OK, this has spun out of control.
I am not trying to accuse or annoy anyone. For the record, I think this site is a gem, and I’m very happy to hear you reassert that you want to educate and attract as many people as possible.
My only intention was to make suggestions on how to better achieve that goal.
Keep up the good work.
Of course they differ, personal biases are determined by personality and the skillsets/other aspects of the game a person values. It’s obvious that the mainstream media has a different take on the game than the sabermetric community, so it’s perfectly natural that, on average, they’ll have biases towards different types of players (if bias exists in the first place).
Let’s take it beyond the limited issue of defensive statistics and just talk about bias in general. The mainstream media values batting average, intangibles, clutch hitting, big personalities and a host of other things more than the sabermetric community, so if there is to be bias in their judgements it’s liable to centre on these factors. In contrast, the sabermetric community values completely different skillsets/qualities, so if there’s to be bias amongst members of that community, it’s liable to be towards players who exhibit the qualities which are valued. I don’t think there’s anything particularly controversial about saying that.
No, this is taking the point to a rather absurd extreme—what Ibanez wrongly does in his interview. What I’m saying is that on a small scale I can see the potential for bias to skew defensive statistics. The very fact that they’re based, in part, on subjective judgements, as opposed to the absolutes which govern hitting/pitching stats, opens the potential for bias (see below).
Well, take the plus/minus methodology, for instance, which centres on comparing plays with other plays which have/haven’t been made by other players. You’ve got a whole host of issues with how you determine the similarity of plays (the Fielding Bible goes into an almost impenetrable level of detail on the subject). If it were a simple tally and comparison of outs then there would be little potential for bias, but life is rarely so simple.
diderot –
I think part of the problem is that you are comparing two different things: evaluating a player’s skill, and quantifying that player’s value.
Observation is a fine way to evaluate a player’s skill, though it should be paired with statistics too. Hell, observation is scouting.
Yesterday, the discussion regarded the value of defense or relief pitching to a team. Observations did not factor into that; the commenter offered merely his opinions, with either no support or absurd rationalizations.
Regarding Ibanez, it’s fine to assert something like, “I’ve watched him in nearly every game for the last couple of years, and he looks terrible/ok/great out there.” Of course, the more detail, the more persuasive the observational argument. And statistics or masses of supporting/contrary observations can be used to show that the commenter’s observation is likely to be right/wrong. However, it is not fine to say, Ibanez might suck at defense, but I don’t think that’s important because I had a delicious slice of pizza tonight.
I’m still not buying this. You’re now arguing that there can be bias in individual scoring decisions because they’re difficult to evaluate. Sure. But that doesn’t explain at all why that would systematically discriminate against Raul.
Then on the stathead bias, there’s a nebulous set of qualities that statheads might value/be biased in favor of (I’m not quite sure what this is, exactly, but never mind that for a second). But again, I don’t see how this is meaningful. If a player is slow and sure-handed and gets to a pop-up at location x,y to make an out, that’s evaluated the same way as a player who gets to a pop-up at location x,y much faster as long as the out is recorded.
You would have to believe that scorers systematically favored non-Raul-type players (presumably fast players who took good routes) by awarding them with outs they didn’t make, or by adjusting the ball data so it turns into a low-percentage play that doesn’t penalize their rating so much.
When you think about how this supposed bias would have to work in practice, and how it would have to work in order to unfairly discriminate against Raul, it quickly unravels.
To be frank, I’ve never been a huge Ibanez fan, and his interview with Baker makes me like him even less.
If you want stats to stop being mean to you, get MLB to change the rules to let you use a Segway out in the field.
Until then, you are what you are; a nice lefty hitter whose offensive value is almost entirely eliminated the moment you put on a glove.
A shoutout! Wheeee!
Seems like just yesterday that we were saying that no good conclusions could be drawn from the available defensive metrics.
I think it’s exciting that publicly available stats have come to the point where we’re even having this discussion.
For a slow guy who runs bad routes, Ibanez is a pretty good fielder.
I could imagine it being a lot worse if he didn’t take pride in his defense, even though he’s probably a “little” misguided, if he’s going to be out there, I’d say some delusions of grander couldn’t hurt.
Diderot, The problem is this: we have stats that show he’s a poor fielder; he wants to ignore those stats. We have stats that show he’s bad, but more than that it’s visually obvious that compared to his peers he’s not very good.
Person A: The measurements say you’re bigger than a breadbox.
Raul: The stats aren’t right here, and we all know the TV adds 10lbs.
Person A: Well, I’ve seen you in person and you are obviously bigger than a breadbox.
Consistency? The guy has already said that he doesn’t believe the stats; why state again “the stats say you’re bigger than a breadbox.†It’s already been said.
If you were trying to make the suggestion that to alleviate confusion for new viewers that USSM prefers objective stats to subjective feelings; that makes sense – but I don’t think it’s really necessary in this case. Not to mention if they had to add references to past articles writing the blog could get very tedious. I’d rather them spend time writing new stuff, rather than having a paragraph, “in the last issue of USSM we learned..”
Stats and scouting are both valuable, and should always be used in combination whenever they are available.
The problem Ibanez has is, both stats and scouting say that he is a terrible fielder.
The thing is, Raul has a great glove. He almost never bobbbles a ball, and he can made some amazing grabs (like that one he snatched from behind as it was going over the fence). He hustles and plays hard out there. Watching a game on TV, where the camera follows the ball and you only see the fielder at the last moement, he looks pretty good in the field.
The camera doesn’t usually catch the bad routes, and doesn’t show how slowly he covers ground. It just shows either the ball falling in ten feet away from him, or else him making a sure-handed grab (or a niftly sliding catch). And on TV the ball that falls ten feet away from Raul looks pretty much the same as the ball that falls ten feet away from Ichiro. It’s only the occasional wide shot (or the defensive zone metrics) that show the difference.
I can understand a casual fan overestimating Raul’s defense. I’m a little more perplexed at Raul himself. He’s got to know that he’s covering less ground.
No offense fellas. But I side with the guy who just got a 31 million dollar contract to play the game. Sorry. Bad defense or not, he was pursued by several teams needing an outfielder with some power. Why are we so wrapped up in defense all of a sudden? Yes we needed to improve our defense. But not at the expense of an offense. With all due respect Dave and Derek, give the guy a little respect. Raul was the last guy that was at fault for all the horribleness we had to endure as Mariner fans last year. He was one of the lone bright spots on the Mariners last season. So you can take all your stats and predict all you want. He was one of the best if not THE best player on the Mariners last year. I’m not asking that you worship the guy or even put him on a pedestal. But calling him sucky because he defended his defense in the most politically correct way he could? Call him out, but don’t call him names. That’s pretty sad. At least give him the respect he deserves.
Beniitec –
Did you not read the last paragraph of Derek’s post? Or his entire post? I’m not sure how much more respectful it could be. There’s nothing disrespectful about saying Ibanez is bad at defense, just like it isn’t disrespectful to say, “Mendoza hit .200. That’s bad.” Sure, if the barrista at Starbucks handing him his coffee also mentions, “boy, you sure are terrible out in the field. Room for cream?”, that would be disrespectful, but this is a baseball blog.
I think people are being a little harsh on Raul. First of all, no where does he explicitly state that the defensive metrics are “stacked against him”, though yes it is somewhat implied. He’s voicing reasonable complaints about the defensive metrics that many of us agree with. He’s defending his reputation, correctly or incorrectly, in a reasonably diplomatic manner. It’s entirely possible he knows he’s not the greatest defender but in public says stuff like this to keep his stock high. Who would intentionally sabotage their stock publicly? How many of us are completely honest in job interviews? When asked about our flaws, has anyone here ever actually said “well, to be honest I really just dick away most of my work hours on baseball websites”? It’s not exactly the same thing, but it’s similar. Truthfully or not, Raul is making himself look as appealing to potential employers as he can. I’m not excusing it or saying that it’s OK, but come on… who here HASN’T done that? Raul’s just in the unfortunate situation where all of this is made public.
Something about “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” seems appropriate here.
Actually, that’d be pretty hilarious.
Quick, someone find out what Starbucks he goes to!
It seems he’s trying to preserve his reputation without ever directly saying he’s a good fielder or even laying down any lines that could be taken out of context to imply that. He’s a smart guy, that’s for sure.
Beniitec:
I didn’t call Ibanez sucky. I didn’t call him names. Stop making shit up.
And I don’t see where I’m not paying him respect.
DMZ–I think Beniitec is referring to the title of this post…the “suckiness” which I recognize as being tied to his defense as discussed in the previous post.
That is only implied, however…one would have to make a cognitive leap to understand the context with which this post is connected to the other post–and like diderot’s point (that the defensive stats that Raul wants to dismiss should be posted again whenever commenting on Raul’s defensive liabilities), it seems more and more everyone wants everything spelled out precisely.
…preferably in bite sized chunks, that don’t account for snark, sarcasm or for every possible way that someone could be offended or every other possible view being taken into account.
Good luck, writers!
8 hours of somewhat rancorous debate later, I have to congratulate Derek on the opening come-backer:
Kunkoh
“It’s like asking him if his girlfriend/wife is ugly.”
DMZ
“I guess it depends which one of them is present at the time.”
Damn if that’s not one of the funniest things I’ve read on USSM in a good long while.
As to Ibanez.
Nice guy. Never heard a bad word about him. Good hitter (apart from the first 3 months of 2007 when he should have been on the DL).
Lousy defender. Never looked great. Has looked bad for some time now. Long flies coast over his head for doubles; line drives drop in front of him. Looks like a DH playing the field.
Raul actually managed to look “better” in 2008 than in 2007, but only because in 2007 he’d have looked “better” chasing flyballs in a motorised wheel-chair. [Dear lord, the outfield in early 2007, with Ibanez playing hurt in left and Jose Guillen playing hurt in right, was a horror to behold. It was almost as bad to look at as the Winn/Cameron/Ichiro outfield was good.]
Philly made a dumb move. Raul will be back in the AL within a season or two.
On that basis, Richie Sexson was a better player last year than Ibanez will be this year. Barry Zito must be great, look at his contract. Statistical analysis and projection are not always right (few picked the M’s to suck quite as much as they did last year), but they’re pretty good at finding contracts that make no sense. I’d be very happy if Raul overcame his slowness and his aging and was worth the money to the Phillies. But very surprised.
I believe the term is “asked and answered”.
Something I’ve said before (including, to brag, to Derek’s face at lunch once) is that I don’t think it’s really a player’s job to have a realistic idea of their own capabilities. Any major league player, from Pujols to Bloomquist, needs to have a nearly pathological level of self-confidence just to get from being the best player on their high school team to being one of the few hundred people on the planet that get to play major league baseball.
Ibanez’s attitude, that he rocks and if the stats say that he doesn’t rock, the stats are wrong, is inevitably going to be very common amongst players, simply because believing that one rocks is a very useful mindset for, in fact, rocking to any degree whatsoever. Even Bloomquist, who is convinced that he rocks, rocks as much as he does, in part, because he believes that it is within his skillset to rock.
Aside: There’s some very interesting neuro-psychological research being done recently on optimism, learned helplessness, and locus-of-control issues that supports all this, both in baseball and in life in general. It’s fascinating stuff.
It’s really a manager’s and a GM’s job to recognize the true skill set and abilities of any player they have or might acquire, and then to deploy that player as effectively as possible. Basvasi was very bad at this. Zduriencik appears to be much better. But in any case, it’s not really Ibanez’s job to tell Bavasi that he (Ibanez) sucks in left field and that Bavasi should dump Vidro and put him in at DH.
With regard to Raul’s defense, advanced defensive metrics and scouts (trained eye) agree. It’s an ideal confluence that suggests the reasoned argument concluding he has negative defensive value is the strongest one possible given where we are at with evaluating defense.
In my mind, the only real issue concerning his defensive value is the exact run value associated with his poor play.
I’m not sure if this was meant as criticism or offered as proof that the site authors have a flaw in their analysis due to a bias toward plus defenders.
If Edgar would’ve had to play third base during his glory years, it’s very likely that his negative defensive value might have shaved 1 to 2 wins off of his value each season.
Or he will be out of baseball, if he falls of the cliff a la Sexson.
Beniitec, care to back this up?
I’d be interested to see how you justify ranking Raul above, say, Beltre or Ichiro in total value last season. Or Felix, to make it more complex. At least that would give us something to discuss, something that maybe uses quantitative data?
I’m sure many of you have read this. I probably got a link here from this site, but for those who haven’t, this Bill James article may be very helpful in this discussion.
http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbible/jeter.asp
(sorry, I couldn’t get the hyperlink to work for some reason)
James uses statistics to show the differences between Jeter and Everett, but he also uses his own eyes. None of the defensive metrics are perfect. I won’t pretend to understand what goes into all of them, but the fact that even the best stat guys use more than one indicates that they believe there are flaws. I’m guessing most people here would agree that the opinions of even the best scouts are ultimately subjective. But, at the same, I don’t think we can completely throw away the opinions of an educated observer. They may be able to see something the stats miss. So, if Ibanez is correct in saying that baseball people think his defense is OK, then we can’t just dismiss this even if though it is counter to the stats. However, from all I’ve read, Ibanez is not correct. The good baseball analysts say that his defense is every bit as lousy as the stats indicate.
Oh, the hyperlink did work.
Apologies for the late reply (I was asleep), but I’d hoped I’d made it clear that I wasn’t trying to argue there is a systematic bias against Raul Ibanez, I was speaking generally about the potential for bias to skew defensive statistics. That’s what I’m interested in: the potential flaws in baseball statistics and how you go about improving their accuracy.
On stathead bias, my point was initially that it would differ from media bias, if it existed at all. What you’re arguing here is essentially that there isn’t any real potential for stathead bias in defensive statistics (though presumably you would accept that there is a great deal of bias present in the media camp towards certain types of players/plays).
I disagree with this. For a start, it doesn’t have to function as bias towards a single player, where every play is systematically altered to present that player in a worse light. That’s what Ibanez was wrongly arguing and is merely the point taken to its most extreme. What I’m saying isn’t that Ibanez is correct, but that there are many smallscale biases which can enter defensive metrics and skew the results.
It is almost impossible, as Dewan (to stick with plus/minus) accepts, to come up with a flawless system for determining the difficulty of a play. They’ve gone into a huge amount of detail trying to involve the location of the ball, the speed, the type of hit and numerous other factors to try and draw up a typology of similar plays; yet there’s still no easy answer to the problem. Is a slow moving ball hit into a location futher away harder to field than a fast moving ball hit into a location closer to the fielder? One requires foot speed and the other requires quick reactions. How similar do two separate plays have to be before they can be meaningfully compared in the plus/minus system?
All of these problems raise the potential for bias, even if it’s not a systematic bias that makes Raul Ibanez look like a terrible fielder. The case against Ibanez is clear cut—everyone who takes defensive analysis seriously agrees he can’t field—but that doesn’t mean bias never enters defensive metrics.
This is a really good point. Philly fans are like the howling winds of Tarterus. Nothing can withstand their wrath.
Re: players being capable of realistic self-appraisal, here’s this from Bill James (it’s in the Historical Baseball Abstracts):
Maybe it was different in the 1880s . . .
if the park in Philly makes his offense look even better, will the PhillyPhans overlook his defense?
terry wrote:
It was meant as a compliment to (and an unnecessary defense of) the writers on this site and the majority of USSM commenters who champion clear headed analysis…
Players beloved here tend to be those with undeniable skills–but even they (be it Saint Edgar in my fantasy example above or even He-Who-Cannot-Be-Called-King Felix over the past couple of years) are not above clear headed analysis of how their skills might better help the team.
Players who take heat on this site have earned that heat–perhaps not always by virtue of their own lack of abilities but sometimes by how they are being utilized.
My point in saying what I did above, I thought was clear… Raul hasn’t been unfairly disrespected on USSM. He just hasn’t been unconditionally loved. What respect he has here he earned…same with the criticisms that he’s received–he earned those.
Simple as that…and, like Raul in Philly, we should be moving on…
Clearly no one can reliably estimate the value of Raul’s glove because, well, Gillick has hardware. I guess that’s why they play the games.
Seriously I don’t get the notion that the existence of opposing opinions makes it impossible to reach a conclusion on an issue.
Good God, imagine a juror defaulting to the lawyer with “hardware” because both the prosecution and defense constructed opposing arguments (which I’d imagine encompasses about 99.9% of all trials in the USA).
Not all arguments are created of equal strength.
Professional scouts think Raul’s defense sucks. The fans think Raul’s defense sucks. Advanced defensive metrics think Raul’s defense sucks. One side of that argument is clearly carrying the day (and it’s not Raul’s).
Really, about the only individuals claiming Raul’s contract is a good one is those who don’t think defense matters much. That of course is a different argument altogether. As for Gillick, I’m not sure what he has to do with the series of decisions that the Philly FO has made this month……
Not really Paul. Especially with the four letter response I got from the site author. I’ve read enough here to know better. Regular stats aren’t good enough here. Anyone here can mosy over to the mlb.com website and do sortable statistics to see what I meant. But hey, why say anything? I’m not a stats major, or a “sabermetric guru for fun”. So there’s no way I’m going to win a “discussion” here. But thanks.
HA HA HA it’s funny because you made up some stuff and then I got mad about it. Yeah! We’re at fault there! Yup!
HA! You’re hilarious. Lets see how this sounds… “Let me be more specific about Zumsteg’s suckiness.” Now, that sounds bad. It really does. And I wouldn’t go there. Yes, it’s a blog where opinions abound. But that’s disrespectful. I was just saying, give the man some respect. That’s all. That was my point. Sorry if it came across rudely. That wasn’t my intent.
I can’t imagine you find USSM an enjoyable experience if you can read that post and come away with that impression.
DMZ USSM is awesome. I think you have a reader with a man-crush on Ibanez…
I’m a baseball fan.
I read because I enjoy baseball.