re: 10 Best Defensive Baseball Players of All-Time-

Ichiro is a better OF than Griffey was IMO, though he plays an easier position.

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Even if I accept it, it's a flawed comparison. I

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It is flawed.

But Griffey's fielding plaudits are widely overrated, IMO. He had a flair for the dramatic, and the catch he made where he broke his wrist is, to this day, the best catch I've ever seen.

But by any advanced metric, Griffey doesn't rank. His career Defensive runs saved is -51. He's not even in the top 400 of Total Runs saved.

Ichiro is 30th, all time. His DRS is 113.

Of course, his arm is figured into these, so that is part of it.

If Ichiro is overrated for anything, it's his hitting prowess, IMO.

I'm gonna disagree. I don't think there's any way Ichiro is a better fielder than Griffey. I've watched both play my entire life and I don't think it's even close. Ichiro has a rocket arm, but has never even dove for a ball once in his life. I've even seen him flat out misread balls and drop routine ones every once in a while. And when I say that Ichiro is overrated, I mean that in terms of an all-time great fielder. I think he is one of the better ones that is currently playing, but no way all time.

Also, I haven't done hardly any research into how the defensive ratings are calculated, but every time I see them brought up, I've seen people dispute them saying that they aren't very accurate. What's the deal with those things? If a guy like Ichiro has one of the best outfielders I've ever seen in Franklin Gutierrez next to him, does that help his rating at all? And yes, I would rate Gutierrez above Ichiro any day of the week.

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Of course, there are a lot of elements at play when fielding.

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this is an understatement. It's why you cant trust any of them.


variable on top of variable on top of variable

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The only reason maz is in the HOF is because of his glove and his famous HR against the yankees. His bat was pretty terrible and he was inducted by the veteran's committee 30 years after he retired

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Whoops. My bad, I was posting semi-drunk last night, and I meant Yaz, not Maz.

He's mostly forgotten, but Cesar Cedeno could cover some centerfield..And Clemente's arm was totally legit

Clemente

My favorite player

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bddwolfpack

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Sorry on the mix up, I was wondering why you were so down on a helluva hitter like Yaz.

my thing with defensive metrics, like i mentioned before, are the many variables that come into play.

To start off, im not going to pretend i know the nuances of each metric. But, I can't imagine they take into account all of the variables i am about to list.


- Positioning; a lot of the players on the field, both infielders and OF's are moved with each at bat, shoot, some pitch by pitch, by the coaches. If the coach has them out of position to reach a ball, why are they penalized? Well of course you don't know who is totally responsible. Coach? Player?

Throw all that out of the window, how do they pinpoint the exact positioning of the fielder on every batted ball? It is pretty much impossible. Is it a small area in which they are positioned that is pinpointed? I mean there is such a small window on some balls that are catchable which makes even the tiniest variable important.

- Field conditions. Do they take into account turf vs natural grass? High grass infields vs short grass infields? Hard infield dirt to soft dirt? Not exactly as important in the OF, but longer grass could slow down the fielder's tract to the ball, especially when comparing to turf/artificial grass.

If Jimmy Rollins is playing on a fast infield surface in Philly and can't get to a ball, but Starlin Castro playing on the high Wrigley grass can get to the same ball, does that make Castro the better fielder? Do they even take that into account?


- The baseball. Can they track the velocity of the ball? Would be pretty hard to accurately do so, IMO. A properly positioned infielder may not be able to touch a ball because it is hit so hard, even though he was in position to make a play. Maybe a ball hit just 2-3 MPH slower would be catchable.

CAn they track balls hit with top spin? Those ball's take off once they hit the ground. They may look like a normal ground ball, but any infielder can tell you that a ball with top spin can only be noticed by that specific fielder, even though it looks like a normal ground ball. They scoot through the hole much quicker.

Can they measure the slice on a ball? Both in the infield and OF? A left handed hitter slicing a 1 or 2 hop lazy line drive through the 3B/SS hole is not the same as a righthanded hitter hitting one through that same hole, at the same speed and same trajectory. The one off the righthanded bat very well could be caught, but the lefthanded slice is pushing away from the fielder. Same example with an OF. A lefty slicing a ball in the gap or down the left field line can find a hole that some righthanded hits would not.

- Weather conditions. Day games battling the sun vs night games. Night games with high skies. West coast games with setting suns and shadows. Domes with white roofs. Wind. Precipitation.

Any of the above can affect jump on fly balls for outfielders. A lot of times we are talking a split second on some balls. It doesn't mean the OF doesn't get good jumps. It could just mean he cant see it. The slickness of the ball for infielders regarding throwing to 1st base. The way a ball takes off on wet grass.

- the speed of the runner. slow hit ground balls that a runner can either beat out or force a bad throw, or no throw at all. say an infielder fumbles the ball out his glove in a rush to make the play. Errors are arbitrary as it is. A dribbler to 3B by a catcher is an routine play. The same exact dribbler to 3B by Juan Pierre may not be.


Like I said, i don't know much about the stat, but if they can incorporate all of that then they have themselves one hell of a stat. It's easy to say that "oh they are just used to compare players". bullshite. No ball is hit the same, no field is managed the same, no weather forecast is the same, no batter is the same, etc etc.

Sure i might get ragged on for not being a believer in defensive metrics, but I watch enough baseball to tell me with my naked eye who is a good fielder and who isnt. It may sound cocky, oh well. Im just not one to throw out things like "Roberto Clemente was the best fielder in history".... ok, I didnt see him. He may have been. By all accounts he was great. But I'm not going to say he "shits on so and so" because defensive metrics say so. Or "Andruw Jones shits on Griffey". Come on. THat's your reasoning? This board just makes me mad some times. Everyone leaning on stats that other people compute. Many that are just plain silly. I miss the days when you can just talk baseball, man on man.

/end rant. Thats not directed at you, Baloo. Just general thoughts.

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There’s a lot reasons not to trust defensive metrics, but the biggest has to do with the fact that fielding is inherently collaborative. Let’s say you have a shortstop with incredible range – isn’t he going to take balls away from the third baseman? Wouldn’t that same third baseman, with absolutely no improvement, make more outs if he played with a worse shortstop? And then there’s the whole groundball/flyball pitcher dynamic. Or how there just aren’t many fielding outs to go around when a strikeout pitcher is on the hill.

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From my understanding, DRS is attempting to combat that, which is why they incorporate an "eyeball" element. But I could be way off.