2058 - Defensive Plays Above Average

[RonCo]

BBA DEFENSE BY PLAYS MADE ABOVE AVERAGE: 6/30/2058

TEAM	GB	FB	LD(IF)	LD(OF)	TOTAL
San Antonio Outlaws	21.6	12.2	3.0	10.7	47.5
Hawaii Tropics	25.8	14.9	-1.6	5.3	44.3
Vancouver Mounties	28.8	10.4	-2.4	3.8	40.6
Sacramento Mad Popes	26.4	9.8	0.0	0.0	36.2
Louisville Sluggers	13.4	9.1	-2.2	15.5	35.8
Omaha Cyclones	25.1	4.4	1.1	-4.0	26.5
San Fernando Bears	17.5	-3.1	4.1	6.7	25.1
Valencia Stars	6.7	2.4	4.6	5.5	19.2
Long Beach Surfers	11.6	6.2	2.5	-4.6	15.7
Chicago Black Sox	9.6	3.5	1.1	1.0	15.1
Yellow Springs Nine	9.0	1.5	-1.4	4.4	13.5
Nashville Bluebirds	-13.0	14.0	-1.7	14.0	13.2
Boise Spuds	-0.4	7.4	4.0	0.0	11.0
Twin Cities River Monsters	21.5	-2.3	-7.4	-1.9	9.9
Montreal Blazers	18.6	-8.8	-0.3	-3.8	5.9
New Orleans Crawdads	-12.5	0.4	5.7	9.3	2.9
League	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Atlantic City Gamblers	3.3	-2.2	1.3	-3.1	-0.8
Mexico City Aztecs	-11.0	0.1	2.1	5.1	-3.7
Madison Wolves	9.2	-4.5	0.0	-8.8	-4.2
Calgary Pioneers	-3.9	1.5	6.2	-8.3	-4.5
Las Vegas Hustlers	-13.3	2.5	3.3	-0.5	-8.1
Charlotte Flyers	-11.3	-0.6	-0.8	2.1	-10.6
Portland Lumberjacks	-4.3	-4.5	-4.2	1.0	-11.9
Rocky Mountain Oysters	-10.4	-7.1	0.3	5.3	-12.0
Des Moines Kernels	-9.0	-3.7	2.0	-2.8	-13.4
Charm City Jimmies	-9.0	-5.0	2.0	-1.4	-13.5
Phoenix Talons	-7.7	3.2	-3.8	-10.8	-19.1
Rockville Pikemen	-8.1	-10.1	-0.8	-0.8	-19.8
Jacksonville Hurricanes	-17.1	-0.6	-2.8	-6.2	-26.6
Bikini Krill	-16.3	-20.2	-4.4	-6.1	-47.0
Edmonton Jackrabbits	-45.0	-13.4	-4.8	-7.9	-71.1
Brooklyn Robins	-55.4	-17.2	-4.9	-18.7	-96.3

[mragland]

San Antonio's in the wrong league.

[BaseClogger]

Wow, yeah, the difference in defense between the two leagues is staggering.

[Dington]

I’ve been playing Ramos over Triska and Cano more often, so hopefully my infield defense improves.

[RonCo]

At one point, someone asked for this split by division. So I decided to do it this way this time. What the hell, right? It's definitely interesting...

BBA DEFENSE BY PLAYS MADE ABOVE AVERAGE: 7/14/2058

Atlantic Division

TEAM		GB	FB	LD(IF)	LD(OF)	TOTAL
Montreal Blazers	ATL	20.79	-14.51	-0.80	-1.16	4.31
Atlantic City Gamblers	ATL	3.46	0.88	0.81	-2.38	2.77
Charlotte Flyers	ATL	-8.54	2.95	0.21	4.58	-0.80
New Orleans Crawdads	ATL	-13.32	-1.60	4.54	8.11	-2.27
Charm City Jimmies	ATL	-1.34	-5.16	3.04	0.00	-3.47
Rockville Pikemen	ATL	-5.82	-7.49	-0.22	-1.89	-15.42
Jacksonville Hurricanes	ATL	-13.32	4.54	-3.46	-5.70	-17.94
Brooklyn Robins	ATL	-61.95	-17.35	-4.58	-23.94	-107.83

On the whole, the Montreal Blazer's defense isn't a lot to write home about, but in the Atlantic Division, not writing home about something apparetnly makes you pretty damned good. At the end of the day, it's really a pretty tighet division, with only 22 plays above average separateing the pack.

And then there's Brooklyn.

Frontier Division

TEAM		GB	FB	LD(IF)	LD(OF)	TOTAL
San Antonio Outlaws	FRO	22.32	8.98	2.05	11.77	45.11
Boise Spuds	FRO	-4.71	7.49	2.66	1.89	7.33
Mexico City Aztecs	FRO	-11.40	4.56	1.43	3.73	-1.69
Calgary Pioneers	FRO	-3.63	1.98	6.85	-7.23	-2.03
Rocky Mountain Oysters	FRO	-9.98	-6.23	1.95	3.80	-10.46
Las Vegas Hustlers	FRO	-20.13	1.83	2.97	-0.18	-15.51
Phoenix Talons	FRO	-13.32	-2.36	-3.53	-6.95	-26.16
Edmonton Jackrabbits	FRO	-48.73	-16.15	-4.60	-10.32	-79.80

The Outlaws can really play defense, right? Of course, they're in 7th place right now when you tally the win column. So...maybe defense isn't all that it's made out to be? WIth Phoenix and Calagary at the top of the division, you do have to wonder, right?

Heartland Division

TEAM		GB	FB	LD(IF)	LD(OF)	TOTAL
Louisville Sluggers	HRT	11.43	11.85	-2.09	15.64	36.83
Omaha Cyclones	HRT	28.69	7.33	0.89	-4.95	31.95
Nashville Bluebirds	HRT	-9.23	10.84	-1.88	15.86	15.58
Yellow Springs Nine	HRT	11.20	0.72	-2.96	6.17	15.13
Chicago Black Sox	HRT	9.04	3.63	1.13	-3.01	10.79
Twin Cities River Monsters	HRT	19.04	-2.36	-7.20	0.24	9.72
Madison Wolves	HRT	13.74	-5.23	-0.75	-9.88	-2.13
Des Moines Kernels	HRT	-10.27	1.82	1.49	0.78	-6.18

As we'll see, the PAcific has a better top end when it comes to defense, but all down the line, the Heartland makes a case as the best division in baseball when it comes to throwing down the leather. No one totally sucks. And Louisville and Omaha lead the pack. Omaha's tied for second with TWC. Louisville is 10 games under .500.

Pacific Division

TEAM		GB	FB	LD(IF)	LD(OF)	TOTAL
Sacramento Mad Popes	PAC	29.34	9.78	-0.16	2.75	41.71
Hawaii Tropics	PAC	19.72	13.81	1.23	3.92	38.68
Vancouver Mounties	PAC	28.82	10.32	-3.57	0.64	36.22
San Fernando Bears	PAC	20.13	-2.35	4.19	3.92	25.89
Valencia Stars	PAC	9.82	0.49	5.09	5.51	20.92
Long Beach Surfers	PAC	11.93	3.09	3.57	-4.68	13.90
Portland Lumberjacks	PAC	-1.72	-6.82	-2.62	0.27	-10.89
Bikini Krill	PAC	-22.06	-19.27	-5.68	-7.29	-54.29

Take Bikini oout of the mix, and you've got a pretty damned good division. Portland at 10 plays below average isn't horrible, an the rest are simply sublime. The problem, of course, is that you can't take the Krilll out of the division at this point, no matter how much they'd like to.

[Dington]

Looks like playing Ramos more has helped. Hate that I’m so bad at ground balls, though.

[Bob Breum]

Our plan is for our groundball pitchers to induce groundballs to our elite infield defenders. Our staff leads the BBA in GO%, and it's not close. The GB stat seems to support this, as we are relatively highly ranked in this regard. Since the metric is "above average," is the FB deficit due to a lack of chances?

Range factor varies with GB/FB ratio. If most putouts are GBs in the infield, the team's OF will show a poor RF. Is this is a similar situation? Our 1B Aldo, 2B Martinez, SS Mahdi, and 3B Gonzalez all lead the BBA in RF at their respective positions. This is not because they are the very best at their position, but rather because more balls are hit to them. The majority of these are groundballs. Our LF and CF are respectable at their positions, but their RFs are low because they lack chances.

[shoeless.db]

I'll never understand Line Drive defense and how that is calculated. How are you not getting to fly balls but miraculously tracking down those liners in the gaps? Dumb.

[Lane]

I'll never understand Line Drive defense and how that is calculated. How are you not getting to fly balls but miraculously tracking down those liners in the gaps? Dumb.

i've always looked at LD as more luck based. (I don't know if that is correct though). So, I largely ignore it and just look at GB/FB for a more accurate assesment.

[Lane]

Looks like playing Ramos more has helped. Hate that I’m so bad at ground balls, though.

guess i gotta fill the lineup with GB hitters next time we matchup

[Dington]

Looks like playing Ramos more has helped. Hate that I’m so bad at ground balls, though.

guess i gotta fill the lineup with GB hitters next time we matchup

You do that.

[RonCo]

Our plan is for our groundball pitchers to induce groundballs to our elite infield defenders. Our staff leads the BBA in GO%, and it's not close. The GB stat seems to support this, as we are relatively highly ranked in this regard. Since the metric is "above average," is the FB deficit due to a lack of chances?

Range factor varies with GB/FB ratio. If most putouts are GBs in the infield, the team's OF will show a poor RF. Is this is a similar situation? Our 1B Aldo, 2B Martinez, SS Mahdi, and 3B Gonzalez all lead the BBA in RF at their respective positions. This is not because they are the very best at their position, but rather because more balls are hit to them. The majority of these are groundballs. Our LF and CF are respectable at their positions, but their RFs are low because they lack chances.

You're asking a good question. And the answer is: yes, the number of balls in zone will affect your team's Plays Above Average. The PAA metric basically says "given your team's actual BIP in each zone, how did you do relative to what the average defense would have done?" So, really, the polarity will be "right," but the magnitude could vary due to BIP variance between the team. If, for example, your team only gets 100 chances, and another team gets 200 chances, and both of your defenses are equal, then the other team will score a higher magnitude of plays.

So, Montreal's poor performance in the outfield is not really due to number of balls in play, though the number is better than it could be. I say that because...

Regarding FB, here are the current numbers for FB by team broken out by depth of those FB.

Per your stated goal, it seems that Montreal is being successful at limiting FB (increasing GB? I would guess so, but obviously, I'd have to look). The team's 645 FB is 5th fewest in baseball, and the fewest in the Johnson League by a fair distance. However, the polarity of your team's performance is negative relative to the average. (That said, the average includes all the Frick League teams, and our schedules don't include them...so it might be better if I could change the script to do this via Leagues...sheesh...that's work. < insert patented Ron Collins smile for Sean here > ).

Now, also note that defensive performance is notoriously difficult to pin down by the numbers in only 90 or so games.

[RonCo]

I'll note that the standard Montreal fielding metrics page is not particularly exciting: https://statspl.us/brewster/reports/new ... stats.html

[RonCo]

Here is a gussied up look at Montreal's FB defense by zone. The key items are BIZ, and OUTs, which I use to calculate each team's efficiency. I then lay out the league efficiency, and then calculate your PAA for each zone based on your team's actual BIZ in each zone.

[RonCo]

It could also be of interest to note that the metric can be influenced by -where- the types of BIP go. For example, here is the scatter of Line Drives by zone and by team. Note that Hawaii, who has a pretty good "Line Drive Defense" by the PAA metric, is probably helped out by the fact that only 7 times (once every 13 or so games?) has a Tropic opponent hit a line drive into an Extra-Deep zone. Compare that to a team like Louisville, who has seen that happen 33 times (about once every three games)

I note that Montreal has had, relatively, a lot of fly balls hit into deep zones. I would like to say that this is due in part to the great difficulty one has in hitting HR there--that balls that would have been out of the park in other places become "just" fly balls to extra-deep zones. That makes sense to me, and I could see that being properly in the game. But off the top of my head, I'm not sure how to test it.

[RonCo]

Just scanning the Montreal FB defensive chart, and without looking at ratings, I would say the Blazers have a pretty poor Right Fielder, probably a league average guy in Center (though that XD thing could make them look worse?), and a pretty solid guy in Left.

[RonCo]

Just cause I got interested, I looked at Montreal's infield GB defense. It's fascinating...esp at SS where Qutuz Mahdi is arguably having a pretty horrible season with 21 errors already. He's often had error problems in the past, with a career max of 31. There's a reasonable chance that he'll surpass that number this year.

He does, however, make such brilliant plays on balls in deep zones (about 9 plays above average there), that his -4 PAA on routine plays simply goes away. We see a similar thing at 2B, though, where Miguel Martinez has booted enough routine balls to drop his PAA in standard Zone 4, but has been able to use his range to more than make up for it on harder-hit balls.

It all makes me ponder internal OOTP neep, but I'm not sure what to make of it, yet.

Anyway, 1B looks to be about league average, 3B looks a touch above.

[Bob Breum]

Just scanning the Montreal FB defensive chart, and without looking at ratings, I would say the Blazers have a pretty poor Right Fielder, probably a league average guy in Center (though that XD thing could make them look worse?), and a pretty solid guy in Left.

Huerta's range in RF has decreased to the point where he is a liability. Based on ratings alone, I would agree with your statements, so I'm glad that the data backs them up.

[Bob Breum]

Anyway, 1B looks to be about league average, 3B looks a touch above.

Aldo at 1B has won multiple GGs, but his defense has dropped off a cliff over the last two seasons. Thank goodness he can still hit and run.

[Bob Breum]

I note that Montreal has had, relatively, a lot of fly balls hit into deep zones. I would like to say that this is due in part to the great difficulty one has in hitting HR there--that balls that would have been out of the park in other places become "just" fly balls to extra-deep zones. That makes sense to me, and I could see that being properly in the game. But off the top of my head, I'm not sure how to test it.

I had this same thought.