Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Sorry, I disagree. Wagner & Davis .940. Tinker and Wallace .938. Dahlen .927. I don't put too much weight on fielding percentage, but that is too big a gap. He was marginally better getting to balls based on assists, but why? Did his pitchers throw more ground balls? We just don't know. Over a 162 game average he fielded about 3 more balls than Davis, 11 more than Wallace and 30 more than Tinker. Those really aren't enough to make up for extra errors he made.
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fielding % is a worthless and terrible stat because it tells us nothing about range. a statue who could not move but made perfect plays on balls hit right to it would have a 1.000 fielding % but would be far worse at preventing hits than a player with great range who made 20 errors a year.
if the statue field 100 balls perfectly he makes 100 outs with 0 errors
player B with the great range might make 200 outs and 20 errors, obviously you prefer the latter
for example: since 2012 JJ Hardy leads among SS on fielding % with .987 and Andrelton Simmons is 4th with a .982 , HOWEVER, in defensive runs saved Hardy is 3rd with 58 a massive 68 behind Simmons. In UZR/150 games Simmons leads with 21.7 to Hardy's 11.9 so, if you just used fielding % you would be wayyyyy off on who the best SS glove in baseball is. Simmons is over twice as good at creating outs than Hardy, yet .005 worse in fielding % (because fielding % tells us nothing about the range if a player ,their arm, nor their ability to generate outs, it just tells us how good they did when they got to the ball)