Most overrated baseball stats????

[steve B]

Originally Posted by zachtruitt

An OF's arm has been historically overrated in defensive value. If Clemente had played CF then he may have rivaled Jones in dWAR. Errors cost bases and I doubt Clemente's OF assists overcome the bases lost to errors.

I don't entirely agree.

An outfielders throwing ability - at least for the ones with really good arms - leads into the sort of thing that isn't covered by stats. (I don't think, there might be something very recent)
The players with really good arms, -Ichiro, Dwight Evans, probably Clemente, although I haven't watched much video of him. At least those two after a fairly short time didn't get as many outfield assists, but did have a fair number of times when a player might have tried for a double or triple but decided against trying. You can see it happen watching the game, but there's not many easy ways to put a number to something that didn't happen. Especially if why it didn't happen is open to interpretation. Would the player have run against a different outfielder say Johnny Damon? Or was the extra base not taken because it wasn't likely against anyone?

Other players have more outfield assists and they're either ones with above average arms or quick releases. Manny Ramirez had a lot of OF assists, and while I never heard it discussed, watching a lot of games I began to think it was because he had this lazy looking approach to a routine single that encouraged people to try for second more often. Same thing for wall singles, meanders to the ball, looks like he's not paying much attention, then a quick catch and throw to second.

Again, hard to put numbers to, aside from the assists.

Errors today totally baffle me. Shortstop drops a fairly easily reached ball, and sometimes, maybe even usually it's scored a hit. Maybe the guys have better range so it would have been a nearly unreachable ball 30 years ago, but a drop on a ball in your own range should be an error.

Steve B

[Peter_Spaeth]

As I recall in his discussion of Clemente, Bill James takes on the value of the great outfield arm.

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As I recall in his discussion of Clemente, Bill James takes on the value of the great outfield arm.

This Nick Barnes guy is too much. Andruw Jones or Clemente? Hmmmmm, let me think...Andruw Jones was a joke as a hitter...To even hold him in the same breath as Clemente is beyond ridiculous, and I grew up in Atlanta as a Braves fan...And by the way, Clemente had the best arm I have ever seen....Vlad Guerrero is a close second

[nat]

Andruw Jones isn't nearly the player that Clemente was (and this is also what WAR says, Clemente leads Jones 94 to 62, so it's not even close). Clemente was a much better hitter (and had a longer career, even given, you know). Clemente did a much better job getting on base, even though he played in an offensive environment that was friendlier to pitchers than Jones did.

However, according to the data that we have, Andruw Jones was the greatest defensive outfielder of all time. He's 20th all-time in the defensive component of WAR (behind Brooks and a bunch of short stops, basically). Clemente is 160th in the defensive component of WAR.

Basically, the defensive component of WAR looks at every defensive thing that a player did on the field, asks how likely other players would have been to make the same play, and looks at, historically, what has happened if the play wouldn't have been made. So if player A makes a play that a run-of-the-mill fielder would have made only 80% of the time, and if a ball hit to this part of the ball park has historically led to 0.7 runs scoring, player A gets credit for (0.2 * 0.7) = 0.14 runs saved. And then you do this for each defensive play that he made, and add them all up. There are limitations to the defensive part of WAR (which I mentioned in a previous post in this thread). We now have very finely grained defensive data: we know exactly where each ball was hit, how hard it was hit, etc. We use that data when calculating modern players' WAR. We use less fine-grained data when calculating older players' WAR (because they didn't keep track of this information back then). There is, consequently, more room for error in older players' fielding records. Clemente may have been better than the data indicates - we just don't have any evidence that he was. And no, subjective impressions from watching him play don't count as evidence. Lots of people who saw Jeter play thought that he was a great defensive player, even though we have very detailed records of the plays that he made, and they were not, in fact, very impressive. He just looked impressive making mostly routine plays.

We've got lots of really bright people working really hard to figure out how to measure baseball performance. Let's help them. If you think that there's something wrong with WAR (and I do, as noted up-thread), let's figure out what's wrong with it, and how to fix it, so that it can become more accurate.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

This Nick Barnes guy is too much. Andruw Jones or Clemente? Hmmmmm, let me think...Andruw Jones was a joke as a hitter...To even hold him in the same breath as Clemente is beyond ridiculous, and I grew up in Atlanta as a Braves fan...And by the way, Clemente had the best arm I have ever seen....Vlad Guerrero is a close second

sorry, I just happen to know and understand more about baseball than you do. You are stuck in flat earth land. I have moved into the 21st century.

I hate to be like this, but your attitude, cursing and hand waving really leave me no choice. It's time to grow up, evolve with the times or GTFO the way.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by steve B

I don't entirely agree.

An outfielders throwing ability - at least for the ones with really good arms - leads into the sort of thing that isn't covered by stats. (I don't think, there might be something very recent)
The players with really good arms, -Ichiro, Dwight Evans, probably Clemente, although I haven't watched much video of him. At least those two after a fairly short time didn't get as many outfield assists, but did have a fair number of times when a player might have tried for a double or triple but decided against trying. You can see it happen watching the game, but there's not many easy ways to put a number to something that didn't happen. Especially if why it didn't happen is open to interpretation. Would the player have run against a different outfielder say Johnny Damon? Or was the extra base not taken because it wasn't likely against anyone?

Other players have more outfield assists and they're either ones with above average arms or quick releases. Manny Ramirez had a lot of OF assists, and while I never heard it discussed, watching a lot of games I began to think it was because he had this lazy looking approach to a routine single that encouraged people to try for second more often. Same thing for wall singles, meanders to the ball, looks like he's not paying much attention, then a quick catch and throw to second.

Again, hard to put numbers to, aside from the assists.

Errors today totally baffle me. Shortstop drops a fairly easily reached ball, and sometimes, maybe even usually it's scored a hit. Maybe the guys have better range so it would have been a nearly unreachable ball 30 years ago, but a drop on a ball in your own range should be an error.

Steve B

modern metrics don't use OF assists alone as a measure of arm, they take into account extra bases taken by base runners (or lack thereof) . But, in the grand scheme of things, just like first base scoops, OF arms just don't make that great of an impact over the course of a season or a career. The difference between an avg arm and a great one isn't large enough to make a huge difference.


ETA: on one play, sure the difference can be huge, but if a great arm prevents say 20 extra bases during a season, that only adds up to maybe 3 or 4 runs and that's not even half a WAR.