How important is defense?

Wow -- those are very impressive numbers.

As the mom of a player who is prized more for his defense than his bat, that is very encouraging.

With all the recent problems involving steroids and the inflating effect they've had over the years on offensive stats, specifically the HR, I am now encouraged to believe that the age of the "complete" baseball player is emerging.

"A crisp sparkling defense is true poetry in motion."

Good luck to your son.

quote:

"A crisp sparkling defense is true poetry in motion."

I like that! Thanks for the well wishes!

The NBA equivalent to the Rockies, Red Sox, and Indians is the San Antonio Spurs. They have proven time and time again that good defense will get you places!

If you read "Moneyball" they state that fielding is not that important of a stat. I feel that this is a terribly foolish thought. As a Cardinal fan, the inability of Detroit to field in key situations may have cost them a World Series. Pitching and fielding will always give you a chance to win.

Bad defense and bases on balls can kill a great pitching performance regardless of the level of play--LL,Travel,College or Pro---- you cannot win with poor defense

hsballcoach:

That isn't exactly what Moneyball said. It said that defense was too expensive in terms of what the market cost of an above average defensive players was, compared the market for an offensive player who could produce the same number of net runs.

"Moneyball".......FunnyBall
That's one approach (that has failed) to compete in the free agency era.

Looks like an era that is either thirty five years ahead of it's time (or 35 years behind), it is the good ol' fashion Ford approach to business.
Build everything in-house.

From the deep (or narrow) owner's pockets, to the long arms of an administrative staff, to the watchful eye of farm system at the Rookie Ball, to the Sept call ups, to the 40 man active and reserve rosters, to the associate scouts examining amateur talent at the HS and collegiate levels. Everything in-house.

cheers

Fielding and Defense in Baseball

This interesting article addresses your question. Defense, or the lack of it, may give us memorable plays (anecdotal evidence) but the statistics (empirical evidence) suggest pitching and hitting still wins most of the the games. Here is an excerpt that may peak your interest.

The average baseball defense will see maybe 4,500 opportunities--"balls in play" as we call them. Assume for discussion that the full-season difference in Fielding Efficiency from average is about plus-or-minus 2% (that is, ranges from 73% to 77% around a major-league average of 75%)--which experience suggests is actually an exaggeration of the team-to-team differences--we would see at the extremes of good and bad team fielding a difference of about 90 baserunners a year. If we take as a crude but passable rule of thumb (derived from experience) that 37% of base runners eventually score, we are suggesting a difference of plus-or-minus 33 runs a year from average to best- or worst-fielding team; that, in turn--from the games-won-from-runs formula--translates to about plus-or-minus three wins a season.

Of course, Billy Beane (the subject of Moneyball) is the first to admit that statistical analysis is much more meaningful when applied to a 162 game season. History has shown us the outcome is up for grabs during the relatively short playoffs. Just ask Bill Buckner…

I'll bet the Padres would have been glad to have 3 more regular season wins this year.

Of course they would have, snowman, but that still misses the Moneyball point: if the Padres were to buy the talent to be the best defensive team, they would have less money available for offensive talent. How many offensive runs would they have to give up to save those 33 runs defensively?

The Moneyball analysis claims that it is more cost effective to purchase those 33 runs on offense rather than defense.

Which brings me back to the Rockies. They decided money is not the be all end all when it comes to putting a team together. They have taken a balanced approach and tried to solidify all aspects of the team while building that illusive thing called chemistry by bringing a core group of players through the system and augmenting this core with some outside talent.

The Mariners paid a bunch of money for Richie Sexson who is so bad that nobody wanted him when put on waivers this season. Money didn't work there. Using money as the measure limits a creative mind. I give you the Yankees. Steinbrenner and the bigger is better approach.

My point is there is no "one" way to field a successful team. What does make sense is to strengthen all aspects of a team and look beyond the obvious. Something that doesn't happen too often in baseball today.

Looking at errors alone will understate the problem. Too many missed defensive opportunities are not scored as errors.

As far as "pitching" being important, of course it is. But "pitching" is significantly dependent upon the defense behind it.

Texan,

Well put.

Snowman,

I would prefer to have players that catch the ball - as opposed to miss the ball.

I would also prefer players that throw the ball and reach their intended target - as opposed to those that throw the ball and hit innocent fans in the stands in the head.

Very complicated.

defense wins championships. end of story. why do you think the red sox got to where they are now? they have an excellent pitching rotation.

I was getting tired of working on my research paper on "No Child Left Behind Act" and decided to go to the ballpark to watch a little of Fall Festival baseball. Granted this is not major league caliber but Texan posted "Looking at errors alone will understate the problem. Too many missed defensive opportunities are not scored as errors." I couldn't agree more.

North Central College of Gainesville,Texas and Seminole Junior College of Seminole, Oklahoma were playing this afternoon and a couple of situations occured that might put some emphasis to what Texan stated. Situation one occured with the score tied at 1-1 in the 4th with 2 outs and nobody on. It's a 0-1 count with a LH pitcher on the bump and and LH contact hitter at the plate. The defense was playing back and North Central laid down a beautiful bunt down the third base line that traveled about thirty feet. The catcher was slow getting out from behind the plate and the pitcher would not have had any chance because he would have had to pivot counter clockwise and reset himself to make a throw to first. The only chance they had was a charging 3rd baseman that had to make a barehanded attempt that was not close.

This set things in motion for the North Central club to score the go ahead run with two down and runners at the corners. The North Central 3rd base coach did a good decoy job of making it look like the runner at first might be a bit inexperienced. The catcher for Seminole was responding slowly again. This time he was paying to much attention to the runner at third base and with a 1-1 count the runner at 1st takes off on a delayed steal and caught the catcher standing straight up looking at third and forced a bad throw because the catcher had to rotate 180 degrees instead of 90 to try and pick the runner off going to second. The end result was R3 scoring and R1 going to third. North Central tallied one more run before finally getting that third out.

In the bottom half of the 4th Seminole had some problems that I think were caused by the pressure that North Central applied in the top of the 4th. Seminole had two of what I consider as cardinal mistakes during their at bat: 1)the lead off hitter fouls the third strike bunt attempt for the first out, 2)with a runner at second and two outs, Seminole tried to get aggressive and move up 90 feet on a wild pitch that did not get to far away from the catcher. The North Central catcher made a good recovery and nailed the runner trying to move up to third for the 3rd out.

The difference between being up or down was playing smart and knowing the situation and being complacent and out of position(3rd base playing to deep with a left hand hitter at the plate).

Gotta run and get back to my paper. Thanks for the break!!

First let me say that I believe that defense is extremely important and often overlooked. I really like the analysis that Line Drive did.

If I had the time, I think an interesting analysis would be to look at the perentage of unearned runs for each major league team and further, determine what how many additional wins the team could potentially have had if those unearned runs had not occurred. I would expect that the difference could be 10-12 or more wins per year, a much larger impact. 93 and 69 is a lot better than 81 and 81.

If someone has the time......

I agree with Texan also. At the amateur level I cannot tell you how often I see infielders watch a ground ball get out of the infield. I'd like to see them dive more and put forth more effort to get to it. Of course, the one's that don't are the ones that won't make it to the next level. But these are examples of the 'lost opportunities' that you'll even see at the professional levelfrom time to time.

My oldest son lays out all the time and gets noticed for his hustle. He has quick reaction time and often gets to balls that other infielders won't get to. Unfortunately, it sometimes results in being charged with an error when other infielders would watch it go by, putting forth just enough effort to make it look like they thought about it or tried....

BillBill, like you, I see many lost opportunities with infielders sometimes jogging 2-3 half-hearted steps to look like they're trying to get the ball. Perhaps they simply don't have the range or agility and know they won't make it. Or perhaps they lack the motivation and hustle.

Then there are those who get the quick jump and dive when necessary and sometimes, the ball deflects off the tip of their glove. At times, persnickety scorekeepers count that as an error. Can be frustrating.

I'm sure I would really enjoy watching your son play. What year is he, and does he have aspirations for the next level?

My older son is a middle infielder. He is an 09 and would love to play at the next level. He will almost certainly play college ball but D1 notice has been sparse so far. He's only heard from 4 or 5 schools. He is getting some notice but there are a lot of good players out there. Right now I don't think he is seen as a top tier player nationally and I'm/he's trying to understand what he need to do to get there, or if it is possible.

Infied08, I'm assuming your son is graduating in June. I hope he is on his way towards realizing his dream of playing in college.