Defense!!

by stickman179 on May 16, 2009 11:22 AM EDT Comment 5 comments

There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the Cards defense so far this season, and I wanted to take a look at just how bad, or not bad it's been. I consider defense to be about run prevention, so I'm not going to look too much at individuals but the team as a whole. Lets see how good we are at preventing runs and how we compare to the rest of the league in various catergories.

These stats are as of May 15th and were taken from or created from information on fangraphs.

The first part of run prevention is pitching. You can't judge the defense on run prevention without first knowing the pitching base line of the equation. FIP is the perfect place to start. So how are the Cardinals pitchers doing from a fielding independent stand point?

They have a 4.28 FIP which is good for 7th in the major leagues. By using this stat as a baseline and comparing it to a few other stats we will be able to determine where the cards defense stacks up against the rest of the league.

How does FIP compare to Runs/Game (R/G). Well, the Cardinals are giving up 4.51 R/G for a difference of .23 R. So we are giving up mpre runs than what FIP would indicate. How does that stack up with the rest of the league? The difference between FIP and R/G (R-F) is the 13th best in baseball. So middle of the pack. Only 8 teams have a R-F that is below 0. Or where the R/G is lower than FIP.

Now, it seems that we are in the middle of the pack as far as defensive run prevention goes, but lets take a deeper look into a couple of catergories that help determine run prevention and see if we are getting lucky or unlucky.

Range and Errors are the 2 main contributing factors to defense effectiveness. First lets take a look at Errors (E). Now we all know the cards have made a bunch of these. 26 to be exact, and that number ranks them 26th in the league. But have those errors hurt the team by leading to runs scored and if so, how does that unearned run rate compare to the rest of the league.

The cards have committed 26 errors which have lead to 16 unearned runs. That total unearned run number also ranks 26th in the league. If you turn that number into a percentage, or the probability that an error will lead to a run, then for the cards it means 62% of the time an error will lead to a run. (Now, I realize that it isn't a true one to one ratio, and that one error can lead to multiple runs, but for simplicity and not having to go back through game data to see how many errors led to runs, this will have to do.) How does that percentage rank against the rest of the league? The Cards come in at 16th. Middle of the pack. The league average is 57% however the range is quite large. The Phillies lead the league at only 20% of their errors hurting them, and the Orioles have been hurt the most by errors with 87% of them leading to runs.

Next lets take a look at range. For this I'm going to use UZR/150. I know this isn't just a range stat, that is takes into consideration other factors, but it's the easiest to use to measure overall performance. The Cards come in at a -3.9 UZR/150 which is good for 23rd in the league. Not so good.

The contributing factors to the defense, errors and range don't look to good right now as the cards are in the bottom third of both. However, as that translates to run prevention we are doing ok being basically middle of the pack in that regard. However, when comparing that to the top third pitching numbers and it becomes clear that the defense is hurting the team.

Can we expect an improvement or is this going to be a season long problem? Looking at the contributing factors, Errors and Range, I think these numbers will improve as the year continues. Especially in the error department. 11 of the 26 errors have been made by Albert and K. Greene. Both of those guys have reputations as solid defensive players and I don't expect this many errors from them going forward. Especially, if K. Greene is losing playing time to Ryan or T. Greene who both appear to be + defenders. So that is one area for optomism. As far as range goes, well, I think the only candidate for improvement there is Skip at 2nd. He's still learning, and I think we should be encouraged by his progress. Yes his range is awful right now, but he's making the routine play and if he gets to it, he makes the play. As he continues to grow, his range will improve and lets just hope he continues to make all the plays that he gets to.

What do I take from this? I think the cards have played poor defense to this point, but it hasn't cost them quite as much as it could have, and there are reasons to believe that the defense will improve from this point forward. So, perhaps, the team has dodged a lead glove bullet. Hopefully that's the case.

Here is the complete chart that all the info was taken from.

Team	G	R	R/G	ERA		FIP		E-F		R-F		E	UER	error/run ratio	UZR/150
Pirates	34	147	4.32	4.16	4.76		-0.6		-0.44		15		10	67	2.8
Brewers	35	151	4.31	4.11	4.58		-0.46		-0.27		21		9	43	8.1
Phillies	32	173	5.41	5.36	5.67		-0.31		-0.26		10		2	20	5.8
Rangers	34	168	4.94	4.64	5.09		-0.45		-0.15		19		11	58	6.1
Dodgers	36	137	3.81	3.73	3.95		-0.22		-0.14		16		4	25	-7.6
Reds	34	147	4.32	3.95	4.46		-0.51		-0.14		29		12	41	5.3
Athletics	31	136	4.38	3.82	4.46		-0.64		-0.08		21		13	62	1.8
Cubs	34	157	4.61	4.48	4.63		-0.15		-0.02		19		7	37	-3.3
Giants	34	148	4.35	4.21	4.29		-0.08		0.06		15		5	33	4
Rays	36	178	4.94	4.85	4.84		0.01		0.1		22		9	41	14.5
Blue Jays	37	166	4.48	4.1	4.34		-0.23		0.14		18		12	67	2.3
Mets	34	150	4.41	3.95	4.26		-0.31		0.15		24		16	67	-1.6
Cardinals	35	158	4.51	4.1	4.28		-0.18		0.23		26		16	62	-3.9
Mariners	35	165	4.71	4.27	4.35		-0.09		0.36		29		16	55	5.2
Diamondbacks	35	168	4.80	4.6	4.44		0.16		0.36		27		8	30	2.8
Royals	35	147	4.20	3.79	3.81		-0.03		0.39		21		17	81	0.4
Astros	34	173	5.09	4.68	4.66		0.02		0.43		17		11	65	1.3
Tigers	33	161	4.88	4.51	4.42		0.09		0.46		18		15	83	3
Rockies	33	164	4.97	4.72	4.51		0.22		0.46		21		12	57	0.5
Angels	33	162	4.90	4.53	4.42		0.11		0.48		20		14	70	-1.5
Braves	34	150	4.41	4.03	3.87		0.16		0.54		20		14	70	-3.7
White Sox	33	158	4.79	4.66	4.24		0.42		0.55		23		8	35	-8.4
Red Sox	35	179	5.11	4.88	4.55		0.33		0.56		23		9	39	-6.9
Padres	35	183	5.23	5.04	4.63		0.41		0.6		16		12	75	0.2
Twins	35	186	5.31	5.19	4.68		0.51		0.63		13		7	54	2.2
Orioles	35	208	5.94	5.52	5.29		0.24		0.65		23		20	87	-7.5
Marlins	35	172	4.91	4.47	4.24		0.23		0.67		23		16	70	-3.1
Yankees	34	202	5.94	5.53	5.18		0.35		0.76		20		15	75	-5
Indians	36	206	5.72	5.62	4.95		0.67		0.77		19		8	42	-5.7
Nationals	32	202	6.31	5.46	5.13		0.33		1.18		34		26	76	-8.3

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Comments

There was a great chart of Cardinal teams with Dave Duncan as pitching coach

that showed every year we were very successful (made the playoffs) our ERA was under our FIP. This makes a lot of sense since Duncan preaches the pitch-to-contact philosophy. If our pitchers aren’t going to strike people out, we need to have an above average defense to make up the difference. We should get better going foward, but it’s something to consider if this trend continues. Let’s hope that Greene gets back on track and we stop throwing the ball all over the place!

by thp0344 on May 16, 2009 12:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

FIP is scaled to ERA not RA

So going by your chart, our defense is actually above average.

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 16, 2009 2:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

the glares ?

despite a lot of discussion (concern) about SS, I am ok with K Greene; even tho he has a high number of errors already, he doesn’t seem awful, to me. And T Greene and B Ryan are more than adequate as subs/replacements.
MY concern, over the long haul, is 2b and LF.
I am not anti-Schu, and I am determined to be patient. But 2b hasn’t been a solid spot defensively, whether it has been Schumaker or someone else.
And Duncan still scares me. He HAS to hit better than just good to justify his breath-gasping presence down the left field line

by the Tewk on May 16, 2009 5:24 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think this is fairly encouraging

or, if you prefer, discouraging! That is, our defence hasn’t been THAT bad so far, although that also means that there perhaps isn’t as much room for improvement as we might’ve thought. A -3.9 UZR really isn’t that poor over a whole season. Also, it suggests that (even over a small sample size) the difference between the best and worst defences isn’t THAT collosal (most teams have some black holes, but nearly every team in the league will have 3 or 4 above-average defenders in there somewhere). I’m not especially surprised at the worst (WhiteSox) and best (Rays), but, over a whole season, there’s only a little over two wins between them on defence. Not as much as I’d have thought (especially considering the sample size).

Looking at our team defence man-for-man you’d probably make us out to be about average this year, judging by who we’re running out there:
C – Molina (above average)
1B – Pujols (above average)
2B – Schu (poor)
SS – K Greene/Ryan/T Greene (probably somewhere around average, maybe a bit under, depending on playing time)
3B – Barden/Thurston/others (almost certainly above average)
LF – Dunc (poor)
CF – Colby/Ank (probably slightly above average, depending on PT)
RF – Ludwick/Ank (probably slightly above average)

Other than LF and 2B, I don’t imagine that any one spot will be + or – more than 5 runs over the season.

Because chicks dig the intentional base on balls.

by Felonius_Monk on May 18, 2009 4:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think part of the problem is perception

The Cards defense was outstanding last year, so the drop off seems worse than it is. Of course, I’m not looking up any numbers but I imagine most would agree.

The Godfather himself has decided to grace us with his presence. This is his damn house. He sleeps 20 feet away.

by thegodfather on May 18, 2009 5:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs