Just joshin' with the title there. Don't storm the castle. :- )
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=== Johnny Damon's Jumps and Routes ===
One of our good amigos, who lives in New York IIRC, accused Caveman of terrible routes and "horrible" range, even in LF.
I always think the same thought, when baseball fans tell me that a given ML outfielder runs terrible routes. I don't mean this pejoratively; I mean it literally. How would a non-ballplayer know what a good route, or a bad route, is? ;- )
I've played OF in slo-pitch leagues, am no CA or Sully or TopCat, but know a fair amount about jumps and positioning for a weekend warrior.
99% of ML outfielders' routes look exactly the same to me: perfect. So how could a non-ballplaying fan discern the difference between a good route and a bad one?
I mean, of course OF's get confused by the spin of a particular ball. Even Ichiro does, sometimes. But just your standard tee shot into the gap, or slicing fly ball hooking towards the line.
Does anybody really SEE Raul Ibanez, vs. Carl Crawford, take a different path to the same ball?
I sure don't. So maybe you could explain it to me, in one-syllable words for a dummy like me, what you mean when you say that Franklin Gutierrez takes great routes to the ball. I know that he winds up where the ball is, and that he runs in a straight line to get there.
Who doesn't? Which ML outfielders run a down-and-out pattern to catch the ball? Do you see Raul Ibanez swerving in curves as he runs to the ball? I don't.
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Ever hear anybody in spikes and a jockstrap agree that speed is no big deal in the outfield, or that any SB speed burner had "horrible" range in a corner OF slot?
Anyway. Damon's RF's are fine; he's played a ton of CF; I would be shocked if he didn't look good in Safeco's LF.
But I could be wrong. It's quite possible that Damon, at 35, is now subpar even in LF.
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=== Damon's Metrics ===
Per UZR, are inconsistent: +5, =, -9 the last three years. It's possible he's slowing down, though his SX's don't say that.
BP's RATE stat, which reverse-engineers a defense, has sparkling scores for Damon, including 2009.
Damon's RF's are Good, Average, Below Average the last three years respectively, matching up with UZR but not with RATE.
Yankee fans see Damon as below average, which is important. Including SABRMatt, who watches Damon on TV a lot, I presume, so there's that.
PMR, for the last year available, had Damon as average. Check out exactly how average.
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James' rule is the same as the Red Sox', is the same as the Mariners, as far as I can tell. If the defensive systems converge, your default assumption is that they're correct until proven otherwise.
If they don't converge, as they do not with Damon, you have to go with scouts.... or, in my case, with the 1980's SABR Golden Principles. You take into account the fact that Damon's a converted CF'er and a SB guy.
But who knows. Maybe Jason Bay, Manny Ramirez, Raul Ibanez, and all those guys chase down balls that fall a yard away from Damon
What I do know is that the characterization of Damon's defense as "horrible" is unconvincing to me.
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I dunno about you, but I think that pop analyses of defense are about as confusing as they ever were. And when we bleacher bums want no part of Johnny Damon's 6.8 RC/27 because we've heard he's a butcher, well ... :- )
Damon's 6.8 runs per game are factual. The rumors of his terrible range are rather less so, and fly in the face of the fact that just recently, ML teams had him in CENTER field.
Odd that fans should hustle to shout down facts with rumors. But the point's moot. Scott Boras' range to the ATM on his left is unquestioned.
Cheers,
Dr D