I guess where I run into a sutmbling block regarding your post, Doc, is that it's not a minor thing you're sort of hand-waving off when you comment on RF/9. You say "well we could argue about real chances bla bla bla...the 16/15 ratio is the real thing"...my response would be...we *have* to argue about real chances because RF is instantly flawed by the real-world limitation that there are 27 outs in every game...whether you're a bad fielding team or a good one. It's not some insignificant theoretical adjustment the fielding metrics make to account for chances to make plays...it's a real and necessary one...and it's often very very large. The reason Jones won the GG this year is that there are 30 voters in the AL who think RF/9 is a good enough measure of defensive prowess (or # of Web Gems on ESPN) to base their decision. But we know that both of those things can be and routinely are severely biased. Bad fielders make lots of great plays sometimes-Betancourt sure did. If you have to make a heroic effort to get a ball that Ichi-san gets to at jogging speed, you're a bad outfielder compared to Ichiro but you'll look more spectacular.
And real chances...the Orioles *SURELY* had more gappers to run down than the Mariners. Their pitching was TERRIBLE while ours was average-solid. That means something REAL...it's not some imaginary math-geek tweak coming from nowhere-land, Doc. The reason you can't use RF/9? Because the real voters use it and it gives you the wrong answer...but a LOT...every year...routinely! Because the range of RF/9 for full time players is smaller than the biases that throw if off (GB/FB distribution, K rate, park factors, pitching skill, hardness of batted balls). You love James more than most...perhaps even more than I do...and he's one of the most important reasons I got into Sabermetrics. Listen to James...he's calling to you to read his Win Shares book where he talks about why RF is a TERRIBLE way to evaluate fielders...it's not a piece of information...it's a piece of MIS-information.
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=== UZR: Move Him Out of CF ===
UZR/150 sees Adam Jones as a bad center fielder: -4.1 runs that he costs the Orioles, vs. a league-average center fielder, per 150 games.
Note well that it is only Jones' throwing arm that saves him from UZR status as a terrible center fielder -- one who should be moved out of CF (!).
Jones gets UZR credit for +7.3 runs saved with his arm, as against -11.4 UZR runs that he cost his team with lack of defensive range (in only 75% of a season).
In other words, Jones' range in 2009 wasn't much better than Junior's last few years in CF, per UZR.
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=== RATE: Two Thumbs Up ===
Baseball Prospectus, however, is pleased to see its defensive system jibe with the voters: they had Jones at a Gold Glove-worthy 107 RATE, and Jones' RATE is 112 lifetime.
BP did, however, have Franklin Gutierrez at an incredible 118 in center field, so would have disagreed with the voters in their view of Jones as the 3rd-best defensive outfielder in the American League.
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=== SX: I'll Abstain On This One ===
In terms of SX, speed scores? ... you can often tell how fast a player is by measuring his stolen bases, his triples, his GIDP's, his SB percentage, his runs % assuming he is on first base, etc.
Both Jones and Gutierrez have very disappointing SX's (100 or a bit higher). This doesn't prove that they're not real fast, but there's a very good correlation between SX and footspeed. Tyson Gillies is not going to run the 105 SX's that Jones and Guti do, I'll tell ya that right now. Ichiro's very fast, and of course, he posts 150 SX's.
To be fair, Torii Hunter runs 90-100 SX's too. SX certainly is not an absolute, or even reliable, as it pertains to defensive speed in the outfield.
My personal observation is that Jones and Gutierrez have similar footspeed: pretty good, not excellent.
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=== RF: Get a Grip, the Kid is Great ===
Range Factors? Jones got to 3.2 balls per game this year in CF, compared to the league average of 2.7 in CF.
Gutierrez got to 3.00 exactly.
I don't say that's the gospel truth, that Jones is better than Gutierrez. But it is a piece of evidence that counts into the discussion.
UZR is theoretical. RF's are not. For every 15 balls that Cranklin ran down in 2009, Jones ran down 16. Now, we start arguing whether Jones had more practical chances, but that's tougher to nail down. The 16/15 ratio is real.
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=== No Harm No Foul Dept. ===
Note that Franklin Gutierrez doesn't need a Gold Glove.
We don't mean that rancorously; we mean it literally. He doesn't need one. He's got the entire World Wide Web doing the Garth we're-not-worthy bow, on a daily basis.
A Gold Glove would be almost an insult to the deified Gutierrez at this point, like saying "Babe Ruth was a Hall of Famer" or "Bobby Fischer was a Grandmaster" or "Steven Seagal has a black belt." At this point, saying that Franklin Gutierrez deserves a Gold Glove serves only as a backhanded compliment.
Adam Jones' Gold Glove serves to call attention to his fielding excellence. He can sure use one. But Franklin Gutierrez' fielding dominance is taken as a given and utterly transcends Gold Glove awards.
...
As you know, I think the platitudes for Cranklin's defense are over-the-top and, to a certain extent, Safeco-illusory.
But a Gold Glove? Sure. He would be a good choice to receive one.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
I'm at work and can't look it up, but how does that work out? CF is the OF Captain too.
They put Guti's OOZ's on the TV screen every chance they got.
.... we say "Jones didn't catch that gapper, but theoretically he could have."
And when we say, "theoretically the CF was the best candidate to catch that ball" ... regardless of defensive positioning that might have been revised right before the pitch was thrown.
...........
Hey, don't get me wrong. I think that we need to wedge out the field and try to calculate % of balls caught in sectors. But the theoretical component is clear. And the soft spots in the theories are illustrated when Raul Ibanez is -20 runs one year, and +10 the next.
The soft spots in the theory are also underlined when Adam Jones scores a -15 runs in UZR range (per 150) while BP gives him a 107 RATE.
RZR had him at .921 and 91 OOZ plays, which is definetly good. Its not Franklin Gutierrez "are you kidding me" type good, but still very good. His career RF/9 in CF are as good as Ichiro's and Gutierrez's (which are pretty excellent). Plus/minus thinks hes averagish in CF. PMR also graded his 2008 at dead average. So far UZR is the only metric to give him a below-average defensive season, but last year they had him as a plus CF and overall hes slightly plus.
So we have two metrics who say Jones is plus with the glove, one that thinks he above-average, and two that think hes average.
What I get from that is that we probably need more data before we can figure this one out, but its likely that Jones is anywhere from +0-10 runs defensively in CF. Thats a wide margin, but its hard to tell anything beyond that.
My guess is that Jones is plus in CF, but not the rediculously elite fielder that Gutierrez is.