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| Posted By | Discussion Topic: Mystery Columns for the Yankee Fans | ||||
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| Psycho Bitch
| posted on 08-17-2001 @ 11:17 AM |    | |||
| Psychopath Registered: Jul. 01  | A friend of mine does columns sometimes for another website. They're always really interesting so I like sharing them with the Yankee fans here. He's a professional stat man. Enjoy :) 8/8/01 As the season enters the "dog days" of August, there is one aspect of the game that will be crucial as the Yankees hold their two and a half-game lead on the Redsox. What will be crucial is the Yankee DEFENSE. This season their ability to field has been downhill from previous seasons. Here are three Yankees whose defensive abilities are either overrated, underrated, or just plain bad: 1. Tino Martinez- Tino Martinez has been in the Bronx since 1996, or the first year of Don Mattingly's retirement. We know that Donnie Baseball won several Gold gloves during his prime in the mid 80's. Nowadays, the broadcasters on TV have been pushing for Tino to finally win his first Gold glove award. They cite his ability to pick up the short-bounce throws by Brosius and Jeter, his saving of several errors by Knoblauch, and of course the swipe tags to runners when throws were too high or off the line. The question is does Martinez match up to Mattingly's fielding numbers during his Gold glove seasons? And what about the Gold glove winners at first base from '96-'00? First thing to look at is Tino v. Mattingly. To measure their numbers up let's take a look at their fielding percentage, which is a fielder's putouts plus assists, divided by their putouts plus assists plus errors. First here is Mattingly's numbers from 1985 to 1989, when Mattingly won five straight Gold Gloves, and Martinez from '96-'00: Mattingly 1985-1989: Putouts-6,458 Assists-464 Errors-34 Fielding Percentage-.994.68 Martinez 1996-2000: Putouts-6,174 Assists-473 Errors-37 Fielding Percentage-.994.46 So as you see, the numbers are nearly identical, and Mattingly has more putouts simply because Martinez has been supported by better pitching which means more strikeouts, therefore less total chances. Now here are the numbers of the previous five Gold glove winners at first base from '96-'00: 1996 J.T. Snow-1B 154 G, 1274 PO, 105 A, 10 E, .993 1997-99 Rafael Palmeiro: '97-155 G, 1303 PO, 113 A, 10 E, .993 '98- 159 G, 1433 PO, 125 A, 9 E, .994 '99- 28 G, 262 PO, 13 A, 1 E, .996(yes, that's right, a Gold glove for 28 games played) '00 John Olerud- 158 G, 1271 PO, 133 A, 5 E, .996 In the end, Martinez has been in consideration for every Gold glove award the past five years, except for last season, and this is just the raw numbers. This does not conclude how many errors or runs that Martinez saves every year for Jeter, Brosius, Knoblauch, Soriano, and the Yankee pitching staff. 2.Jorge Posada - Posada has proven to be a great choice to keep in the organization and replace Joe Girardi as the full time starting catcher. He might finish this season hitting over .300 with more then 20 homers and 100 RBI's. However defensively he could be much better. Consider this season Posada has 14 passed balls. This does not appear to be an important statistic, especially since coaches and commentators focus more on a catcher's ability to throw runners out. However, look more closely at the passed balls Posada has committed and you'll realize how much they hurt the team. Posada's career high in passed balls is 17 in 1999. Out of those 17(which were made over the span of 14 games) the Yankees were 7-7. So in half the games Posada did not really hurt anyone. But of the 17 runners that moved up because of passed balls, 10 of them came around to score. Four of the runs ended up unearned, and in one case Posada caused Rivera to blow a save because of two passed balls in the 9th inning (4/25/99). Now for this season, of the 14 passed balls Posada has committed (over 12 games) the Yankees are 5-7 in those games. The passed balls have led to 20 runners being moved up on the bases, and of that group, 15 of them have come around to score, and 9 of the runs were unearned. So the catcher's ability to keep the ball in front of him is just as important as being able to throw base runners out. 3. Derek Jeter- You see it all the time on either ESPN or Fox Sports Saturday, heck even the Yankees promote this idea. The idea is that Jeter is a "defensive powerhouse" or "one of the great defensive shortstops of our generation." But if you see Jeter play every game, you notice that for the most part he doesn't dive for groundballs, and his throws to first have been awful of late. To get some perspective on what Jeter has done in the field, here are his defensive numbers from '96-'00: Derek Jeter 1996-2000- 770 Games, 1180 PO, 2029 A, 87 E, .974 FP How do those numbers compare with other starting shortstops? Look at some of the other top shortstops in the game (these numbers are also from '96-'00) Omar Vizquel-752 G, 1196 PO, 2129 A, 53 E, .983 FP (also has won last 8 Gold gloves) Nomar Garciaparra- 588 G, 945 PO, 1660 A, 82 E, .969 FP (Nomah's better?) Alex Rodriguez- 723 G, 1176 PO, 2065 A, 81 E, .976 FP Mike Bordick- 773 G, 1234 PO, 2256 A, 61 E, .983 FP There are about six other players with similar or better defensive numbers, but for the sake of space they won't be listed here. Now that the numbers are in front of you, can you say that Jeter is a great player and most likely a lifetime Yankee? Yes. Is he a good defensive shortstop? Yes. But is Jeter one of the best players at his position in our generation or in our lifetime? Absolutely not. That's it for this week's installment. Go Yanks.  Much thanks to Grumpy and my "master" for this kick ass sig pic :) ~~Psycho Bitch~~ "The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over expecting different results" Proud graduate of Metalfan's purgatory for newbies....but still his "slavegirl" :p | ||||
| jewdown | posted on 08-17-2001 @ 12:15 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Jan. 01 | Those are some damn interesting stats, Psycho Bitch. Thanks for that bit of info. I would say Tino has gone above and beyond in his efforts to fill Mattingly's shoes. quote: Also consider 4 were in one game. 3 in one inning. "We don't take kindly to not takin' kindly around here." | ||||
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