Weekly DRS Update (Defensive Stats Thru July 4, 2010)

This week’s data.

The American League leaders in defense are the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners.  The agrees with the pre-season view that these teams were defensive minded and the data is supporting that thus far.  For the individual performances, the levels are the same as the last few weeks, with Brett Gardner moving up.  As you can see, attempting to describe these numbers as “projecting for the season”, won’t work.  The DRS isn’t a linear performance.  The baseline constantly moves as every player performs based on their chances.  There is no good “on pace for”.  So here at the halfway point, being +10 DRS doesn’t mean +20 over the year. 

In the National League, the Phillies defense is coming around, as is the Cardinals.  Both these teams routinely have strong defensive play.  The Padres are leading the league, and so it is some question of whether their defense is this good because of the pitching, or if their pitching is this good because of the defense.  The Reds performance is also tied to better defense, led by Scott Rolen, arguably the best defensive third baseman ever.  I said “arguably.”  Rolen has moved up close in the leaders, and with Chase Utley missing the next 6-8 weeks, I can see Rolen surpassing him over that period.  Andrew McCutcheon was unhappy with the Cubs Castro playing worse than he had been, so he stepped it up - or down.  Speed isn’t defense.

I am reviewing this data to see if I can tweak the DRS by batter handedness.  It isn’t going to be an automatic change, but like HBP in Runs Created, it doesn’t matter most of the time, but it can overlook a player or two.

Questions or comments?