Rating the Defenses: AL East

This is the third in a series of 6 articles. I'll be looking at team defense, grouping the teams by division. The foundation of these articles will be FRA (Fielding Run Average), a measure I developed last year to look at how successful a given team's fielders were in terms of preventing runs. For a detailed description of FRA please refer to my introductory article titled Measuring Team Defense.

Note: the listed park factors are not ordinary "general" park factors: they are park factors for the FRA stat itself.

None of the teams in this division have particularly good defenses. Boston and New York have pitching staffs chalk full of power pitchers, which means that defense isn't as important to them as for teams like Toronto, Tampa Bay and Baltimore. Let's see how their defenses have stacked up over the last two years.

Boston Red Sox

2000/2001 ranking: 6th in the AL (3.531)

Newcomers: John Burkett, Dustin Hermanson, Darren Oliver, Tony Clark (1B), Johnny Damon (CF), Rickey Henderson (LF), Rey Sanchez (2B)

The Red Sox' FRA PF was the most variable from 2000 to 2001 - an object lesson in sample size, no doubt. The 2-year average FRA PF pegs Fenway as a park that helps the FRA stat, but not as much as the Metrodome or Kauffman Stadium.

As we can discern from the following table, most teams in this division do not rely heavily on their defense. The Red Sox were 2nd behind Cleveland in being the least reliant on the fielders; behind the pitching of Pedro and Nomo, the Sox led the league in lowest BIP% in 2001.

This chart presents the average percentage of balls in play per batter faced in 2000 and 2001.

The Indians, Red Sox and Yankees were significantly less reliant on their defenses than the rest of the American League. There was a greater difference between 3rd place New York and 4th place Seattle, than there was between Seattle and 13th place Anaheim.

The Kerrigan Red Sox were famous for eschewing the slide step and allowing baserunners a free hand in stealing bases. The Sox are almost off the charts: opponents attempted to steal bases off them almost 140 times more often over the last two years than the next most porous team.

It's hard to say what the breakeven point for the stolen base is these days, but anyway you measure it, the Sox have lost the most runs (or gained the fewest) relative to the other teams in the league defending the stolen base. This makes the performance of the other Red Sox defenders a little more impressive.

Why did the defense apparently decline in 2001? The main defensive changes occurred at 3B, SS and C. Hillenbrand replaced a gaggle of players (Alexander, Merloni, Sprague, Veras and others), Garciaparra was replaced by a gaggle of inadequate shortstops, and Varitek lost most of the season, with Hatteberg and Mirabelli replacing him.

The outfield experienced subtle changes. In 2000, O'Leary, Nixon, Everett and Lewis got the bulk of the playing time. In 2001, Manny played about a third of the season in the outfield, and he and Bichette took some playing time away from the 4 main outfielders of the previous year.

Sox Opponents stole 64 more bases and were thrown out 4 more times in 2001 compared to 2000. Depending on how much weight you put on each, that's about 8-11 runs. We're still looking for about 30-35 runs to account for.

Toronto Blue Jays

2000/2001 ranking: 8th in the AL (3.710)

Newcomers: Luke Prokopec, Felix Heredia, Tom Wilson (C), Dave Berg (INF), Eric Hinske (3B)

Playing in a park that slightly favors extra-base hits, the Jays have put together average defenses in recent years. The main cause for concern appears to be a lack of range in the outfield. Here is a chart of extra-base hits allowed per flyball, adjusted for park:

Skydome is one of 4 AL parks that significantly increase extra base hits (the others being the Metrodome, Tropicana and Fenway). Even so, the Jays ranked only 12th after park adjustments. The problem is likely a combination of the lack of range in CF and a weak throwing arm in LF. As a Jays fan, I hope Vernon Wells gets lots of time in center, with Jose Cruz moving over to left and Shannon Stewart moving to DH for at least 50 games.

The Jays pitching staff favored the groundball (see chart in Yankees comment), led by Roy Halladay in this regard. Last year's infield defense was fairly good, but there is some concern that Lopez and Hinske are not yet good defenders. If Homer Bush stays relatively healthy and plays 120 games, the infield defense should be at least adequate.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

2000/2001 ranking: 10th in the AL (3.877)

Newcomers: Troy O'Leary (OF), Emil Brown (OF)

The defense seemed to decline form 2000 to 2001, just when a whole host of youngsters (Hall, Huff, Tyner, Abernathy, Rolls) got a chance to play regularly for the first time. A young outfielder already famous for lack of range (Ben Grieve) also joined the team. That said, I'm optimistic that we will see improvement in the Rays' defensive play, as the youngsters continue to hone their skills.

Tropicana favored extra-base hits more than any other park over the last 2 years, and the Rays' defense certainly did a good job in this department (see the chart in the Blue Jays' section).

New York Yankees

2000/2001 ranking: 11th in the AL (3.975)

Newcomers: David Wells, Steve Karsay, Alberto Castillo (C ), Jason Giambi (1B), John Vander Wal (OF), Robin Ventura (3B), Rondell White (LF)

The Yankees pitchers induced the fewest groundballs in the AL over the last two years. Part of that was the high percentage of strikeouts per batter faced, which lead to a low Ball in Play % (see chart in Boston comment). It's not surprising that the Yankees had a low DP total (2nd lowest ahead of only Boston). Even so, they were below average in converting DP chances into actual double plays.

DP% is DP/((0.65*GB*RunnersOnFirst)/BF) - the measure is intended to estimate the rate of turning DPs as a percentage of opportunities.

RunnersOnFirst is estimated as: Hits+W+HBP-XBH-.8*SBAtt.

Baltimore Orioles

2000/2001 ranking: 12th in the AL (4.151)

Newcomers: Marty Cordova (OF), Chris Singleton (CF)

The Orioles play in one of three AL parks that significantly lower FRA (i.e. help the defense). Here is a chart of the average FRA park factors for the last 2 years.

I've added the average park factor for extra-base hits (see the Toronto comment). Note how closely the two figures correlate; the only exceptions are Tropicana and to some extent Kauffman. This suggests that a park's effect on extra base hits is largely responsible for the FRA park factor.

Baltimore's defense, though improved in 2001, was below average across the board. In park adjusted FRA, The O's ranked 14th and 10th in 2000 and 2001 respectively, and 12th over the two season combined. They were 2nd last in the AL, allowing successful steals at a 76.1% clip. They ranked 10th in adjusted extra-base hits prevented and 12th in DP opportunities converted.

The main changes going into 2001 were the departures of Albert Belle, B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark and Charles Johnson, and Deshields' move from 2b to LF. Hairston replaced Deshields at 2B, Chris Richard and Melvin Mora saw significant time in the outfield and Fordyce took over the #1 catcher spot, with Lunar and Gil sharing backup duties. Segui and Conine took over from Clark and Richard at 1B.

The Orioles are slowly building a decent defense. Hairston is still young enough to improve and already represents a significant gain over what Deshields gave them. Chris Singleton should help solidify the outfield, which might even become a significant strength in Luis Matos can win a regular job.

Throwing out base-runners

I've decided to list all the main catchers in one chart, which should make comparison a little easier. Here are the steal attempts, caught and percentage when each #1 catcher was in the game (2000 and 2001 combined).

Jorge Posada emerged as the best throwing catcher in the division among starters (both in terms of raw SBA% and the difference between himself and his teammates). It seems that criticism of Jorge's throwing arm is misplaced (I still wonder about the passed balls and wild pitches).

Of note is the fact that opposing runners attempted a steal less often against Varitek (1.25 attempts per start versus 1.74) than against his backups (mostly off Hatteberg: 1.81 attempts per start).

Mike DiFelice and Charles Johnson had success throwing out baserunners when they were in the division. Alberto Castillo is a good throwing catcher and should help the Yankees defensively (it's best not to mention his bat. Since there is a Tommy John family of pitchers, I think it's appropriate to establish a Mike Matheny family of catchers - Brandon Inge and Alberto Castillo are prime candidates for membership).

Toby Hall will be taking over the number 1 spot for Tampa Bay, and his SB% against was a respectable 69.2%.

Looking at the American League as a whole, there doesn't seem to be any trend that favors good throwing catchers as 1st stringers or backups. Half of the 14 teams had main catchers who out-threw their backups.