In Manny’s Defense
Our old friend SG* over at RLYW kept track of zone rating numbers each day of 2007, providing us with some fascinating information on Manny Ramirez’s defense. If you recall, we left off last time with me claiming that Manny’s defense was so bad that it actually destabilized the Middle East, while others felt that it was a bit closer to average. Here’s what SG found about how Manny played in Fenway vs. on the road:
Stadium G GS Ch INN PO A E DP ZR PM Diff RS RS/162
Road 58 58 112 476 94 1 1 0 .830 93 -5 -4 -13
Home 61 61 136 509 86 7 1 0 .618 84 -31 -25 -72
Those last two columns are RS and RS/162, based on Chris Dial’s method for converting raw ZR into run values. So in 2007, Manny was -13 runs/162 on the road and -72/162 at home. We can see the pretty obvious effect of the weird scoring at Fenway, wherein the ZR guys, for some crazy reason, count balls off the wall as being in a player’s zone. The data above suggests that Manny is a lot closer to the -10 to -15 defender that many people here have been saying he is. But there’s more information to consider. SG’s also provide me with what other LF did in Fenway and way from Fenway:
Fenway (All LF)
Chances: 382
Plays Made: 262
Zone Rating: .686
non-Fenway (All LF)
Chances: 4801
Plays Made: 4208
Zone Rating: .876
These numbers allow us to compare Manny in Fenway to other players in Fenway, rather than comparing him to an average player in an average park. Plug in the visiting players’ ZR into Manny’s chances and they make about 9 more plays than he did. Extrapolate that out to a full season and he’s at -21 at home/162 (and still -13 on the road). About -17 overall.
The big caveat here, of course, is that this is a tiny sample--less than a single full season. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in future years.
*SG let me use this data on the condition that I include a note saying that Cano is greater than Pedroia. But I think that’s self evident, isn’t it? Cano’s 6’ and Rookie-of-the-Year Pedroia’s only about 5’5.”
Darren
Posted: January 13, 2008 at 08:26 PM |
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No, it isn't.
I would at least offer him arbitration when the year ends.
Why would you ever pick up an option before you absolutely have to?
That's the value of an option.
Well, I guess technically you did it, but I don't think your heart was in it.
I thought his range was a little shorter this year. He looked smooth as a battleship chasing a PT boat, and took turns about as fast.
It's interesting that Manny shows up as basically average in Fenway. I always worry that he's still playing too shallow, but maybe he knows what he's doing there.
And the Fenway LF ZR for the season is .686. I think that pretty much caps it for the idea that we can reasonably trust STATS data for Fenway. .686. Come on.
There.
Playing shallow seems like it's the right idea in general, but you should never be so shallow that a fly ball lands on the track in front of the monster. That happened to Manny a couple times. Additionally, I'm not sure how you read his numbers as average in Fenway. He's 13 runs below average--isn't that well below average?
Yeah, but we knew that already, didn't we? They score balls off the wall as being in play. SG attributed it to laziness in his email but even that seems generous. How hard would it be for a scorer to just record the ball as being out of zone/off wall? They make far more subjective calls than this quite often.
I did something similar with ZR data for 2006 and found mostly similar splits as SG found for 2007. [My 2006 numbers were reposted in a comment on Chris Dial's "Dialed In" blog around Jan 10.] Sample sizes for Fenway are still small, but combining the two years roughly doubles it.
two year totals:
Manny .. at Fenway 180/292 .616
other LF at fenway 352/512 .688
manny ..not at Fenway 170/204 .833
other LF not Fenway 17753/20437 .869
SG's "non-Fenway (all LF)" numbers which Darren quoted are the totals for all AL LF, with totals for Fenway subtracted out. That's an approximation of an AL specific ZR, but I assume the NL players at Fenway and NL venues for interleague game totals are not backed out of his Fenway and AL totals. My numbers are for all MLB LFers (it doesn't make much difference either way).
If I assume Manny faced chances of average difficulty, and that the other LF at Fenway (visitors + redsox backups) were average overall, then I extrapolate that Manny was 7 plays below average on the road in 956 innings over the last two years and 21 plays below average in 1159 innings at home. Depending on how you extrapolate to a "full" season, and how you convert to run value, Manny approached 20 runs below average for his fly-catching. Of course he's only played about 3/4 of a season on defense each of the last two years, and he deserves a little plus for his throwing. On the other hand as a defensive metric ZR can be a little forgiving of below average performers.
there's one fact to note which pertains to both your questions: with a high wall which is relatively close to home plate, some balls which would be catchable in other parks are unplayably high off the wall at Fenway; other balls which would be over the fence at other parks are also unplayably high off the wall. Zone Rating counts both types as chances; the lost home runs stay in play and are counted as extra "opportunities" for a LF at Fenway; the lost potential outs on shorter flies besides being "opportunities" become hits and bring more batters to the plate, who in turn have a chance to put additional balls into play. Over the last 2 years, there have been about 5% more balls in play at Fenway per inning than at other parks.
This combination only partly explains the increased number of ZR chances for left fielders at fenway the last two years (which is a 15% increase per inning); it's worth further study to find out whether this is just luck or something else (like hitters at Fenway trying harder to pull the ball).
As far as "less ground to cover", that's true in a sense, but the side-to-side dimension (foul line to left center) of the left fielder's territory at Fenway is unchanged; the disappearing area to defend is over the left fielder's head. Mike Emeigh has made the point several times in threads at BTF that if an outfielder optimizes his range by playing 60 feet in front of the fence in a normal park he should also play (about) sixty feet in front of the fence in a smaller park. But then he is closer to the plate and has less time to react (which is no help to a player who is slow because he gets a bad jump). So it's not clear how much difference the reduced outfield territory at Fenway really makes. In 2007 the media repeatedly commented that Manny was playing "too shallow" at Fenway, and was overly eager to play caroms off the wall - a number of catchable balls hit low off the wall or on the warning track while he positioned himself for the rebound.
I don't deny ZR is flawed; but there are no complex assumptions involved in it. I tracked home/road splits with it in 2006 to get a sanity check on the wide disagreements between metrics such as PMR and UZR for Manny in 2005.
Did you also make the corollary observation of how many balls he wouldn't have gotten that were hit in front of him if he had been playing deeper?
And how many sprinklers?
Seems like we just have a disagreement on how many balls fell in over Manny's head (and no idea how many extra ones in front of him he got to). I would look through all the condensed home games, but I don't have mlb.tv anymore. If this were a problem, would the team realize it and make him move back? Or would they not deem it worth the trouble of disturbing him?
Around July 19, 2007 Francona said to admit speaking to Manny about playing too shallow
It's been noted for at least 3 years that Manny plays a shallower left field at Fenway than other left fielders. If the data suggests that Manny is "worse" at Fenway than on the road, after accounting for park effects, it seems a credible theory that the unusual positioning and the results are related. Note the "if". I am not insisting that Manny's positioning has been a losing trade-off (though by playing shallow he needs to take away about 3 extra singles for every 2 extra doubles he gives up). The apparent discrepancy between home and road certainly may be an illusion from a small sample size. But if it's real, his unusual positioning is the likely cause.
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