I think it's fascinating that now you can ask Bill James a question about the validity of advanced fielding statistics, and have him respond with an anecdote of his own limited personal experience to support them. That it's the exact opposite of what he was doing 30 years ago is delightful irony. It means we've long since won the war he started.

I just e-mailed Bill that a turn-of-the-20th-century outfielder named John Anderson once tried stealing second with a runner on second. This blunder became known for awhile as a "John Anderson play."

The John Anderson example is meaningless outside of baseball, and Charley Horse is only relevant to the category if his name was actually Charley Horse. There are many baseball phrases which are widely used, like "out of left field" and "playing hard ball" and "making the big leagues", but the question was about a player's name entering the language.

[Barney] is making plays that other 2B aren't making but could even if credit should probably go to Sveum and the coaches rather than Barney.

The Baby Ruth bar.

It's not just bWAR that grades Lawrie as historically great with the glove; plus-minus does as well. The Jays don't shift THAT much, do they? I have a hard time believing the shift is entirely, or even mostly, responsible for making a +10 fielder look like a +60 fielder (plus-minus has Lawrie at +40 so far this year).

A Japanese friend once told him, “You know, the thing about your World Series is, it’s the same players every year, but on different teams.” That’s kind of how I thought about Lofton and Roberto Alomar; it seemed like they were in the post-season every year, but you never knew what team they would be on.

Wrigley's Gum.

UZR ignores shift plays entirely and has him at +9 on the year, not +32.

It's not just bWAR that grades Lawrie as historically great with the glove; plus-minus does as well. The Jays don't shift THAT much, do they? I have a hard time believing the shift is entirely, or even mostly, responsible for making a +10 fielder look like a +60 fielder (plus-minus has Lawrie at +40 so far this year).

I think that goes too far the other way, and I disapprove of UZR just ignoring selective plays because they don't match up to its theoretical framework.

How are you supposed to measure it though?

How are you supposed to measure it though? UZR and other defensive metrics are based off of comparing the player to his peers. If his peers aren't moving around the diamond, how do you credit or debit someone for playing out of position?

Perhaps, since Lawrie is effectively playing a defensive position unique in baseball, the defensive metric just weren't built to handle this situation.

Maybe a solution for now is just not to count plays made when playing a non-traditional position?

As to the issue of defensive stats generally, the problem is not the limitation of the defensive stats; the problem is that people treat defensive stats with the same confidence as offensive stats. Isn't that what WAR does, after all? Just add oWAR and dWAR as if they're both calculated to the same degree of confidence?

I guess that's the best solution for now, but I still think it's weird to start doing that just as teams start shifting all over the place. It makes defensive statistics even sketchier.

I guess that's the best solution for now, but I still think it's weird to start doing that just as teams start shifting all over the place. It makes defensive statistics even sketchier

If B-R had a WAR number with a smoothed out dWAR (a regressed multi-year average or something), I believe that people on this website would use it.

I think Sean intends for oWAR to be used this way.

We need a number that everyone can reference, a number with leaderboards and such.

I linked to the top 10 leaderboards for the 2012 AL; oWAR is the third statistic shown - it's in the top row. It's the second statistic listed under batting leaderboards at BB-Ref. I'm 99% sure you can use it as your stat of choice in their Play Index.

it so happens that I tried to do just this for the anti-All Stars thread, but was unable to do a play index search via oWAR.

what I mean is a number that includes the defensive component.

I actually do like using oWAR as a starting point, though, because it can help to clarify the issue: how much better defensively would player X have to be than player Y to really be better overall, and how likely is it that he's that much better?

If you're looking to find out how good a guy is, it makes all the sense in the world to regress a current year's results.

But if you're trying to figure out present value ... not so clear.

but ... fielders do have good and bad years too and it feels wrong to me to just adjust this away in discussing seasonal value.

But isn't the whole issue that people want to use their own defensive numbers? I mean, if you want to have an uber-stat that has defensive numbers that you believe, the only possible answer is to construct the data yourself using your personal defensive estimates.

? She knew 3 of the 4 baseball players you mentioned.

As I understand it, the only thing the Jays are doing differently is shifting Lawrie to short RF (and basically leaving the 2B and SS where they are) rather than shifting everybody over one position.

It seems obvious to me that, at this point, Lawrie is no longer playing third base, and all the plays he makes should either be coded to a different position or ignored for purposes of ranking him as a third baseman. I know it would be a total pain to have to keep track of defensive positions and stats by batter, but if Lawrie is playing to the right of second base, and is not the leftmost member of the infield, he is not in any meaningful sense playing third base. Any system that records his numbers at that point as making third-baseman plays is wrong. It's no different than if he swapped positions with the first baseman, but you continued to record his stats as if he were still playing third.

Uh, they were 3 of 4 the most absurdly talented, famous and important baseball players of the last 20 years.

And, if he throws a guy out at first while standing between the second baseman and shortstop, should that be recorded as a 5-3 putout in the scorebook?

For a casual fan, yes. The "5" is more of a way to say "The guy currently listed on this sheet as '3B' made this play" than "the guy standing in the traditional third base position made this play", at least to me.

For a more advanced scorer, maybe. There should be some special notation made, for sure.

Casual fans don't know what "5" means in that context anyway. If you're familiar with the 5-3 notation you're not actually a casual fan.

As opposed to the relative obscurity of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and LeBron James?

You'd be surprised. My mother keeps score at every game she's at, and I'd consider her a casual fan

Astonishing to me that you could miss the point of that comment.

The only point where it becomes relevant is how *the guys building defensive metrics* score it

1) Ever heard of the athlete, and
2) Can say anything descriptive about the athlete.

Of course, that's kind of what I was getting at (badly). Matt's question was more along the lines of an unofficial scorekeeper anyway, or at least that's how I read it. Official scoring, to my knowledge, is much more detailed than just "5-3" anyway.

Why don't we just GPS the players and the ball?

Of course, that's kind of what I was getting at (badly). Matt's question was more along the lines of an unofficial scorekeeper anyway, or at least that's how I read it. Official scoring, to my knowledge, is much more detailed than just "5-3" anyway.

That would be pretty awesome. I would imagine currently, costs make it impractical. Maybe not, though.

Who's Matt?

Let's look at another example. If in the 15th inning of a game, the manager brings in a pitcher (or late model Rusty Staub) to man rightfield . When a lefty comes up to the plate, the skipper shifts the pitcher and the leftfielder. Does the pitcher become the 7 and the leftfielder the 9, or do they retain the number they were assigned at the beginning of the inning?