My working theory was that it began with Scott Podsednik… Despite Podsednik’s offensive shortcomings, manager Ozzie Guillen stuck him in the left field spot vacated by [Carlos] Lee [in 2005], and batted him leadoff as well. Podsednik didn’t set the world ablaze, but he did improve to .290/.351/.349, stole 59 bases, and jumped from 1.2 Fielding Runs Above Average to 12.3. The team’s Defensive Efficiency jumped to .711, a gain of 13 points relative to league average, and the [White] Sox improved from 83 wins to 99 en route to their first world championship since 1917. Speed and defense came in vogue, teams stuck extra speedsters into left field, and suddenly, left field production dropped off around the majors…
Per Bill James’ theoretical Defensive Spectrum—which runs DH-1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS-C—the positions to the left of the spectrum, which require far less defensive skill, are the ones where offensive production is supposed to be the highest. Yet as I showed last week, the reality is messier, and inefficiencies abound. At times over the past 62 seasons (1950-2011), left field has rated as the most productive position according to True Average, but at times it has fallen below right fielders. This past season, it even slipped below center fielders—the first time that’s happened since 1966…since [2004], the only time left fielders have outproduced right fielders was in 2006…
So left fielders have been losing ground offensively relative to right fielders, running counter to what we’d expect given the traditional layout of the defensive spectrum. That might make sense if teams were getting the benefit of better defense from the position. Are they? Let’s ask Lana Kane: Nope... left fielders have been more valuable defensively than right fielders just twice in the past 11 years, and four times in the past 14, a span during which they’ve had the upper hand offensively only four times…
The bottom line is that there appears to be a major inefficiency at work. Whether out of a misguided notion that these slapsters’ speed and defensive abilities are making up for their offensive shortcomings, or a league-wide shortage of truly talented hitters, teams aren’t getting nearly what they should out of the left field spot.
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1. Jittery McFrog Posted: February 20, 2012 at 09:58 PM (#4065172)For one thing: there aren't too many actual speedy slapsters on that LF list. There's Juan Pierre, who's been doing his thing since before the Scotti Podsednik Experience. There's Michael Brantley, who played 52 in CF vs 66 in LF. And there's Brett Gardner, who by the numbers was legitimately an elite defender.
The lousy hitters on the list are mostly hobbled or toasty power guys (Jason Bay, Vernon Wells, Raul Ibanez...), rather than slapsters by design.
Another thing: the year-to-year data is messy -- which is to be expected, but it makes single-year observations pretty dicey. On the True Average, OBP and SLG charts, 2011 is an outlier; remove it and recent years match the LF ~ RF trend just fine. That looks a lot more like a random fluke than a slapster invasion.
Another thing: as MGL notes in the commments, cumulative FRAA totals for a position should all be zero. FRAA is relative to position. You can't really use it to compare LF to RF's, unless you do something like study the guys who play a bit of both, which wasn't done here.
Another thing: Even if it were true that LF were underperforming relative to RF in recent years, does it follow that "there appears to be a major inefficiency at work"? How do we know it's not an efficient response to changes in conditions?
But enough negativity. Some things I thought were interesting:
--According to the True Average chart, CF hitting has been trending downward very consistently for 50 years. What's going on there?
--1B has outhit DH every year since the DH was instituted, at least if I'm reading the dotted lines correctly. I wouldn't have guessed it would be as pronounced.
--Also, there's sort of a little reequilibration that happens after the DH is introduced. It's not surprising that it would have an effect, but the way it shakes out, with the rise of 1B above the corner OFs, piques my interest. Why does it shake out like that?
It makes me wonder what these charts would look like broken down separately for AL and NL.
EDIT: Just realized I didn't make a single "It stinks!" reference in a Pod People thread. Trumpy, you can do stupid things!
1. Once upon a time, LF/CF/RF all basically hit the same. Then teams decided that CF defense might matter some. Probably coincided with the invention of the fly ball in 1920.
2. Don't discount the Mantle/Mays/Snider effect. 3 of the, what, 8 best-hitting CF of all-time overlapped at the start of the period. CF offense was "artificially" high. Note the huge drop is in the 70s after Mantle/Snider retired and Mays was no longer a great hitter.
3. The 70s were weird -- the end of Vietnam, Watergate, disco, national malaise and Tim Foli starting SS. Possibly over-reacting to astroturf and Stalinist ballpark architecture, baseball decided that speed and defense was where it was at. Collective insanity is the only reason I can think of to explain the careers of Miguel Dilone, Omar Moreno and Herb Washington.
I'm actually surprised to see that CF offense didn't pick up in the 90s and 00s.
More collective insanity. It has basically always been true that about half the teams each season don't bother with a full-time DH but use it as a slot to rotate guys through. That's not really the way I remember the late 70s-early 80s but the box scores wouldn't lie.
Might be a partial answer to your 3rd quetion. Nobody really cares about the poor-fielding 1B so, if you're going to have a full-time DH, move your poor-fielding LF there and improve the defense (or move the LF to 1B and the 1B to DH). Not sure I buy that though ... and I assume the trend holds in the NL as well.
And I see Jaffe already had mentioned my #2 from #3
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