Sneak Peek: ESPN Defensive Ratings
Many people have commented with glee about ESPN’s latest masterpiece, ESPN Player Ratings. These ratings take everything that’s important about a player and boils it down into a number than can be used to evaluate that the player’s worth to a team, the most important thing in baseball.
Using my Top Secret Insider Connections, I broke into ESPN’s headquarters and procured the secret upcoming formula from the two-key secure mainframe inside Bristol’s reactor core. Enjoy! But if you don’t hear from me again, it means that E-men got to me.
UPDATE: I’m in even hotter water as I have obtained the exclusive spreadsheet and am posting it here. I’m in hiding right now, but I feel the walls closing around me. Please, tell people. Tell people.
ESPN’s Defensive Ratings
by Andronicus W. Einsteinium
Everybody’s talking about the ESPN Player Ratings© recently unveiled by ESPN.com© in conjunction with ESPN©, The Worldwide Leader in Sports©. Now, I am happy to bring you the© companion creation, ESPN Defensive Ratings©!
Like ESPN Ratings©, ESPN Defensive Ratings© rank players according to everything that’s important. In this case, the aspects of defense that cause teams to win championships. As an example, here are the 2007 MLB Shortstops, ranked by ESPN Defensive Rating©. Enjoy! Players get 30 points for being the best in a category and 1 point for being the worst. Categories are weighted by importance and then, multiplied by some number to look like a 1-100 scale even though it really isn’t.
Legend:
FPCT - Fielding Percentage (19%) - By far the most important measure of fielding, fielding percentage has proven itself for more than a century as the gold standard by which excellence is judged. Until now.
+/- 35 - How many years from Age 35 (16%) - Stats cannot measure a player’s leadership, which comes from experience. But this is the next best thing.
Ht>60 - Height over 60 inches (10%) - It’s well known that taller players have more trouble playing defense because their gangly limbs can get in the way, unlike short, compact sparkplugs. This is only weighted 12% because it would be unfair to be too hard on elite defenders like Derek Jeter who overcome their height.
Skin - Skin tone (1-10) (14%) - Everybody knows that white players have to work harder because they don’t have as much natural talent. Hard work should always be honored.
Elc. V - Electoral Votes of Home State (7%) - When you think of defensive prowess, what do you think of? California and Florida boys who work in the sun, good ol’ Texas lads who farm during the day and play baseball at night, and scrappy New Yorkers, full of piss and vinegar. All those states have a lot of electoral votes. Nuff said.
Clutch - Clutch Ability (15%) - Do I have to say more?
Team WSWWII - Team World Series since WWII (9%) - Stat nerds were very disappointed that we included quality of team in our ESPN Player Ratings©. I’m guessing that they don’t think the sample size is large enough, so, after consulting with a team of molecular biologists, I decided to go back more than half a century to 1945! Take that small-sample whiners!
Jump - Random Jumping (10%) - Sometimes, you just need to leave your feet to make a throw in order to inspire your teammates to greatness.
Dan Szymborski
Posted: June 12, 2007 at 06:28 PM |
48 comment(s)
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1. AROM Posted: June 12, 2007 at 06:55 PM (#2401513)So it could use some tweaking, but this is obviously the gold standard that all fielding discussions should utilize. Well done Dan.
Is that anything like the one in "I, Robot"?
I can't speak from Andy, but Jeff Bennett discussed this at length. Essentially, as Bennett's theory goes, park factors are overrated - clearly, Carl Crawford can still be black in a dome and Khalil Greene can still be surprisingly white in sunny San Diego, so it's unfair to penalize Brendan Harris or to reward Miguel Tejada.
Also, you've touched upon it with +/- 35, but "clubhouse presence" is conspicuously missing.
I agree with the Venezuelan factor though so perhaps a ranking of oil production and consumption -- that way you get to keep Venezuela, Texas, California, and NY.
I think there may need to be some position-specific factors included. I don't know how you measure SS defense if you don't include salary/HR. Used to be only the Yankees were aware of this factor -- it's why they moved AROD to 3B.
The key point is that this stat is useless until it can show to everybody that Jeter is #1.
DaMick
Perhaps my sources are just better than Dan's, but I believe that ESPN Defensive Ratings+© -- which does include the Web Gems quotient -- are only going to be made available to ESPN Insider© subscribers. My sources further tell me that if you don't mute certain parts of ESPN's Baseball Tonight© or ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball© Presented by Taco Bell©, you'll hear a secret code you can use online at ESPN.com© to see ESPN Defensive Ratings+Extreme©... though, my mole tells me that you're likely hear the code solely from the lips of Kruk, Morgan, or the like.
ESPN Defensive Ratings+Extreme© will include the Stuart Scott Catchphrase Quotient©, which ultimately shows Derek Jeter to be top of the heap.
ESPN Defensive Ratings+Extreme© will include the Stuart Scott Catchphrase Quotient©, which ultimately shows Derek Jeter to be top of the heap.
This post was brought to you by Bud Light. Always worth it.
That may be the funniest thing I've ever read at BBTF. It reminds me a lot of the great Chuck Norris jokes.
<standing ovation>
Now, not so much.
The SOB didn't have to jump last night to grab that liner by Chris Young. He should've dove to his left.
Ummm... not quite.
Where are the waves of pop-ups? Where are the floating Flash widgets to get in my way of reading the content? Where are the noises, flashing lights, and other baubles? Where are the obstrusive , jump-to-the-front ads to interfere with drop-down menus?
...and above all -- why haven't we heard from Sean yet that BB-Ref will be updated to actually make this statistic accessible and at least entertaining?
I have to say, I'm a bit worried about the future of ESPN Defensive Ratings© if they cannot be properly buried behind behind webjunk and shitty design, then rescued by bb-ref as with everything else.
- Surely the +/- is backwards, per post #12.
- Eckstein is pretty pasty, but 41 points ahead of Wilson? No way.
Lower is better, with higher values being negative. I was trying to poke fun at the tendency to not just do things arbitrarily, but actually to apply the arbitrary stat in a ridiculous manner.
You're just jealous.
You're just jealous.
I actually usually have quite a full head of hair, I've just been shaving it since September. I haven't been able to keep it up - my skin is too sensitive and my scalp still wants the temperature to be 20 degrees warmer than the rest of my body.
Also when I found out Chip Ambres was black.
I'm just keeping the ridiculosity coming is all.
Whether it's a kindergarten teacher looking at the attendance list
$5 will get you $10 he was home-schooled at that age.
I too went through the Khalil Effect.
I'm still not getting over Willie Bloomquist.
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