Braun's Defense...

[twobrewers]

A quick blurb on Ryan Braun's defense in Sports Illustrated "Least Valuable Player Award" (Kendall got an honorable mention. Parra was LV pitcher)

 

The worst fielder in the league was probably Ryan Braun, who managed a minus-31 Dewan as a left fielder, which is admittedly better than the minus-41 he had at third base in 2007. But, man, can Ryan Braun swat.

 

Fangraphs has his fielding at -3.2 in 2008 and -14.4 in 2009.

 

I had no idea he struggled so much defensively this past year.

 

[sheetswannabe]

Wow, didn't really think he was all that bad.

[logan82]

He's bad. Well below average. I don't think he is the worst in the league though. He has great athletic gifts. I don't think he has good baseball instincts though. I still think he can improve to at least average.

[giffted1]

I know Braun is a below average defender in left, but I'm skeptical of a metric that says he's worse than Carlos Lee out there (unless Lee has improved immensely since his time in Milwaukee).

[Schlitz001]

I know Braun is a below average defender in left, but I'm skeptical of a metric that says he's worse than Carlos Lee out there (unless Lee has improved immensely since his time in Milwaukee).

Don't forget Manny Ramirez or Brad Hawpe. There are plenty of bad defenders in the NL that would make this list before Braun. Adam Dunn.

 

Here's a link to Braun's snow angel catch in St. Louis.

[dadofandrew]

Never heard of that metric, and that's probably why. He gets to a few balls most LF's do not, but he's ok thus far. Anything below -10 runs makes me doubt the stat.

[rluzinski]

Never heard of that metric, and that's probably why. He gets to a few balls most LF's do not, but he's ok thus far. Anything below -10 runs makes me doubt the stat.

 

You made a similar comment in the thread about Fangraph's "value" metric. Seven years ago, on this message board, people were saying the same thing to you when you were pimping the powers of OPS. You often seem to be on the other side of the fence now. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't be skeptical but you aren't even trying to keep up with sabermetrics anymore.

 

John Dewan started STATS, inc and invented zone rating. His defensive metric is published in the Fielding Bible and is very similar to MGL's UZR metric. UZR's scale is in runs, is in "plays". Roughly, just multiply the value by .8 to convert to runs. So -31 plays is about -25 runs. Personally, I'd probably just stick with UZR, though, since it's methodology is almost 100% public.

 

That said, I don't think Braun is a true -25 runs LFer but it's certainly possible that he played like one for a year. It's analogous to a .230 hitter batting .180 for half a season. While I think Braun is firmly below average defensively, I don't think he's close to being the worst defender in the league.

[dadofandrew]

The problem with defensive stats is they seem very inconsistent from year to year, while it would seem defense would be among the most consistent aspect of the game. Also, the fact one has him -10 and another -25...needless to say, one of them is wrong.

[Ennder]

The problem with defensive stats is they seem very inconsistent from year to year, while it would seem defense would be among the most consistent aspect of the game. Also, the fact one has him -10 and another -25...needless to say, one of them is wrong.

No different than judging a pitcher by ERA or a hitter by OPS, those are highly inconsistent season to season in general. A single season is too small a sample to judge any aspect of a baseball player. I agree that defensive metrics are at a bit less of an advanced stage than hitting or pitching but it isn't useless either.

[rluzinski]

There's more uncertainty in the defensive data used to formulate UZR and (defining the type and speed of a BIP is subjectively determined). Furthermore, the sample size of a year's worth of defensive data is around half the size of hitting stats. One year of data tells us around what 300 AB does. Using two years of defensive data to suggest Braun is the worst defender in the league is like saying someone is the worst hitter in the league after his rookie year. As Brewer fans, we've seen Braun enough to know that while he's not been a good defender so far, he's certainly not the worst.