Andriesen Marries UZR
Dave Andriesen writes a piece about the Mariners outfield defense and… well, just read it.
Gutierrez played 134 games last season for Cleveland, the highest total of his career. And according to a statistic called ultimate zone rating (UZR), meant to place a hard value on a player’s defense, Gutierrez was the second-most valuable outfielder in baseball.
UZR uses a variety of factors to determine the number of runs, compared with the average player at his position, a player theoretically saved his team. Gutierrez had a UZR of 21.7. That would mean Gutierrez personally cost Indians opponents about a run a week more than an average fielder would.
To put it in simpler terms, the guy knows what he’s doing out there.
And even if the loss of Raul Ibanez creates a challenge on offense, better outfield defense can make up for it. The Mariners last season had a team outfield UZR of minus-16.8, meaning they surrendered that many extra runs because of below-average defensive ability. The league-leading Rays, meanwhile, had a UZR of 47.1. That’s a spread of almost 64 runs saved, which is just as valuable on the scoreboard as 64 runs created.
“That’s what we talked about during the winter — can we get better defensively?” Wakamatsu said. “Knowing that we lost somebody like Raul, can we gain some leverage on (the defensive) side of it?
Hooray for Dave Andriesen.
I agree with what he said about Gutierrez. But I am not sure if he should have mentioned Griffey with the other three players when he said the M’s will have one of the best defensive outfields in baseball this year.
It looks like you changed your last name so you can secretly write for the PI. I’m on to you.
This is an encouraging sign. The more general circulation writers introduce baseball fans to the better statistical tools, the greater the fans appreciation of the sport will be.
Wow.
IMO that is a well written article. It stresses the importance of outfield defense yet isn’t to stats crazy for the main stream audience. Well done Mr. Andriesen
After listening to Nelly on KJR who seems to want to promote both Sweeney and Griffey in the field all season, this is a breath of fresh air.
Great article, thanks for pointing it out.
I think Nelson talks to every player and finds out what each wants their role to be. He then states that desire on the radio as a something that would be good for the organization.
He’s just a mouthpiece for the players to the press, he might as well still be an active player. He needs to be categorically ignored.
What’s the old adage — any publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right? Though it would be pretty hard to misspell UZR :). Kudos to Andriesen for putting UZR in the mainstream.
I like the piece better on a second read. Really it’s about Gutierrez and not a detailed analysis of outfield defense. Sure it conveniently skips over Griffey’s horrible UZR rating, but I think that makes it a better read for his audience. The reader is left thinking “OF defense is important and it will be fun to watch the next Griffey (defensively) in CF for the Mariners this year” rather than “what do you mean Ibanez was bad and Griffey sucks worse (defensively)” and completely dismiss the stats.
The problem is that a lot of people seem to think Nelson “tells it like it is” — I guess because of the radio show he used to have and whatever the dispute was that ended it (did he badmouth ownership or something — I wasn’t paying attention, but whatever it was seemed to add to his luster among a certain category of fans).
Unfortunately, the outlet he’s writing for appears to be not long for the “general circulation” world.
Andriesen’s article might be a bit more important than people think. This didn’t come out of the blue; this HAD to come out of conversations he had with team management. Which means team management puts high stock into these things. Which means they really DO have a good handle on a wide variety of stats (’cause defensive stats are cutting edge stuff; you don’t just use them and ignore stuff like xFIP, OBA, etc.).
Nelson? Meh. It’s a players’ perspective. Fine for what it is, and important in that the manager has to take it into consideration. Managing personnel and their egos is part of his job. But not something to obssess about…
[no]
That was pretty bold of him to just drop UZR like that. It’s a complicated metric to understand actually – you have to have an idea of what ‘average fielder’ means, and the jump from ‘caught ball’ to ‘run saved’ is also not trivial. Anyhow, good on him for using it. I wonder why he didn’t mention Griffey’s UZR? Maybe didn’t want to discredit the metric with his readership?
I would also like to take this opportunity to lament the impending demise of the PI.
Great to see us putting value in defense instead of having our heads up our backside like in VERY recent years.
Who was Gutierrez second to? Is there a consensus to who is the absolute worst full time outfielder in either league?
Andrieson could be taking this opportunity to showcase his modern statistical awareness for prospective employers.
Because I no longer live in Seattle, which Nelson is this broadcaster?
This one
Also this one.
Uh oh, does Larry Stone need to watch out?
Alex Rios posted a 23.1 UZR last year to lead Gutierrez’s 21.7. Jayson Werth was third at 20.6 (only three 20+s). These are for just last season.
On the flip side, Brad Hawpe was EASILY! the worst, posting a phenomenal -38.2. Adam Dunn was next at -25.5 and Bobby Abreu rounded out the bottom three at -22.9. For the record, Raul’s -11.9 last year ranked him 11th worst. Griffey was actually 9th worst at -13.4 (good thing he’ll be DHing).
DMZ must have found a magic lamp, because his wish has been granted. On the “All Time Mariners Roster: Third Base” post from last July, DMZ wrote:
That’s EXACTLY what Andriesen’s doing (only with a column, rather than a broadcast). It’s almost eerie. I agree with Adam S – anyone introducing new statistical analysis must be unfailingly positive and complementary. Anything critical of Griffey would kick up a firestorm and smother any attempt to legitimize stuff like UZR in the most mainstream circles.
Thanks BobbyAyala. Was Hawpe’s staggering total so heinous due to any sort of Coor’s Field factor? That is truly an unbelievable number.
It’s probably because I want this to be true, but —
Is it possible that Griffey’s lousy UZR from last year is at least partly due to injury? So, after the surgery, he won’t be great, but he won’t be as bad as he was last year? Or is he just getting old and he’s bound to be pretty lousy in the field?
We all want him basically doing nothing but DHing, but surely HE wants to play in the field some, and there’ll be bound to be some time out in LF for him, if not as much as he’d like.
I echo the sentiments above. It always amazes me how little emphasis many fans and mainstream media put on the importance of defense in baseball. Sure, great defensive plays make Web Gems and top plays, but they don’t seem to be as valued as in other sports where “defense wins championships” is an infallible axiom. I would hazard to guess that it comes from the lack of widely understood defensive stats. The proliferation of fantasy sports probably exacerbates the problem: you just don’t have easy stats like sacks and steals to track. Hopefully more articles about UZR will change that.
Griffey was on KJR this evening, and they asked him if he was interested in DHing or playing in left field.
He said definitely in left field.
He referred to “Sitting and Hitting” (DHing) negatively.
He said “Maybe once a month” about DHing.
He said that if they were planning to ask him to DH more than that, then “they’d need to talk about that”.
Looks like Griffey and his much worse UZR than Endy Chavez are looking to play in the field this year.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Thats it, I’m a HUGE Griffy fan but that is REALLY bad news. What part about screws in your hamstring does he not understand? I’m soooooo bummed to hear he said those things on KJR. Wak needs to sit him down and talk some sense into him!
he did say it in a joking way– the kind of joking that likely has a lot of truth behind it, but still, he was joking about with Nellie & Gas.
They were definitely in a fun mood, but I heard it as definitely representing his desire to play in the field. That is his current expectation.
I hope that Wakamatsu will have the discussion with him and get him to feel fine with DHing.
I didn’t catch that at all. The only joking tone in Griffey’s voice was the implication that they may ask him to DH more than once a month would be a joke. He clearly said he expects to play LF every day and DH at most once a month. Whether that’s how Waka intends to us him is a whole ‘nother question.
The other issue is that platooning versus LH starters didn’t come up, but from the tenor of the rest of the interview, I don’t know if it would sit well with Griffey.
I heard the KJR interview too and I definitely got the impression that Griffey does NOT want to DH at all! He was not kidding, as far as I could tell.
He definitely said, “hitting and sitting is not fun!”
So I was surprised and disappointed because I had the impression that Jack Z and Wak told him he would DH a lot if he signed with Seattle when they had their secret meeting in Peoria before the decision was announced.
This is starting to sound like trouble …
I can see Griffey throwing his typical temper tantrum if they want him to DH.
Not good! 🙁
Loved the article. The question it raises in my mind is this; Will Wakamatsu be able to maximize the team’s offensive potential so that the added defense becomes a true benefit? Those 2002 and 2003 teams only won 93 games because they didn’t have the 2001 team’s offense. We ALL remember Hargrove getting Ichiro on and then having Lopez bunt him over, giving up an unnecessary out given Lopez’s hitting and Ichiro’s speed. So if Wakamatsu can indeed squeeze every run out of this offense, given our defense this could be a fun season.
I couldn’t tell you how amazed I was when my roommate started asking me about what I thought about Gutierrez because he heard that he was a really good defender based on UZR, and that he read it in the paper. Andriesen does a great job explaining everything you really need to know on the basic level.
On the Griffey thing, Wak doesn’t seem like the type of guy that is going to break if he wants Griffey to DH and he throws a fit. In the quote from the article he says he wants to improve the defense, I just hope that Wak realizes what a terrible, terrible defender Griffey is.
Wabbles- are you implying that winning 93 games isn’t enough? I would put my money on 93 wins taking the division.