Gutierrez’s Defense
If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know that we’re big fans of Franklin Gutierrez. He represents exactly the kind of player we’ve been pounding on the M’s to acquire for years, and its a joy watching him chase down flyballs in center field. He’s going to end the year as a +5 win player, with a decent chance of outproducing even Ichiro in terms of value added to the club this year. He’s been sensational.
However, the purpose of this post is to serve as something of a cautionary note. Gutierrez is a tremendous defensive outfielder, but we very well could be witnessing a career year with the glove. Death To Flying Things isn’t likely to ever post UZRs this good again. Honestly, no one is likely to ever post UZRs this good again – his defensive numbers are pretty close to being off the charts.
As you probably know, UZR is broken down into components of range, arm, and errors. Gutierrez’s total UZR for the season is an eye-popping +22.6, but even that undersells his range a bit, as he’s lost nearly three runs due to some of those embarrassing errors he’s committed over the last few months. The Range portion of his UZR is +24.8. The next highest Range number for a center fielder in baseball this year? Mike Cameron, +12.9. No one else is over +10.
He isn’t just blowing away the field this year, either. Here’s the ranking of the best Range Runs seasons by a center fielder since 2002, the first year we’re able to produce UZR data for on FanGraphs.
Coco Crisp, 2007, +25.6
Franklin Gutierrez, 2009, +24.8
Andruw Jones, 2005, +21.7
Andruw Jones, 2003, +21.6
Juan Pierre, 2002, +21.1
Andruw Jones, 2004, +20.8
Corey Patterson, 2004, +20.3
Darin Erstad, 2002, +19.4
Andruw Jones, 2002, +18.8
Mike Cameron, 2003, +18.4
Juan Pierre, 2006, +18.4
Carlos Gomez, 2008: +17.0
Andruw Jones, 2006, +15.9
There have been 13 seasons in the last eight years where a center fielder has posted Range portion of their UZR in excess of +15. Five of those belong to Andruw Jones – besides him, Juan Pierre is the only guy to do it more than once. There’s a reason we usually say the normal range of defensive performance is something like -20 to +20 runs from best to worst at a given position.
This isn’t to degrade Gutierrez’s performance at all. We’ve all watched him run down every fly ball in the gap this year. He’s been amazing out there. But this is probably something like the defensive version of Ichiro’s 262 hit season. It’s not a slight against Ichiro to say that he’s probably not ever going to do that again. He’s a great hitter, but 262 hits in a season is crazy.
So is +24.8 range runs from a center fielder. What we’ve seen is the combination of a great defender playing at the absolute peak of his abilities for six months. If Gutierrez actually could sustain this level of run saving range, he’d go down as the best defensive outfielder in the history of baseball. I love Death To Flying Things, but we shouldn’t be projecting anyone to go down as the greatest of all time.
Appreciate what we’ve seen. Just don’t expect to ever see it again. Gutierrez is having an historically great defensive season, and expecting him to repeat it next year is asking too much.
Unfortunately, this also means when we revel in how much more valuable he’s been than Adam Jones, that isn’t necessarily going to hold up. Although it’s a bit surprising to see that Jones has actually had a negative UZR this year.
How is it possible for FG to be 4 wins better defensively than Vernon Wells?
Seriously about the only balls dropping in FG’s gracious space are errors.
We will eventually have UZR data prior to the 2002 season?
What sort of a drop would you expect, Dave? We’re not looking at him dropping off a cliff or anything, I wouldn’t think.
Can we still expect him to be the best center fielder next year using UZR, based on the huge margin he has over everyone else this season?
I’m just hoping he gets the proper look from the baseball writers for a gold glove. I’m guessing he won’t, but he sure deserves it.
If this is his career year, is there any scope for looking to trade him away this summer? With Langerhans, Saunders and Ackley waiting a couple of years away, and Ichiro going nowhere, is there a chance that a ballclub will view the UZR and decide that they want to add an all-star calibre player without taking into account his 2010 regression?
I was glad to see Jim Edmonds wasn’t on that list. Most overrated CF (in terms of range) in the last decade, in my opinion. So, that piqued my curiosity to go find out what he did post during his tenure as the “rangiest CF in the game” and lo and behold, the best he came up with was a 3.6. Granted, he played a lot of years before 2002 but his numbers are pretty consistent between the -10.0 and +5.0 range from 2002-2008. Thanks, UZR, for validating what anybody who watched Jim Edmonds in person knew about his range.
Managers and coaches have that job. Doesn’t mean they’ll get it right either though.
Two-thirds of the planet’s surface is covered by water. The other third is covered by Franklin Gutierrez.
If this is his career year, is there any scope for looking to trade him away this summer?
The right time to ask that kind of question is not when somebody has a career year. It’s when the player’s perceived value to other teams exceeds his real value to yours. Now that scenario might sometimes come up in connection with a career year, but in the case of Franklin Gutierrez, I doubt it. However, Dave has already made the case that it might well apply to Jose Lopez.
I set my mental image of whether a fly ball to the gaps is going to be caught to “Cammie 2002” and still think the ball is going to fall in, and Franklin is not only there, he’s there easily. It’s some of the most enjoyable baseball to watch I can recall. He doesn’t need to make spectacular catches, he simply has the best reactions to batted balls I’ve ever seen from an outfielder.
f this is his career year, is there any scope for looking to trade him away this summer? With Langerhans, Saunders and Ackley waiting a couple of years away, and Ichiro going nowhere, is there a chance that a ballclub will view the UZR and decide that they want to add an all-star calibre player without taking into account his 2010 regression?
So if he loses 15 runs off of his overall value, he goes from a ~5 WAR player to a ~3.5 WAR one. That’s still a really good player. Langerhans and Saunders are huge downgrades from that, and trading an inexpensive All Star is pretty much the exact opposite of what the M’s need to be doing- arguably, their problem is they don’t have ENOUGH players of Franklin Gutierrez’s caliber. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to flip one 3.5 WAR player for two of them, and the M’s don’t need a bunch of Langerhans/Hall, 1.5-2 WAR roster filler, which is generally the other way deals of this nature go (star gets traded for a bunch of OK ballplayers). Nobody is really untouchable in the right deal, but you can make the case that Felix or Ichiro is less untouchable right now than Death to Flying Things is, given that he’s considerably less expensive on the salary bottom line than either of them.
One thing that encourages me is that Andruw Jones DOES have multiple seasons of high UZR, so it’s possible that there may not be a ton of regression, and what we have is a dynamite CF, though I think Dave’s hypothesis (kind of a fluke year) is the one we have to take until we see him post another +15-20 UZR season again.
Is it reasonable to expect some of the drop in Gutierrez’s defensive value to be offset by an increase in offensive value? While it is true that Safeco is going to suppress his offensive numbers to a certain extent, he is also 26 and it seems like it is reasonable to expect some improvement with the bat.
Some improvement – you mean like going from .248/.307/.383 to .282/.340/.423?
Yeah, unfortunately, I’d probably say that Gutierrez is due for some offensive regression too. His skillset hasn’t changed at all, but his BABIP jumped 35 points this year.
He’s just not a +5 win player going forward. He’s had a great season, but he’s really unlikely to do it again.
Although in his limited track record, if you focus on BABIP it’s 2008 that’s the outlier, not this year. But in general I agree that with his skillset, there’s not a huge amount of offensive potential that wasn’t tapped this year. His contact profile makes this about as well as he can hit for average, and at most he could add some slugging in the form of a few missing doubles, which doesn’t shift things all that much.
The even more amazing thing is that he’s put up these defensive numbers while nursing a pretty painful knee problem all year long (originated in spring training).
Yeah, looking at his BIP numbers a bit more closely I suppose I am not as optimistic about offensive improvement as I was when I first posted the above comment. His LD% has increased from 16.7% in 2008 to 21% this year, but his HR/FB% has increased by an almost identical margin while his FB% has actually decreased 6.5%. The optimist in me would like to believe that those fly balls turned into liners, but the optimist in me also once believed that Ronny Cedeno was capable of being a league average SS, so perhaps I should stop listening to the optimist in me.
His contact% and zone% numbers are all pretty much exactly in line with career averages as well, which makes his slight uptick in walk rate seem a bit less encouraging. I still think he’s closer to 2007 and 2009 GNutierrez than 2008 Gutierrez, but even 2008 Gutierrez is a valuable player, especially as a CFer. It’s nice to know that I can have my optimism thwarted to some extent and still be quite pleased about a player.
Just imagine what Andruw Jones’ ratings would have been had he been more slender. His numbers are shocking considering his bulk.
I just love it that he has been so good that Dave Niehaus is calling him “Death to Flying Things” these days. I can’t ever get enough Bob Ferguson references.
Did you forget Nyjer Morgan?
He is potentially rangier than Gutierrez.
JMB: Very nice.
Morgan certainly has range, but a significant part of his value comes from his ARM rating. He’s +8.2 range and +7.0 arm this year in CF.
Well, Morgan has also posted a +9.4 range in LF this season. Is there any way to convert corner UZR range to CF UZR range?
From what I’ve seen in his speed, he’s certainly got a chance to out-range Gutierrez, but he’s probably not there yet.
Gutierrez isn’t even all that fast. I would have figured watching him would have shown people that there’s more to good outfield defense than track speed.
For converting UZR among outfielders, just use the position adjustments.
I’m not going to argue Guti’s year in historical reference to other outfielders. I’m just going to assume that for him, this is a mean year, and that he’s actually got some defensive upside.
And while I’m dreaming, one day we’ll all say it didn’t turn out too badly that Adam Jones got away.
See…doesn’t that feel better?
Expecting Gutierrez to do better than this is like saying that Felix can go 25-0 or Ichiro can hit .450.
In fifty plus years of watching baseball Gutierrez gets the best jumps I have ever seen. Better even than Mays. He has a natural talent for judging just how hard a ball is hit, it allows him to get to the best spot to catch the ball quickly. He is quite simply amazing and seventy-five percent of his performance this year would be welcome for the next three or four years. I have a feeling he could do better though.
Is anyone else scared that next season’s roster will be less effective than this years? We have guys like Gutierrez and Lopez likely heading for regression, Branyan and Beltre are free agents. How much longer can Ichiro produce at his rate?
The DH position will certainly be upgraded (it can’t get much worse). But with serious questions in LF and C, and downgrades at a lot of other places, I’m not looking towards the offseason with much hope.
Of course, then I remember who’s in charge now. And it makes me feel a lot better.
Of course, this season’s 3B total numbers aren’t all Beltre by a long shot, so there is a potential for an improvement there. C can improve if Kenji is replaced by Adam Moore and Rob Johnson becomes a once a week starter for Felix. LF can certainly improve in a number of ways.
The key, though, is 2B. Between all the outs he expends and his atrocious defense, it should be possible for Zduriencik to flip Lopez in a deal that improves the team by selling high (“new career high in home runs!”) and then finding someone who can hit and has range and dexterity in the field.
I’m praying for Zduriencik to flip Lopez. If anyone screams “trade me”, its him. He has some great shiny stats. As to what he brings back, thats for Jack to decide whats best. Aardsma ranks a high 2nd on that list.
Probably a dumb question, but on Fangraphs how does Gutierrez have a lower UZR/150 than outright UZR after having played in only 130 games?
The 150 denominator is not games played, but “defensive games”, which is based on the number of opportunities a fielder has. If he plays a game but doesn’t have a ball hit at him the whole day, there’s no reason to dock him for that.
Gutierrez has caught so many balls this season that he’s at 184 defensive games. Part of that is his range, part of that is the pitching staff, and part of that is the park. .
Fangraphs seems to say that Defensive Games isn’t affected by a player’s range:
So part of Gutierrez exceptional season is just a ton of opportunities (and durability, of course). He’s accumulated 184 DG while playing in 131 actual games — a nice 40% bonus in opportunities.
Next year Safeco’s outfield will still be large, the Mariners will still have a ton of flyball pitchers, so he may well put up another large number.
Going by UZR/150, Gutierrez is “only” at 18.5 — I counted 10 player-seasons better than that since 2002 on Fangraphs, headlined by Corey Patterson in 2004 with 33.8 (but only 106 DG, and thus 24.6 UZR).
Ok, I shoved all the data off Fangraphs into a spreadsheet and computed Range Runs/150, since Dave was specifically talking about range. Counting only players with > 75 DG (~30 player-seasons per year), FG is only the 10th best since 2004:
Name Year Team Pos G Inn PO A E DP DG exO ARM RngR ErrR UZR UZR/150 RngR/150
Corey Patterson 2004 Cubs CF 157 1367.2 324 8 1 5 106 271 3.7 20.3 0.7 24.6 33.8 28.73
Andruw Jones 2005 Braves CF 159 1366.1 365 11 2 1 124 316 7.7 21.7 0.6 30 34.7 26.25
Coco Crisp 2007 Red Sox CF 144 1216.1 408 7 1 4 157 397 -2.4 25.6 1.2 24.4 22.4 24.46
Alfredo Amezaga 2007 Marlins CF 87 643.2 208 8 5 1 78 201 5.4 12.6 -1.2 16.9 32.1 24.23
Andruw Jones 2003 Braves CF 155 1329 390 8 3 1 135 342 -0.8 21.6 0 20.9 23.4 24.00
Nook Logan 2005 Tigers CF 123 874.1 282 3 6 2 91 231 -1.8 14.4 -0.7 12 20.2 23.74
Andruw Jones 2004 Braves CF 154 1347 389 10 3 2 134 340 5 20.8 0.7 26.5 28 23.28
Juan Pierre 2002 Rockies CF 149 1197.2 363 2 2 1 145 364 -6.7 21.1 1 15.3 16.6 21.83
Franklin Gutierrez 2009 Mariners CF 131 1156.1 383 4 7 0 184 356 0.2 24.8 -2.4 22.6 18.5 20.22
Hmm — something’s fishy about the DG numbers on Fangraphs. I went to compute DG/9 innings, i.e. who has gotten the most opportunities, and the top 15 player-seasons were all from 2009. Is DG showing projected DG through the end of the season rather than just current DG? Did Fangraphs change the methodology somehow?
Thanks Dave “Debbie Downer” Cameron, for these depressing words of insight! Next your going to tell me that RRS isn’t this good and that Aardsma’s HR/FB will regress.
Dave, have you taught yourself nothing?!? Felix could pitch better and go 0-25 (with 9 complete game shut-out no decisions!). Maybe Ichiro couldn’t hit .450, but AVG is an overrated stat that has lots year-to-year fluctuation. Get with it man!
In all seriousness, to me there are few greater baseball-related pleasures than watching replays of some of Gutierrez’s catches this year. Simply amazing.
Gutierrez being due for a regression is one of the reasons I’m worried about this team potentially regressing next year.
Gutierrez will continue to be a positive contributer, but this team needs more offensive contributions to make up for the almost certain regression in defense due to Gutierrez and Beltre’s probable departure.
The Mariners will need youngsters like Saunders and Moore to hit the ground running and a free agent to have a quality season if they want to do more then tread water.