Printer-friendly

January 24, 2008

Schrodinger's Bat

Simple Fielding Runs Version 1.0

by Dan Fox

"Let him hit it, you've got fielders behind you."
--Alexander Cartwright, attributed by Bob Chieger in Voices of Baseball

When it comes to fielding analysis, there really is no such thing as simple. Be that as it may, in this space during the last month and a half we've been exploring a nascent fielding system I developed based on play-by-play data: "Simple Fielding Runs," or SFR, for those who aren't totally nauseated by yet another TLA (three-letter acronym).

Simply put, the main advantage of developing such a system is that it claims the middle ground between systems that are based on traditional fielding statistics (such as the Davenport Translations, or the subsequently-developed fielding component of Bill James' Win Shares), and those based on zone data tracked for every ball put in play, notably Mitchel Lichtman's Ultimate Zone Rating [UZR] or John Dewan's Plus/Minus system (as described in the initial 2006 edition of The Fielding Bible). As we'll see, each approach has its advantages, and we'll exploit one of those where SFR is concerned in the final section of today's column.

While the idea of creating a system based on play-by-play records turned out not to be very original, the implementation of SFR is unique, and it has been interesting to see how the two systems fare when compared to those based on more granular data. To that end, and in the formulaic threefold manner that defines so many of these columns, this week we'll briefly recount the refinements that have been made in SFR over the last month, then make a few comparisons between SFR, UZR, and the Plus/Minus system, and wrap up by applying SFR to the 2007 minor leagues to take a look at who is flashing the leather down on the farm.

Evolution Not Revolution