A CITIZEN'S BLOG

I’ve gotten a chance to review Mike Humphries Defense Regression Analysis (DRA) a little and I have a couple of thoughts:

As I said the other day, Defense seems to be the Next Big Thing in baseball studies and DRA will undoubtedly play a part in how we understand defense. Coming on the heels of Dave Pinto’s PMR, this seems to be undoubtedly true.

The individual Phillies do well in DRA:

-Jimmy Rollins rates well in DRA, significantly better than how UZR* rates his performance. Rollins rates a +3 with DRA, much higher than Derek Jeter (-22) and even with the Pirates Jack Wilson.

*Ultimate Zone Rating, a fielding stat developed by Mitchel Lichtman.

-Placido Polanco and Chase Utley didn’t log enough playing time to be counted, which is a shame, given that we’d all love to see if their high ratings in PMR could be replicated here.

-The biggest shock to me was that David Bell was rated as good, or perhaps even better, defensively than Scott Rolen. In fact, Bell rated as one of the top 3B’s in the MLB. If true, this would certainly shoot a hole in my theory that the Phillies should deal Bell and install Polanco.

-Unsurprisingly, Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell both fare poorly under DRA: Abreu at -4, Burrell at -12. In fact, Burrell is rated as the worst corner outfielder in the MLB. We don’t have data for Kenny Lofton or Marlon Byrd, which is too bad.

-Jim Thome also rates poorly, to nobody’s real surprise. Only the Reds Casey rated worse in DRA (-11 to Thome’s -10).

I’m always eager to get information and DRA supplies us with a lot. After chewing over what I’ve read, I’m inclined to say that the data strikes me as accurate, though I’m skeptical about Bell. I’m disappointed that there isn’t data to evaluate Utley, Polanco, Byrd or Lofton, because their status is important to evaluating the quality of the Phillies 2005 defensive alignment. That said, DRA is a valuable resource. Well done, Mike.

No post tomorrow. My wife is taking the PA bar exam the next two days and we’ll both be busy. Check back Thursday.

For those who put comments on A Citizen’s Blog this past week: I’ve been having trouble accessing the comments page thanks to the new internet security software I’ve installed on my laptop. Sorry. I’ll check it as soon as I can.