A CITIZEN'S BLOG

As I said yesterday, I intend to discuss individual players today. I'm actually going to break this post in half and discuss the Phillies infield today.

Jim Thome; First Base

The Phillies don't rely on Jim Thome's glove, and that's a good thing: Thome is not a great first baseman. Anecdotally, he isn't a player with great range (although I'd say he has good foot work), and most stats back that up: Mike Humphries Defense Regression Analysis (DRA) rated Thome at -10, in other words, having Thome in the lineup cost the Phillies ten runs on the field. Dave Pinto's Probablistic Model of Range (PMR) rates Thome near the bottom in MLB 1B's.

At the moment Thome's Zone Rating is an abysmal .821 (actually an improvement over last year's .817, by the way), which would rank him dead-last amongst full-time NL 1B's.

Chase Utley; Second Base

It is hard to really evaluate Chase Utley. With Placido Polanco finally gone we'll get to see what Chase can do full-time at second base, but his numbers are something of an enigma right now. We don't know what they mean.

2005: Zone Rating / Range Factor
Utley: .856 / 5.25
Polanco: .905 / 5.13

Naturally because Chase & Placido split time at second their numbers don't qualify them with the league leaders, but if they did they would be the third and the best second basemen in the National League in Zone Rating. So far this season there doesn't seem to be much question that Polanco was the better fielder. Better ZR rating, no errors to Chase's two, and 1.7 Fielding Win Shares to Chase's 1.4. If you adjust their numbers per 1,000 innings, here is what you have:

Utley: 3.73 Fielding Win Shares
Polanco: 5.94 Fielding Win Shares

Dave Pinto's PMR rated Chase the #1 NL 2B in 2004, and Polanco #7, so I think we can agree that the Phillies have good fielders at 2B regardless of whether it is Chase or if it was Placido. If the Phillies stay in the race and if the Phillies play better defense, than I think we need to credit Chase's glove with the success the team has.

Jimmy Rollins; Shortstop

I'm actually not sure what to make of the Phillies SS, whom they just inked to a long-term deal despite so-so numbers this season. At the moment Rollins is eighth of fifteen NL SS's in ZR. He's eleventh in Range Factor. Jimmy is also eighth in Fielding Win Shares amongst NL SS's. Mediocre totals. Mike Humphries DRA rated Rollins at +3, not a bad total, though Mike does caution that Rollins numbers are suspicious. (Note perennial Gold Glover Derek Jeter is rated at -22 in DRA: one of the many reasons why sabremetricians scoff at Jeter's hype.)

My gut tells me that Jimmy is probably better than average, but the numbers tell a different tale.

David Bell; Third Base

Let me just take a moment to shock the lay observer with the following statement:

The Phillies have one of the best ... if the The Best ... defensive third basemen in baseball.

It's true, and I have facts to back it up:

We'll start with the fact that David Bell is leading the NL in Range Factor amongst 3B's. Not bad on a team whose pitchers tend to get fewer groundballs than the league average. Bell is also third in ZR, behind Sean Burroughs and Chipper Jones, two pretty darn good 3B's. Bell is also third in Fielding Win Shares behind the Astros Ensberg and the Padres Burroughs.

The lay observer would object to my argument and point to the fact that Bell has 10 errors and a low-average fielding percentage, but a sabremetrician would pass over those stats and ignore them because fielding percentage and errors don't really judge a player's contribution to team defense. FP measures what you do with balls you get to: it doesn't measure your range. Errors are subjective judgment calls from umps. How many times have we seen questionable plays be scored an error when it could have been a hit?

Bell's defensive contributions aren't new. Mike Humphries DRA rated David Bell at +10, an impressive number, just three runs behind Scott Rolen.

Bench ... With the departure of super-utilityman Placido Polanco to Detroit, I'd note that the Phillies infield lineup is much more set and much less deep. Polanco was a terrific guy to have coming off the bench: he can literally play every position in the infield. The Phillies current bench defenders, Tomas Perez, Ryan Howard and Jose Offerman are acceptable, but none are great gloves. I wouldn't look for any eighth or ninth inning defensive substitutions.

Tomorrow: the outfield.