Simple Zone Rating takes on the outfield
Retroera SZR now covers the outfield, as well.
These are park-adjusted based upon one year of data, unregressed. This is not ideal, of course, but will be addressed (hopefully) in the next update. I calculate the average rating in each park by season, weighting the home team’s performance so that it does not take up a disproportionate amount of the result. (In other words, in a 14-team league, the home team’s plays made and chances are both multplied by 1/14.) Each player is then compared to a weighted average of the zone rating in the parks, home and road, that they played in.
The 10 most plays made (or not made) relative to positional average:
| Last | First | POS | Years | CH | P_M |
| Jones | Andruw | 8 | 1996-2008 | 6220.7 | 159.0 |
| Mays | Willie | 8 | 1954-1973 | 8730.3 | 155.5 |
| Flood | Curt | 8 | 1958-1971 | 5578.7 | 149.4 |
| Davis | Willie | 8 | 1960-1976 | 7377.4 | 140.3 |
| Clemente | Roberto | 9 | 1955-1972 | 5823.7 | 134.2 |
| Cruz | Jose | 7 | 1971-1988 | 3860.1 | 129.4 |
| Blair | Paul | 8 | 1964-1980 | 5787.1 | 117.0 |
| Oliva | Tony | 9 | 1962-1972 | 3159.6 | 112.9 |
| Kaline | Al | 9 | 1954-1973 | 5395.1 | 107.6 |
| Barfield | Jesse | 9 | 1981-1992 | 3821.6 | 107.2 |
| Last | First | POS | Years | CH | P_M |
| Burroughs | Jeff | 9 | 1970-1982 | 2145.6 | -73.7 |
| Burnitz | Jeromy | 9 | 1993-2006 | 3640.2 | -74.0 |
| Winfield | Dave | 9 | 1974-1994 | 5326.4 | -76.5 |
| Murphy | Dale | 8 | 1980-1990 | 3488.2 | -77.7 |
| Bell | Gus | 8 | 1953-1962 | 2993.7 | -78.6 |
| Matthews | Gary | 7 | 1972-1987 | 3636.5 | -79.3 |
| Lynn | Fred | 8 | 1974-1990 | 5935.8 | -82.1 |
| Buhner | Jay | 9 | 1987-2001 | 3675.2 | -87.4 |
| Tartabull | Danny | 9 | 1986-1997 | 2341.3 | -92.2 |
| Griffey | Ken | 8 | 1989-2008 | 7579.1 | -109.6 |
Remember – this is not an estimate of “worst,” as the players who grade out the lowest here still had an incredible amount of playing time at the position, which the worst defensive players do not.
Additionally, I’m making available the SQL code used to generate all Retroera SZR, both infield and outfield. I’m looking forward to seeing what others are able to do with it!
Further enhancements to RetroSZR, as well as a substantial set of improvements to the pre-Retro SZR, are next on the docket.