November 23, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. Most Recent Comments
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009He’s got the scoopPosted by Dave StudemanBaseball Info Solutions tracks the number of bad throws a first baseman saves, as well as the number of good throws he misses. According to John Dewan's latest Stat of the Week, the difference between the best first baseman (Casey Kotchman, nine scoops above average) and the worst (Joey Votto, six below average). If you spread these out over a full season, you might say that the difference between the best scooper and the worst is about 20 saved throws. The difference between a single and an out is roughly .6 runs. 20 times .6 is twelve runs. So twelve runs—a little more than one win—is a rough estimate of the difference between the best and worst first basemen in this one particular aspect of their fielding skill. This is all extremely rough, of course, but it's probably fair to say that the impact a first baseman's ability to save (or miss) errant throws is generally worth a little less than the impact of an outfielder's arm. Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail. Comments
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Hey Dave, the SOTW covered 2008-09, so the annual impact is about half of that.
Also, in the Fielding Bible Dewan used about .75 runs for infield plays. The interesting thing is that a bad throw in this case not only puts the batter on first base but it also gives the runner(s) a chance at taking an extra base on the bad throw/missed catch. The run impact is probably a tick higher on these plays.
At the same time, the SOTW included wide throws that were saved from becoming overthrows. This run impact is smaller, probably close to the difference between a double and a single.