The Hardball Times

Who was best at playing the field?

by James Gentile
February 22, 2013

After the passing of Orioles' legendary manager Earl Weaver last month, I found myself spending a good amount of time scrolling through the rosters of those dynasty clubs from Baltimore in the late '60s and early '70s. It shouldn't surprise you that the name of Mark Belanger kept showing up, considering he spent 16 years with the O's while playing some of the most defensively magnificent shortstop that baseball has ever seen.

Belanger has always fascinated me, though I never got the chance to actually see him play—unfortunately, as his career was winding down in the early 1980s, my obsession with the game of baseball was only just beginning. As a result, my understanding of Belanger's contribution to the game is limited to the more sophisticated modern estimates of defensive value.

The most widely respected of these retrospective defensive metrics, Baseball Reference's "Rfield" measurement (which uses the very popular Total Zone to measure range) credits Belanger with the best defensive season for a shortstop in the history of the game:

Greatest defensive seasons since 1920

Yet I doubt that Belanger's name recognition reflects that amazing feat. When standing side by side with the other positions' single-season leaders, his stature seems almost dwarf-like in comparison. In fact, aside from Belanger, it would seem that Darin Erstad is the only other player on this list who is neither currently in the Hall of Fame nor otherwise bound for it. But certainly Erstad's defensive reputation was similarly untouchable.

So, as a tribute to all the potentially forgotten Erstads and Belangers in the darker corners of baseball history, I wanted to dedicate this morning to shedding light upon more of these elite but unsung defensive superstars.

Of course, I want to do this without championing the ever-lurking "fluke" defensive season. Even the best of our modern defensive metrics can be occasionally seduced into granting undue credit or blame to a fielder in smaller samples. One solution to this problem might be to instead celebrate the greatest defensive peaks in history, rather than individual seasons.

Since three seasons of defensive statistics are generally considered as reliable as a full season of offense, I compiled a list of the best consecutive three year defensive peaks as determined by Baseball Reference, using the following criteria:

{exp:list_maker}Each three-year peak required at least 80 percent of the player's team's games played at the position in question.
For catchers I made the requirement just 75 percent of their team's games.
Players were ranked by their defensive runs per 150 games from their three-year period to account for the differences in the length of season from the different eras.
I also limited this search to the live ball era. {/exp:list_maker}

Greatest three year defensive peaks since 1920

Belanger hangs onto the top spot for shortstops with his remarkable stretch of defensive excellence from 1975-1977. Albert Pujols, Brooks Robinson, and Barry Bonds also maintain defensive supremacy at their respective positions, but Gary Carter, Frankie Frisch, Darin Erstad, and Ichiro all prove they were not up to the task of sustaining their defensive wizardry over the course of multiple seasons.

That Andruw Jones replaces Erstad at center field should surprise no one, especially not those who witnessed Andruw's playing days during the turn of the century. Jones' elite range and strong arm during those years in Atlanta places him on another plane of existence far above other center fielders in history. Paul Blair's second place showing is almost 30 runs behind Jones. Devon White, Jim Piersall, and even Garry Maddox also make the top 10, but Jones stands out as a man amongst boys:

Greatest defensive peaks, center field

(Erstad, for what it's worth, did not meet the criteria to qualify here. From 1999-2001 Erstad amassed 81 defensive runs, but played a majority of his games at a different position in each season. When running the same query for "outfielder" excellence, rather than specifically LF/CF/RF, Erstad's 28.8 runs/150 ranks him just below Jones and Barry Bonds. Willie Wilson scores a few points by that method as well.)

At catcher, Ivan Rodriguez dethroning Gary Carter on the merits of his fantastic run from '96 to '98 isn't exactly a shocking upset either. But to Carter's credit, it should be noted that the two together can lay claim to eight of the top 10 defensive peaks for catchers. Only Charles Johnson (16.0) and Jim Sundberg (15.5) came even remotely close to breaking up this monopoly:

Greatest defensive peaks, catcher

At second base, I will admit the appearance of Orlando Hudson just about knocked me out of my seat. I would never have guessed that Hudson was actually on that sort of level at the keystone. I did find it interesting that the perpetually underrated Chase Utley narrowly loses out to O-Dog with his terrific run from 2006-2008, despite accumulating a superior 67 defensive runs overall during that span. Frankie Frisch, incidentally, wasn't too far behind. Among these three, the battle for greatest defensive peak at second base was extremely close:

Greatest defensive peaks, second base

(Nap Lajoie, interestingly, would have beaten them all with his startlingly awesome run from 1906-1908 had we included the dead ball era in this competition.)

At first base however, no one is even close to challenging Albert Pujols. In Pujols' best three-year span he was worth a total of 66 defensive runs above average. His closest challengers were George Scott and Keith Hernandez, both of whom totaled under 40 defensive runs in their three-year period. John Olerud ekes out an appearance at the very bottom of the list:

Greatest defensive peaks, first base

In right field, Jesse Barfield is a name I have not thought of in a long time. I remember Barfield as a respected, above-average outfielder with a strong arm that made up for a merely adequate bat, but I would not have expected him to have ranked as the greatest defensive right fielder of all time. His peak really ran five seasons, from 1985-1989, and it establishes him as one of the best outfielders to play the game rather conclusively. Al Kaline, Tony Armas and Brian Jordan all make an appearance in the top 10, but none ever put Barfield in any danger. Ichiro, incidentally, fell to eighth best, despite his record-breaking season in 2004:

Greatest defensive peaks, right field

In left, Barry Bonds is not a name we often associate with elite defensive ability. In a way it's a shame—his otherworldly achievements at the plate (along with a multiverse of controversy) have overshadowed the fact that Bonds was also possibly the best defensive left fielder of all time. He's followed by some other big names in Carl Yastrzemski, Rickey Henderson and Pete Rose, but we are also blessed with a pair of lesser known defensive superstars in Rocky Colavito and Warren Cromartie:

Greatest defensive peaks, left field

One of the more remarkable things I noticed in making these lists is that at one point in time the Baltimore Orioles had the greatest shortstop playing beside the greatest third baseman of all time, though their peaks didn't necessarily overlap. (Paul Blair, owner of the second best center field peak, was also in Baltimore during this same period.)

Prior to running these queries, I fully expected Brooks Robinson to take the prize at third base without much opposition. That Clete Boyer and Buddy Bell show up with the second and third best third base peaks was a bit unnerving. Neither was close to usurping Brooks' amazing run from 1967 to 1969, but I do admire their gall. Robin Ventura and Graig Nettles are predictable showings, but it's also nice to see Evan Longoria make an appearance here at No. 5 overall. He is certainly the youngest active player to appear in a top 10 for any of the positions here today:

Greatest defensive peaks, third base

At shortstop, Belanger is similarly far above the competition, as you might have expected. One combination or another of Belanger's stretch of seasons from 1973 to 1978 accounts for the top four defensive peaks for shortstops in the live ball era. Only Ozzie Guillen's three-year span from 1986 to 1988 puts an end to Belanger's dominance. And just in case you were wondering how the Wizard fared, Ozzie Smith's best three-year span rates only as 10th best per Baseball Reference:

Greatest defensive peaks, shortstop

The entire list of three-year peaks, including the top 50 at each position, can be viewed as a google doc here.

Note about the differences in eras

There is something we ought to consider when using Total Zone.

Baseball Reference essentially uses four separate methods of estimating defensive value depending on the data available from a particular season. For recent seasons Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) is used. From 1989 to 2002 a version of Total Zone including zoning buckets used from project scoresheet is used. Retrosheet's play-by-play data is used from 1950-1988, and a very basic form of Total Zone is used prior to that.

We've witnessed Pujols and Hudson at their peaks just in the last decade, while Pudge and Bonds wowed us in the '90's, and Jesse Barfield only a few years prior in 1987. That leaves only Belanger and Robinson to represent the '60s and '70s, while the entire first century of baseball is left wholly unrepresented in the all-star team of defensive peaks.

This might lead one to wonder: Are we seeing more defensive superstars as time goes on?

If we look at the number of players who managed a defensive runs/150 of at least 10+ runs in each season since 1920 requiring an appearance in at least 80 percent of their team's games, the bias favoring recent eras becomes apparent:



Obviously teams did not just suddenly begin adding defensive wizards to their rosters at mid-century. In 1950, once Retrosheet's play-by-play data becomes available, it is clear that our measurements of defensive performance become much more confident and much more willing to hand out excellent defensive ratings.

Would players like Frankie Frisch and Nap Lajoie put our modern defensive superstars like Chase Utley and Evan Longoria to shame with their glovework? Impossible to say, based on the limitations of the data available from that time period.

This is a rather bittersweet fact to accept. On one hand, we have to come to terms with the fact that there will never be a way to effectively compare fielders from different eras. But it also allows us the opportunity to engage in some wonderful arguments about which players were the greatest at fielding their position in the history of the game. If we did have these magical numbers assigned to each player's value, we wouldn't have much to talk about, now would we?

James Gentile writes about baseball at Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times. You can follow him on twitter @JDGentile

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