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August 16, 2010

The play not made is the stat not kept

By Edward Thoma Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO — There’s one — at least one — in every game.

It’s the play not made. The “hit” that really isn’t a hit, the base surrendered without a bobble.

It’s the play from Saturday night when Denard Span foolishly tried to take third on a grounder to short — and Oakland’s shortstop failed to throw him out. Scoring ruling: Fielder’s choice. Ultimate result: A Twins run.

It’s the play from Friday night when a different Oakland shortstop bobbled a perfect double-play grounder and had to settle for a force out. Again, no error; again, a run for Minnesota.

It’s the failure Thursday of the Chicago middle infielders to cover second base on a steal attempt. A.J. Pierzynski was charged with an error for the throw, but it wasn’t really his fault.

It’s the two balls last week that hit the glove of a running Delmon Young and eluded his grasp. One was scored a double, the other a single, but everybody watching knew he should have caught them.

This listing of faulty defense from a recent handful of Twins games is by no means exhaustive, merely illustrative.

The flaws of traditional defensive stats — putouts, assists, errors — have long been known. Good teams and bad teams each make 27 putouts per nine innings. A statue in center field will make few errors but few catches.

And the recent attempts to devise more sophisticated defensive measurements — starting with Bill James’ range factor back in the 1980s and continuing today with such metrics as UZR (ultimate zone rating) and plus-minus — haven’t reached the exactitude that their hitting counterparts have.

(On my blog today I have posted links to two pieces, one of which critiques the new stats and the other defending them.)

Part of what’s missing, I suspect, are these borderline plays.

Plus-minus and UZR will certainly dock Young for those balls he didn’t catch, but won’t (as I understand them) penalize anybody for Pierzynski’s error. And they will dock Michael Cuddyer for the play on which Jose Mijares failed to get to first base in time to take a throw — which was, in truth, a good play by Cuddyer.

What either system makes of Cliff Pennington’s double-play-not-made is a mystery to me.

I come back, yet again, to something I realized last October while watching the Yankees march to their World Series win despite a defense with limited range.

Good defense isn’t a matter of flashy Web Gems and dazzling dives. It’s a matter of not screwing up.

Good defense is a matter of keeping a single a single rather than turning it into extra bases with an ill-advised dive or off-balance throw. Good defense is minimizing the damage.

Case in point: Delmon Young has a strong arm. Johnny Damon does not.

But Young frequently allows the trailing runners to take a free base by throwing for a lead runner he has little chance to nail. Damon, last October, knew he wasn’t throwing that lead runner out and just hit the cutoff man. Held the batter to a single, kept the double play in order, kept a man out of scoring position.

Good defense is consistently making the play that’s there to be made.

What we need in our defensive stats, I think, is a publicly-available measure of the non-error misplays — the plays not made.



Edward Thoma is a Free Press staff writer. He is at 344-6377 or at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a baseball blog at www.mankatofreepress.com.

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