Beaneball

Unrelated to the A's, here's a piece at Braves Journal criticizing Baseball Prospectus for, among other things, being inconsistent in its criticisms of Chipper Jones's defense at third base. I won't address the other criticisms (for example, about whether BP's defensive stats are accurate) because I'm completely incapable. But do the writers ignore their own stats when they call Jones a butcher at third? The argument posited is that Jones, while certainly below average, has "usually" put up above replacement-level numbers. That's true: he's been at or above replacement at third base five times and below thrice. On the other hand, five out of eight doesn't sound like a great performance record. Let's compare that to the other regular third basemen in the league last year. I'll decide on "regular" by using these pages at ESPN to see who played at third most often for each team.

Player	Team	Above rep.	Below rep.	% above
Chipper Jones	ATL	5	3	63%
Melvin Mora	BAL	0	1	0%
Bill Mueller	BOS	9	0	100%
Aramis Ramirez	CHC	5	2	71%
Joe Crede	CHW	3	0	100%
Juan Castro	CIN	2	0	100%
Casey Blake	CLE	2	0	100%
Vinny Castilla	COL	10	0	100%
Eric Munson	DET	1	1	50%
Mike Lowell	FLA	6	0	100%
Morgan Ensberg	HOU	2	1	67%
Joe Randa	KCR	8	1	89%
Chone Figgins	ANA	1	0	100%
Adrian Beltre	LAD	7	0	100%
Wes Helms	MIL	0	2	0%
Corey Koskie	MIN	6	0	100%
Ty Wigginton	NYM/PIT	2	0	100%
Alex Rodriguez	NYY	1	0	100%
Eric Chavez	OAK	6	0	100%
David Bell	PHI	4	1	80%
Chris Stynes	PIT	4	1	80%
Sean Burroughs	SDP	2	0	100%
Edgardo Alfonzo	SFG	6	0	100%
Scott Spiezio	SEA	1	1	50%
Scott Rolen	STL	8	0	100%
Aubrey Huff	TBD	2	0	100%
Hank Blalock	TEX	2	1	67%
Eric Hinske	TOR	2	1	67%
Tony Batista	MON	5	0	100%
Total (w/o Chipper)	---	107	13	89%

So no other member of the 2004 Third-Basemen's Social Club has had more than two seasons below replacement, but Chipper has had three. Among the guys with enough data under their belts to really count on (not to mention most of the guys with just a season or two), Chipper has the worst percentage of "decent" seasons with the glove, by BP's measure, and he's well below the league average. Do remember that I'm not arguing whether Jones is actually a bad defender or not, since I can't defend the BP defensive system on its merits (nor attack it). However, I can challenge the notion that the writers aren't following their own (perhaps flawed) statistics when writing their articles. In other words, when BP writers call Jones "iron-gloved," they are accurately reading their statistical reports. "More seasons above replacement than below" isn't so hot when the majority of your colleagues have never put up a below-replacement season.

This entry was posted by jason on Tuesday, March 15. 2005 at 11:40. and is filed under Baseball. | |
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