Julien
Benjamin, Atlanta, May 18, 2013
A
few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to discuss the topic of Freddie
Freeman's defense with the average, non-statistically inclined Braves
fans, and came to the realization that many believe that he's a gold
glove caliber first baseman. While I like Freeman, I disagree with
this, using both the sabermetric numbers, and visual scouting, by
watching him in games, be it in person, or on TV. I have come to the
following conclusion:
Freddie
Freeman is not a GG first baseman, due to a lack of range, and not
enough extraordinary catches to overcome that.
How
did I come up with this? Well, from visual scouting, I see that due
to his height, Freeman has trouble moving to his right to get to
balls between him and Uggla. Neither guy has much range in the hole
on that side, which is why we see a lot of balls get thru the right
side. Now, onto the real fun, the sabermetric angle.....
Freeman
vs. Other 1B
You
have to keep 2
things in
mind:
the frequency with which different skills are applied and the fact
that players are compared to their peer group (other
MLB 1Bs, in this situation).
Let’s
agree
to say
Freeman is really great at “scoops”. FanGraphs shows some
evidence for this. He’s made 106
scoops since
the start of the 2011 season,
which is tied
for 2nd
with
Eric Hosmer of the Royals in
the
MLB
behind Carlos Peña (who
has 126!).
The
average, decent
MLB starting
1B
(calculated from players who averaged 850
innings or more a year),
in that many innings, would have made 78.
Freeman is thus 35%
better than average, but we’re just
talking
12
extra scoops per season—not really
all that
many.
Now
let’s look at the number of plays he’s made on balls “in his
zone,” a
stat also
provided by FanGraphs. Freeman has made 301
(successful) fielding plays the past two years. However, that’s out
of 404
balls hit in his zone, meaning he’s only converted 74.5%
into outs. The MLB average is 79.5%,
which works out to 321
plays per that many opportunities. So
Freeman is worth -9
plays per year. So Freeman is “only” about
7% worse than average, but because there are so many more fielding
chances than “scoop” chances (about
4
to 1),
he’s losing more value from range than he’s gaining from scoops.
In
all, Freeman adds 12 extra scoops per season, but takes away 9 plays
in his zone, for a total of +3 total “plays” above average. As
far as his ability to “make some great diving stops and keep the
ball in front of him,” literally every major league 1B can do that.
That's
what they're trained to do. Rarely, if ever, do 1B let balls fly past
them into their dugouts or roll down the RF line.
That’s
a very simplistic analysis, ignoring many factors, but you can see
how a player could rate poorly overall in these metrics even if he
has good hands (which
I
think Freeman does). A
fielding chance is ~4 times more common than a scoop chance, so even
a small deficiency in range can more than outweigh a player’s other
defensive abilities.
Range may be less important at 1B than most other positions, but it’s
still the single most important fielding skill, and by a wide margin.
I
don’t think Freeman is a terrible fielder, but
instead believe that he's close to average.
But if we’re all in agreement that he has poor range, there’s not
really any chance that he could be above average overall, no matter
how good he is at the other aspects of fielding. The most likely
scenario is that he’s somewhat below average, with poor range
partially but not entirely offset by other factors.
Hope
that helps .
P.S.
If you want me to take a look at some former GG winners, shoot me a
tweet @bravesfanjulien
Next upcoming story, if all goes as
planned, will be a story about the struggles of BJ, Heyward, and the
rotation; who to worry about?
