A primary reason for the San Diego Padres’ success this season has been the strength of the team’s fielding.

The Padres rank first in the majors in UZR/150 and third in Dewan’s Defensive Runs Saved.

Leading the charge has been the centerfield tandem of Tony Gwynn and Scott Hairston who have combined for approximately 7 runs above average according to both metrics.

Because of the severe sample size issues associated with fielding statistics, I do not want to discuss any more individual performances, but collectively the Padres have played 1620 defensive innings (180 9-inning individual games).  That is a somewhat more meaningful sample, and provides some reason to be optimistic about the Padres’ fielding going forward.

The bullpen is good (fourth in reliever’s RAR).  The fielding appears to be a strength.  If the team could get a bit more production out of their starting pitchers (currently ranked 23rd in starter’s RAR), the Padres could be one of the major league’s best run prevention teams.  And that’s not even considering the impact of Petco Park.

by Daniel Gettinger

• As a team the San Diego Padres have performed pretty much as expected.  They are currently 6-6 with a slightly positive run differential.  I still think 75-80 wins is a realistic expectation for this team.
• Chase Headley has been locked in offensively, but his defense needs immediate improvement.  He has five errors in 32 chances.  UZR data is not yet available for this season, and even if it was, the sample would be too small to be meaningful.  But Headley’s defense has been so bad that much of his offensive value has likely been negated.
• Will Venable needs to stop swinging at so many pitches out of the strike zone.  He has swung at 34 percent of the pitches out of the zone.  His lack of plate discipline thus far has resulted in a minuscule 4.7 percent walk rate.  Venable has never shown a ton of plate discipline (in either the majors or the minors).  It is something he will need to work on if he wants to become an above average player.
• Perhaps last season was no fluke for Kevin Correia after all.  He’s looked pretty solid.
• Gregerson’s and Adams’ artificially high ERAs are not reflective of the way they have been pitching.
• The Padres bullpen has a lot of good pitchers.  I remain convinced the team will not miss Heath Bell too much once he is traded.
• Labrum surgery is not Tommy John surgery.  Many pitchers never fully recover after having labrum surgery.  They almost never come back stronger.  I hope we have not seen the last of Chris Young as an effective pitcher, but there is a non- trivial chance that might be the case.  (As an aside, I had labrum surgery four months ago, and can certainly understand what Young is going through.  At times the shoulder feels great, but often tightens up after being tested a bit).
• Mat Latos will be fine.  He has given up too many homeruns, but his 30 percent HR/FB rate is nowhere near sustainable.  Braden Looper had the major league’s highest HR/FB rate last season (amongst qualified pitchers), and he was only at 15 percent.  With Latos pitching half of his games at Petco Park, he is highly unlikely to continue serving up home runs at such a high rate.
• Adrian Gonzalez is fantastic.  Nobody wants to pitch to him, and I don’t blame them.  Some team will get an excellent player and the Padres will be properly compensated for trading that excellent player.

by Daniel Gettinger

Read this post by MGL AND the corresponding comments.  Fascinating stuff.

by Myron Logan

Recently, I have been thinking about possible storylines for the upcoming season; what we are going to be watching. I think, for the most part, they involve sorting out the future of this team, and not necessarily winning games (though we will accept winning games, too).

I thought we could run through some different issues in separate posts, as sort of a disjointed season preview, touching on major topics (like where Adrian Gonzalez will play his games post all-star break) and micro ones (Cabrera’s fielding or Gwynn’s bat, for example).

Anyway, Everth Cabrera broke onto the scene with a surprising rookie year, making the huge jump from A-ball to the majors as a rule 5 pick. He not only stuck in the bigs, he clearly turned himself from borderline prospect to potential long-term contributor. He had shown plenty of offensive talent in the minors, so perhaps his season with the bat — .255/.342/.361 – should not have been that much of a surprise. He is not a power hitter, and probably will not turn into one, but he combines enough speed and patience to be a solid offensive contributor, especially at shortstop and in Pecto Park.

The CHONE projections, despite pegging him as nearly a league-average offensive player (again, quite a feat coming from a guy who had never played above A ball until last year), have him as a 1 WAR player next year. That is not bad, but it is not exactly earth-shattering either. Why so low? His fielding. CHONE projects his fielding to be 10 runs worse than the average shortstop next year. Considering that is a projection, and not raw numbers based on relatively few opportunities, it is somewhat disheartening.

UZR, available on FanGraphs as well, was also not a fan of Cabrera’s glove-work last year, putting him at nearly 12 runs below average. It was not just an error issue either, as he was equally bad in error runs and range runs (about –6 in each category). The only bright spot was his double play rating, which was just slightly above average.

For even further evidence of his defensive shortcomings, by the numbers, the data available at THT is also not encouraging. Cabrera came in last in the NL, among qualifiers, in RZR (plays in his zone turned into outs). His play out of his zone was respectable, but overall he still comes out well below average.

The good news is that Cabrera is young and talented, so these early numbers do not necessarily show who he is going to turn into on the defensive side of the ball. The other good news is that they may be wrong, or at least too pessimistic. Baseball America 2009 called Everth’s shift to short in 2008 “seamless,” and reported that he showed solid range and arm strength there. The Fans Scouting Report results were also positive, ranking Cabrera as the tenth best SS in the majors, and giving him excellent grades in “first few steps,” “speed”,” and “arm strength.”.

It is possible that the numbers do not represent his actual performance from last year; that due to whatever biases, they did not grade his fielding properly. It is also definitely possible that, despite a bad initial showing, he could develop into an average (even elite) fielder, with good coaching and hard work on his part. Of course, it is also possible that he just is not good with the glove.

Whether Everth Cabrera becomes a staple at the 6 hole for this Padres team may very well come down to what kind of value he ends up providing in the field. His development in this area of his game is something to keep a close eye on this year.

by Daniel Gettinger

I was browsing the Padres page on Fangraphs this evening and came across something absolutely shocking: Fangraphs estimates Anthony Gwynn was worth $12.6M last season.

Gwynn’s value is not derived from the bat, where he was about 2 runs below average.  Instead, it comes almost entirely from his fielding.

Gwynn’s UZR, in only 113 games was was 13.6, or 19.4/150 games.  He was exceptional both in CF, as well as RF.

As usual when dealing with fielding statistics, it is important to keep in mind the small sample, but Gwynn appears to have been a good fielder during his time in Milwaukee as well.  In 51 games with the Brewers (over the 2007 and 2008 seasons), Gwynn compiled a UZR of 4.4 (nearly 13/150 games).

In Tango’s fan’s scouting report, Gwynn does not rate nearly as highly, garnering a fairly average 3.63 mark.  However, only 16 votes were cast for Gwynn, so it is tough to tell what to make of his score there.

I am not convinced Gwynn is truly such a great fielder.  The sample we have on him is incredibly small, and I certainly never thought he looked outstanding in the outfield, but if he does in fact prove to be an excellent defender, Gwynn could be a nice fourth outfielder.

With his decent speed, ability to play all of the outfield positions well, and affordability, Gwynn could prove to have actual value, not just a great last name.

by Myron Logan

Steve at Play a Hard Nine has been doing some excellent work with fielding projections for next year. The projections include a weighted (5-4-3) version of each player’s UZR, a scouting regression component (using the Fans Scouting Report ratings), and a regression to the league average of zero. Pretty neat. Here are some Padres:

Venable is the guy that stands out, and early on it appears as if he may be a really solid defensive player. So far, in 102 defensive games he’s +8.4 runs with UZR (playing both center and right). Of course, 102 games alone is not really a high enough number to get a solid grasp on his fielding skills. What is also promising about Venable, though, are his FSR ratings. In right field, Venable ranked fourth last year behind Ichiro, Brett Carroll, and Alex Rios. That is, however, only based on thirteen reports. I’ll admit, I’m a bit skeptical of that projection, but regardless Venable has been pretty impressive in the outfield thus far.

Everth Cabrera’s UZR was ugly last year at –12 runs in 110 defensive games (he didn’t look great by RZR either). He was equally bad in range and error runs, just over –6 in both. However, Cabrera was rated very highly in the FSR, with a 4.3 average rating (tenth amongst all shortstops). Using both the fans’ rating and the numbers (and a pretty heavy regression toward average), Cabrera’s projection is somewhat promising.

Anyway, these numbers are certainly not the end-all-be-all, but they are interesting and provide a nice basis for discussion.

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Quick programming note: I’m going to be at Friar Forecast on a more full-time basis, posting most of my Padres stuff here. It just makes more sense. Glad to be back.

by Daniel Gettinger

Chase Headley had a terrible first half.  Prior to the all-star game, he only reached base 30.8% of the time, mustering a putrid 0.674 OPS.  Those numbers would be borderline unacceptable for a slick fielding second baseman, let alone a corner outfielder.

Since the break however, Headley has actually been hitting the ball like many of us expected him to all season.  His post allstar game on base percentage is 0.382, and he has slugged at a 0.488 clip, good for a 0.820 OPS.

Part of the improvement was expected.  There was little chance that Headley’s was truly a Deivi Cruz clone at the plate.  Some of the improvement may also be a function of a small sample size.  Headley has only stepped to the plate 193 times since the allstar game was played.  That said, I feel Headley is at least an average major league hitter, and based on his solid minor league statistics and his recent success, potentially a bit better than that.

Unfortunately, slightly above average major league hitting does not profile well to a corner outfield position. Combined with the fact that Headley is not a good fielder in the outfield (-11.4 UZR/150 this season, and -16.0 UZR/150 last season), his value shrinks to just slightly better than replacement level.

That is when he is forced to play the outfield.

As a third baseman, Headley could be a very valuable player. Even if he is finds it difficult to make the transition back to third base, it is unlikely Headley will field any worse there than he has done in left field, making the move worthwhile due to the approximately 8 run positional adjustment Headley would receive over the course of the season.

If he is able to regain his previous form at third (most scouting reports indicated Headley was no worse than a slightly below average fielder), he would likely be a league average third baseman.  Think Kevin Kouzmanoff with less power, but better on base skills.

Basically the Padres have two league average third basemen on their roster, one of which is masquerading as a left fielder.  Headley can be a pretty good third baseman, but he is not a good left fielder.  Over the off-season the team must trade either he or Kouz.  Because Headley has accumulated less service time, and Kouzmanoff’s value will probably never be higher (after all, Kouz is a gold glove caliber player who drives in lots of runs…exactly what every team needs.  Right???)*, Kouz will probably be the one to go.  Either way, the Headley in left field experiment needs to end.

*Frequent readers will recognize I am being sarcastic, but in case you are reading Friar Forecast for the first time, or perhaps the first time in a while, I do want to be clear: I do not believe Kouzmanoff should win the gold glove this year, and I do not believe high RBI totals tell us very much about a player’s talent level.

by Daniel Gettinger

Last week, Corey Brock pointed out Kevin Kouzmanoff has the highest “fielding percentage of any Major League third baseman (.988) and the fewest errors (3).”

Brock argued, “the number of errors and fielding percentage the Padres’ third baseman has in 2009 certainly show that he should be, at the very least, in the discussion for the holy grail of awards for fielders.”

I disagree.

Kouz’s lack of errors are great, but not making errors on balls a player gets to is only one component of defense.  The other major defensive component for a third baseman is range.  And Kouzmanoff does not have great range.  UZR feels Kouzmanoff’s range has been -1.4 runs below average.

His overall UZR of 2.3 (3.4 UZR/150), seems about right to me.  It reflects Kouz’s consistency on balls he gets to (4.1 errors runs above average), but dings him for his below average range.

Baseball Prospectus is even harsher.  Their fielding metric sees Kouzmanoff’s fielding as about 5 runs below average this season.

The problem with fielding metrics is they are not very precise.  Over long periods of time, they seem to do a pretty decent job, but even a sample of 115 games (the number of games Kouz has played this season) is not sufficient to reach any definite conclusions.

That said, in 2008, UZR saw Kouzmanoff as 2.7 runs above average.  Like this season, Kouz made few errors, but displayed only passable range in 2008.  Based on his stats this year, as well as last year, I feel comfortable stating that Kevin Kouzmanoff has been a slightly above average fielder this season and projects to play the same way the remainder of the season.

Average fielding is fine, but it is not gold glove worthy.  The N.L. gold glove winner at third base should be Ryan Zimmerman.  It is not a close call.

Due to his phenomenal range, UZR feels Zimmerman has been 16 runs above average with the glove this season.  Zimmerman’s past suggests such a positive UZR may not be a fluke.  He struggled with injuries last year, but in 2007, Zimmerman was 17.4 runs above average at third base.

No other N.L. third basemen is within 10 runs (approximately one win) of Zimmerman defensively. Pedro Feliz and Casey Blake, both of whom trail Zimmerman but lead Kouzmanoff in UZR, have been 4.7 and 4.3 runs above average defensively.

Kouzmanoff has been solid with the glove, but to even consider him for the gold glove is ludicrous considering how good Zimmerman has been.  Limiting errors is great, but getting to the ball is important as well.

by Mike Rogers

ey, listen, I know there’s been A TON on Stephen Strasburg all over the internet, and recently here at Friar Forecast. That said, this was just way to good to not mention, even if there’s barely a chance that he’ll fall to the Padres at No. 3 overall.

Stephen Strasburg struck out 16 batters last night. No, I’m not kidding and I didn’t create him in a video game. His second start of the year nearly doubled his strikeout total from his first start. So, we can safely assume something in the neighborhood of 27 strikeouts in start 3 for him.

Now, he was pitching against the Nevada Wolf Pack, but still. 16 K’s is remarkable.

His final line in the game:
6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 16 K, 26 Batters Faced.

His line through two games:

2-0, 12.1 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 27 K, 1 HBP, 49 Batters Faced. Yes, he is striking out 55.1% percent of the batters he faces, while walking just 6.1%.

Fun fact: the rest of the San Diego State pitching staff has 21 K’s and 8 BB’s on the season.

by Myron Logan

If you read the Tom Tango interview, you probably have a good idea where the future lies in baseball research: HIT and PITCHf/x.

Here’s an article* by Max looking at how a team’s fielders should play Chase Utley. He used gameday data to plot all of Utley’s hits last year, then employed a cluster analysis to attempt to find where the fielders should be positioned. Fascinating!

if you’re in a particularly mathy mood, here’s everything you’d want to know about cluster analysis (and probably much more).

Also, here’s some good discussion at The Book.

*Follow-up article