Thoughts On Outfield Defense

The conventional wisdom spewed forth from the mouth of Ken Williams states that by swapping Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik and adding Jermaine Dye in right field the White Sox will follow through on promises of improved pitching and defense with vastly superior outfield defense in 2005. Considering the effort I've invested in finding some upside to the Lee-Podsednik swap beyond an additional $6 million in payroll, $4 million of which has already been invested in Orlando Hernandez, I would love to believe that the team has replaced an outfield of plodding sluggers with tremendous athletes who will routinely race to the gaps to catch balls which previously would have dropped for doubles. Unfortunately, the available data suggests that the purported improvements in the club's outfield defense for 2005 are overblown at best.

The majority of the misconceptions about the White Sox outfield defense seem to stem from flawed perceptions of Carlos Lee's play in left field. Sox lore states that Lee was an absolute butcher in left for his first several Major League seasons after making the move from third base just prior to his debut. In spring training in '03 Lee was reported to have spent considerable time on his fielding with then manager Jerry Manuel and the coaching staff. During the '03 season, it became accepted that Lee had improved his fielding and reached the skill level of an average or slightly below average left fielder. The numbers tell a somewhat different story. Clay Davenport's fielding statistics at BaseballProspectus.com do demonstrate Lee struggling as an above average fielder his first three seasons before improving to average in 2002 and 2003. However, in a development which may shock many Sox fans, Davenport's numbers peg Lee at a spectacular 13 runs (or more than a game) better than the average left fielder in 2004. Michael Lichtman's Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) more or less confirms BPs findings through '03 rating Lee as slightly above average in range. It will be highly interesting to see if the UZR numbers incorporating '04 reflect the same leap in performance as BP's figures.

Perhaps most illustrative of Carlos' underrated defense however is the writing of Tom Tippett at Diamond Mind baseball, most likely the first to stumble upon Lee's success in the field. Examining the gold glove races in the 2003 season Tippet wrote:

There are several other AL outfielders who might be worthy of consideration if not for the presence of these three guys. Among the corner outfielders we noticed are Winn, Garrett Anderson, and (believe it or not) Carlos Lee.

I'm sure that last name will come as a surprise to many of you. It came as a big surprise to us, too, because Lee has a reputation as a defensive liability and has been removed for defensive purposes more often than any other fielder in recent years. As a result, we spent a lot of time studying his performance, and here's what we found:

- Lee stole 18 bases in 22 tries this year, and his career totals are 53 steals and a 72% success rate, so he does have some speed

- according to our analysis, Lee had no weak spots ... he was at or above the league average in all zones and depths ... and while he hasn't been this good before, he was slightly above average in 2001 and 2002, so this type of performance isn't as much of a reach as you might think

- other systems place him in the top half ... he was 24 points above average in the STATS zone rating system, and his range factor and adjusted range factor were both a little better than average

- the defensive replacements are easy to explain ... he was being replaced by two exceptional fielders, Aaron Rowand and Willie Harris, so even though Lee was getting the job done, these guys were better

- overall, Chicago's outfield converted almost as many fly balls and line drives into outs as did the Minnesota trio, so somebody was doing something right ... Rowand and Harris were major contributors, but they didn't play enough to explain this, and Lee appears to have done more than Magglio Ordonez and Carl Everett to help this outfield rank so high

Even after reviewing all of this information, I wasn't convinced. So I decided to spend some time with the MLB.com video clips service. I picked a six-week period and requested every play Lee was involved in.

(MLB.com's service isn't perfect, so I was able to get my hands on only about 80% of those plays. But think about that for a minute. I was able to call up dozens of video clips for a specific fielder in a matter of seconds, and it only cost me a few dollars. Yeah, it would have been nice if I found everything I was looking for, but how can I complain about some missing clips when such a thing wasn't even conceivable a few years ago?)

It took about three hours to view the clips that were available, and I came away very impressed. There must have been ten or eleven really good plays in that stretch. Among them were two long runs to flag down deep fly balls in the gap. On two other occasions, Lee reacted very quickly to line drives and made sliding catches to his left. Twice he went over the left field wall to save homeruns. And in what may have been his best play of that sequence, he covered a lot of ground to make a catch in foul territory while going up and over the bullpen mound at full speed.

Admittedly, sabermetric analysis of defense is far from perfect. However, performance based observations have clearly demonstrated that subjective evaluations from scouts are highly susceptible to biases and arbitrary observations. Therefore, defensive evaluations based purely on scouting do not represent a desirable alternative to sabermetric methods. Ideally, both approaches should be combined as with Tippett's use of video clips to coraborate statistical analysis. That three different methods of analysis (plus Tippett's scouting observations) rate Lee above average, with two of the methods suggesting his defensive performance is outstanding, provides a rather reliable indication that Lee is a highly underrated and highly valuable defender in left field. This revelation immediately weakens notions of a highly improved outfield defense in 2005. One of the strongest assumptions responsible for predictions of improved defense is that Lee is a plodding slugger with average to above average defensive ability. The logic follows that replacing Carlos in left with an athletic, defensive-minded outfielder will therefore generate huge gains in the field. Once one considers the fact that Lee is most likely a well above average defender, it becomes far more difficult to reap benefits through the elimination of his defensive production.

Aaron Rowand is an outstanding defensive outfielder. Davenport's metrics rate him as slightly above average in CF in 2005, not an easy feat to accomplish. I have little doubt that Rowand will play tremendous defense in left field and I suspect he will be a better left fielder than Lee in 2005. The question though, is how much better than Lee will Rowand be in '05? To represent a one game improvent over the course of the season Rowand would need to perform at more than 20 runs above average next season, a rather difficult feat. Unless Rowand manages to redefine the position of left field in 2005, it will be difficult for the White Sox outfield defense to provide the significant improvement envision by Williams and the front office. UZR rates Podsednik as a centerfielder with below average range while Davenport's methods peg Pods at 6 runs worse than Rowand in '04, suggesting the outfield may actually need to compensate for poorer defensive production in center. BP's metrics also suggest that Dye generally been a below average defender the past six seasons and claims persist that Dye has failed to regain the mobility he possessed prior to breaking his leg in the playoffs with the A's several years ago. Magglio Ordonez, the man he replaces, was above average in 43 games last season and an impressive 11 runs above average in his last full season in 2003.

It should be fun for Sox fans to watch Rowand dominate left field after battling to play average defense out of position in center field the last few seasons. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that the man he is replacing did an outstanding job in left last season. Furthermore the team is potentially looking at net losses defensively in centerfield and right. While I'm not ruling out the possibility of slightly improved outfield defense in 2005, trading your best defensive outfielder (relative to position) and downgrading in the two other outfield spots is not a surefire recipe for reconfiguring your outfield in the name of game altering defense.

Five For Fighting

Something amazing happened today: Kenny Williams made a solid baseball move. First, let's address the negatives. Orlando Hernandez is old, he is injury prone, and $4 million dollars is a large sum of money for a "fifth starter". Rumors have persisted for years now that El Duque may be closer to 45 than his listed age of 35. Clearly, we are looking at a pitcher on the downside of his career capable of missing quite a few starts the next two seasons despite a salary which would have netted Miguel Bautista or Mark Redman last offseason. However, it has become evident over the last few weeks that this is not last offseason. Contracts for starting pitchers in particular have spiraled out of control and at some point one simply has to accept that the only alternative to overpaying for pitching is working out a trade or perhaps forgoing pitcher in favor of adding more offense. With the club's sights set on adding more pitching, acquiring a fifth starter via free agency was clearly the White Sox best option as Jason Grilli is a tremendous liability in the starting rotation and Williams is a tremendous liability in trade negotiations, especially with one of the game's top pitching prospects down on the farm.

The good news is that Hernandez is still a very good pitcher. After returning from rotator cuff surgery last season, El Duque posted healthy strikeout and walk rates for a better than 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Perhaps more imporantly, he was stingy with the long ball for the second consecutive season after surrendering nearly 45 home runs in just 300 innings in '00 and '01. When healthy, Hernandez will easily be the team's third best starter behind Mark Buehrle and Freddy Garcia. Based on reports of fatigue late last season, using the fifth starter's spot to give Hernandez the occasional extra day or two of rest and ensuring Ozzie Guillen understands that Duque cannot go 110 pitches every game at this point in his career would be a good start towards preserving the pitcher's health.

Rumors Abound

Sometime last last night, rumors emerged that upon completion of the three way trade agreed to in principle by the Yankees, Diamondbacks, and Dodgers the White Sox will acquire Javier Vazquez from Los Angeles. The intensity with which Kenny Williams has supposedly pursued Vazquez, a tremendous pitcher who is theoretically undervalued at this point in light of a poor second half for the Yankees, has both suprised and impressed me throughout the offseason. However, two somewhat problematic issues emerge in acquiring Vazquez. First, an average of $12 million dollars a year for three more seasons is a large sum of money to pay a pitcher coming off a down season. While earlier three way trade proposals involving the Yankees, Diamondbacks, and White Sox included cash from New York, the current three team deal includes Yankees prospects Dioner Navarro and Eric Duncan, precluding the inclusion of money to cover a portion of Vazquez's salary. The Dodgers do not figure to send money to the Sox in the event a trade for Vazquez is in fact consummated. $12 million dollars a season is not an unreasonable figure for a legitimate ace who figures to rebound in '05 particularly in light of some of the mind boggling signings this offseason. However, paying Tim Hudson $13 or 14 million dollars over the course of a three year deal next offseason would involve far less risk albeit less upside as well.

The second complication with a trade for Vazquez is the talent the White Sox would be asked to surrender in return. Most print rumors have the Sox offering Paul Konerko, Jon Garland, and Damasso Marte in return for Vazquez. Needless to say, this would be a horrific deal for the White Sox. While moving Konerko and his $ 9.25 million dollar salary coming off of what figures to be the first baseman's best season is a sensible move, including Garland and Marte in the deal is overkill. Even if Vazquez replicates his best season with Montreal in a Sox uniform, using Baseball Prospectus' metrics, the team would be trading away a total of fourteen Wins Above Replacement (five a piece from Garland and Konerko, four from Marte) from '04 while receiving only nine or ten WARP in return. While Garland receives a lot of flak from White Sox fans for failing to develop into Kevin Brown, he has become an exceedingly valuable innings eater at the back of the rotation and once luck and park effects are factored into the equation, his dissapointing '04 season closely resembles his solid '03. Acquiring Vazquez at the expense of Garland while also plugging a sub replacement level Jason Grilli into the rotation and losing the team's most reliable hitter and reliever would decimate the Sox 2005 season.

A second variation of the deal originating at Soxtalk.com and purportedly based on a report from WFAN 66 AM in New York includes only Konerko and prospects in return for Vazquez. A deal allowing the Sox to add Vazquez at a price of only Konerko and prospects is far more promising. While the team would still struggle to score runs while fielding perhaps the worst lineup in baseball, at two years younger than Konerko, a revitalized Vazquez figures to be of more value to the club over the next several seasons. The downside of this deal is Paul DePodesta acquiring prospects from Kenny Williams and the White Sox. Williams has shown an extreme willingness to part with prospects in return for veterans in recent seasons and DePo is bound to press for the inclusion of the unreal Brandon McCarthy in the deal. After cruising through the Sally League, the Carolina League, and concluding the season in AA while improving throughout the season and finishing with a ungodly 202 to 30 K/BB ratio, McCarthy must be considered one of the top pitching prospects in the game. Unfortunately for the White Sox, Depodesta has proven himself to be both more intelligent than Ken Williams and more appreciative of stellar performance based results resembling those generated by McCarthy than the White Sox front office. Even in the event Sox fans escape the more widely publisized trade rumor of Garland, Konerko, and Marte for Vazquez, a second bullet must be dodged in the form of the Sox refusal to include McCarthy (and hopefully Brian Anderson, Ryan Sweeney, and Chris Young as well) in a deal for Vazquez. Sadly, if either trade rumor has legs in the end, Kenny Williams figures to entrench his status as the laughing stock of baseball in the next 24 hours.

Debut

So amidst rumors of yet another White Sox trade and an inexplicable bout of insomnia that awakened me at 6 AM despite less than four hours of sleep, I've finally managed to create a "blog" where I can discuss White Sox baseball.

First, a brief note about how I got here: I spent the better part of the last couple seasons feverishly posting about the worth of various Sox players, transactions, potential transactions, the quality of the team's in game strategy, and hypothetical transactions I believed the team would be wise to pursue at WhiteSoxInteractive.com. Unfortunately, my performance based analysis and refusal to back down in debates got under the skin of a number of posters on the board. My disagreements with WSI's dominant faction eventually culminated in an ugly incident where I was temporarily banned for responding in kind to a moderator's sarcasm. Unwilling to accept the censureship of my opinions in light of the vast amount of time I already spent posting about baseball at WSI and extremely busy with school and my part time job, I retired from the world of baseball message boards in October.

While typing the above paragraph, I found myself engaging in the most pathetic form of internet drama. Whining about temporary banishment is in reality no better than whining about the fact that your internet girlfriend of two weeks cheated on you by participating in cyber sex with a random guy she met on Live Journal. However, while I promise never to engage in such behavior in the space again, my experiences at WSI are illustrative of what I hope to accomplish in this forum. Most importantly, I hope this space allows me the opportunity to analyze Sox moves in greater detail than national performance based analysts such as BaseballProspectus.com and BaseballPrimer.com. While the analysis provided by these sites is tremendous and will certainly prove far more insightful than any perspective I can offer, with 30 teams to cover, discussion of White Sox transactions is often brief. Comparatively, with somewhat limited restrictions on my time, it is not out of the realm of possibility for me to post four or five entries on a single transaction over the course of a week when waranted. The recent string of White Sox transactions revealed to me that I might very well lose my mind without the opportunity to offer my opinion on the team's trades and signings (one discarded title I considered for the "blog" was "What did Kenny Williams do now?!").

Another lesson I've taken from my time at WSI is that I am no longer interested in painfully long debates over baseball. I highly encourage anyone who stumbles upon this web site to comment on my entries when criticism is warranted. I also hope to respond to any comments appearing on the site. However, I no longer have the patience to engage in nonstop, back and forth conflicts. If a disagreement with my opinions exists which cannot be resolved through a brief conversation, it will most likely never be resolved. Hopefully the absence of constant bickering will allow me to effectively communicate my thoughts on the White Sox in a fraction of the time I devoted to posting at WSI.

With these guildlines established, let's play ball! (I apologize for being far too weak to avoid the cringe-inducing cliche.)