Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

A Few Notes on Braves’ Defense

Cliff Corcoran has a nice piece at SI.com identifying the best and worst defenders in baseball at each position by UZR and comparing them to the most recent Gold Glove winners. There are a few interesting notes in there about Braves players:

On former Brave, Mark Teixeira:

Mark Teixeira, who won the AL award in 2005 and 2006 before splitting each of the last two seasons between the leagues, was the best defensive first baseman in the majors last year.

Not that I have anything bad to say about Casey Kotchman’s defense (dude brings the leather), but after watching Tex for a year, I laughed a little on the inside when anybody said that he would be as good or better than Tex with the glove.

On Chipper Jones:

Chipper Jones, , who was once moved to left field because of his miserable defense at the hot corner, was one of the NL’s best fielding third basemen last year at age 37, though he’s back near the bottom of the list this year.

Well, no, Chipper’s defense had nothing to do with why he moved to left (unless “Chipper’s Defense” is a nickname for Vinny Castilla that I haven’t heard before), but this is one spot where the fielding percentage and UZR will correlate nicely this year.

On tiny center fielder, Nate McClouth:

[2008 Gold Glove winner Nate] McLouth was actually the worst defensive center fielder in baseball in 2008.

Yikes! It’s clear that he doesn’t have fantastic range, but I wouldn’t have figured him for worst. He’s made some spectacular catches. To paraphrase some dumb-assed TV commentator on Pat Burrell, “He doesn’t get to a lot of balls, but the one’s he gets to, he catches.” I guess that applies to our tiny center fielder. Expect McClouth to take over one of the corner spots for the Braves whenever Jordan Schafer is ready to return to the bigs.

On Brian McCann:

…it’s worth noting that perennial All-Star Brian McCann has shown considerable improvement behind the plate.

Though, this is largely because the stats for catcher have apparently been tweaked in the last year to give credit for the ability to eat Twinkies and throw balls all the way into center field when trying to throw out base stealers.

UZR is a crude, flawed measure. Among its many flaws, positioning outside of their static zones distorts the results. Having a certain UZR ratings doesn’t mean much.Yet you assume its the equivalent of a DNA test.

Well, I don’t disagree with you; I’m baffled as to where you get “you assume its[sic] the equivalent of a DNA test.”

And while I do agree that it’s a flawed measure, name me one statistic that isn’t flawed. That’s the nature of statistics. I’m actually heavily critical of those who are statistical completists (that’s a post for another time). But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take what we learn from one flawed statistic and add it to the overall body of knowledge that we have to increase our understanding.