Defense

So I thought I would try and assess (to a limited degree) the effect of a defense on a pitcher. There are 30 x rolls out of 108, but I am ignoring catcher and pitcher (and outfield arms and errors) and using Dean Carrano's defensive ratings. I used Clayton Kershaw's card against righties. And used Kaufman as the park. So I took a perfect defense composed of all 1s and compared it to an average team of 3s and then a good defensive team of 2s. Compared to the 1s the 3s gave up 5.6 more hits per 108 chances and 1 of those hits was a double; the 2s gave up 2.8 more hits, .35 of which were doubles. The 1s turned 2.7 dp, the 2s 1.8 dp, and the 3s 1. Kershaw's line would look like this in Kaufman against righties:

.131 .138 .201 (1s)
.158 .168 .233 (2s)
.182 .189 .289 (3s)

A recent team of mine had 3,000 pitching rolls. So the 3s would give up 128 singles and 27 more doubles than the 1s, and the 2s would give up about 67.3 singles and 9.7 doubles more than the ones. The 1s would turn 75 dps, the 2s 51.5 dps, and the 3s 30.47dps.

The aspect of on-line play I would like to know is how much does defense cost??


If you had identical cards other than range, what is the price premium for a 1 fielder at each position and is it worth it?


My gut feeling after playing six years online is the best value money wise (offense vs defense), generally, is 3 fielders.

Logically, range shouldn’t matter at all if the players are equitably priced.

Yet, whenever I try and get clever with a 3 (or heaven forbid a 4) up the middle, invariably the guy’s bat ends up sucking worse than his glove and I get the worst of EVERYTHING. Bad ERA and a bad slash line. Whenever I go for the weak hitting defender, I’m usually somewhat pleasantly surprised with a “low expectations” type of run production.

Because I’m sure I’m not the only one with this kind of experience, most managers opt for the better defense. Maybe the pricing is correct and the offense balances out the glove - it just never seems to work out that way for me personally. So I’ll leave the Murphy at 2B experiment to others.

FWIW, over the past few seasons I think 1s and 2s on defense is way more important than years past.

I wonder if they are priced equitably--if you look at OPS vs OPS allowed. Especially with higher cost 1 SS or 2B.

Dejong or Gennett get you lots of offense for the dollar in the right park. Look at the 1 fielder just up the price chart I don't think you get as much overall. I don't want to have a 3 at both spots if I can avoid it though.

I do think you get more for the Dollar with inexpensive 1 SS than expensive ones. I really like Iglesias this season but have had trouble drafting him high enough, keep missing him recently.

The spot I seem to get the best for my money 1 fielder is 3B--what may attribute to that is 3B seldom have to hold runners, so don't get that Range penalty very often. Or it just may be the 1 3B the last few seasons have mostly been top hitters and that has influenced my opinion.

"Dejong or Gennett get you lots of offense for the dollar in the right park."

the right park on the offense side....and the right pitching staff on the other side factors in too....
I was dead last in dp and first in Fielding % as I had a very high K staff.( almost hit 1800Ks.(1792).).... had fewest fielding chances....
I did have good gloves all around too...
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/stats/teams/436448
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/st ... son/436448

felt like the 2006 Tigers.... great regular season fell down in playoffs

So in a perfect world a single allowed on defense costs the same as a single a batter hits. However, when you factor in standard deviation of outcomes, a hitters stats are more predictable (more outcomes in a given season) compared to their fielding stats. Therefore defensive stats are discounted based on position (i.e. shortstop might be discounted only 5%, while an OF is discounted 20%).

Think of buying hitters in strat the same as buying a stock. The more consistent you can predict the stock the higher premium paid for the stock price. Volatility comes at a discount, with more seasons coming both above and below the average. This discount originated when the community routinely complained defense was "overpriced", so ultimately I decided to layer on the discount factor, instead of pricing every run equally. I would argue that if you played enough seasons, the better defenders will deliver value above their price point.

And JPav technically defenders are priced so you should be able to play a 3 or a 1 at SS, because its factor into the cost. However, I think what happens is owners tend to remember the outlying seasons, which are more likely with a 3 than a 1.

The other thing touched on above that overshadows defense, is that offense can be manipulated by BP and pitching matchups much more so than defense can, which is another reason why the value ultimately is based on the hitter in the right park and not defense.

And JPav technically defenders are priced so you should be able to play a 3 or a 1 at SS, because its factor into the cost. However, I think what happens is owners tend to remember the outlying seasons, which are more likely with a 3 than a 1.

Mark,

Over many years I’ve looked at a LOT of winning teams. You can count on one hand the number of teams that did not use a 1 or a 2 up the middle. If you could get away with using a 3-4-5, managers would do it (and I’ve watched them try). The average at all positions would be a 3 - however, having said that, I saw somewhere where a good manager posted he would no longer be using 3s even in the outfield!

Murphy/Segura just does not equal Gordon/Escobar not matter how you look at it.

Here’s Gordon and Murphy in a side by side:

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1498253

Gordon’s 92% defensive conversion rate at 2B costs only $0.56 more? I’ll take that.

But FWIW, I think your stock metaphor is absolutely spot on. I’ve long thought you don’t pay for stats, you pay for the consistency of stats.

Having said that, I’ve had my share of negative performing outliers with high dollar picks too -

Well, remember that a bad defender gives the offense another AB when an out is not recorded (and maybe more than one AB). Giving hitters in SOM more chances isn't usually a good thing.

For 2B, here are the top 12 ranked by my calculated combined offensive and defensive NERP for Yankee Stadium, along with their salaries. After that, NERP drops off by almost a full point. Murphy and Gordon are pretty even, but I don't include the calculation for stealing as I am not interested in that part of the game and its not worth it to me to add that to the formula. In a pitcher's park, with his speed, Gordon would have the edge. I would still probably use Murphy as a DH. I have played Harrison at 2B in my previous three 2017 teams [three playoffs, one championship], and he has done well enough for me. For the current team, as Freeman knows, I am trying out Gennett, as he was available after the draft, and with the way other things worked out... I look for what appear to me to be undervalued players. We will see if his offense makes up for his defense, and whether Strat's or my NERP's valuation is more accurate. It's early [42 games]; Gennett's OPS is 1.001, but he has only converted 66% of his X Outs. On the last team, Harrison had a .705 OPS, but converted 76% of his X Outs.

NERP SALAR NAME
28.34 10.11 ALTUVE
27.50 08.69 DOZIER
22.44 04.99 PEDROIA
21.90 06.43 LEMAHIEU
20.03 05.13 CANO
19.83 05.34 GORDON
19.66 04.78 MURPHY
19.46 03.67 GENNETT
18.93 04.16 KINSLER
18.72 04.31 SCHOOP
18.16 03.11 HARRISON