Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia not a fan of defensive metrics
Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia hears the chatter about his declining defensive metrics, but he doesn’t put much stock into those numbers.
How do you measure the quality of a player’s defense? It used to be that as long as they didn’t commit a lot of errors then we assumed they must be good. If they had a habit of making highlight worthy plays that got them featured on SportsCenter then they must be great.
It’s that line of logic that led to Derek Jeter winning a handful of Gold Glove awards. Now we know better. The analytics revolution had introduced a number of advanced statistics to help quantify the value a player can add with their glove. While these metrics are hardly perfect, they serve to provide a more accurate view of defensive performance that extends beyond the archaic reliance on fielding percentage. Sure, preventing errors is an important part of playing defense, but you can’t be credited with an error if you never got to a ball that the average fielder would have. This is where many of these advanced stats come in handy.
Unless you are Dustin Pedroia. The Red Sox second baseman has taken the old school hardliner approach against the wave of analytical data sweeping the sport.
Pedroia hears the murmurs about his regression in the field. He’s read about how the numbers show a significant drop off last season, when his -3 defensive runs saved put him below average for the first time since he became a full-time big league second baseman in 2007. His 2.1 UZR was the lowest of his career and far below what he produced in recent years. Pedroia has historically produced an All-Star caliber WAR thanks in part to the 1.7 dWAR he averaged in his career through the 2014 season, but last year he was merely average with 0.0 dWAR. These are not the type of numbers we are used to seeing from the four-time Gold Glove award winner.
Next: Not much stock in defensive metrics
DRS, UZR, WAR. These are all merely fancy acronyms representing numbers that Pedroia doesn’t put much stock into.
“To be honest with you, I don’t read into defensive metric stuff because that’s not what I believe in defensively,” Pedroia told WEEI’s Rob Bradford in an appearance on the Bradfo Show podcast. “If you’re in the middle of the field, you have to know what pitch is going to try and be executed and it’s my job to try and position myself. If the hitter stays inside the ball, and I’m playing him to pull, if our guy executes his pitch and he takes a good swing and shoots it up the middle and I don’t get to it, that’s good hitting. There are times our pitcher makes his pitch and the guy smashes one into the 3-4 hole and I’m standing right there and I don’t have to move one foot, does that mean I don’t have any range? No, that means I’m smart and I position myself in the right area to make a play. Defensive metrics, I don’t think they hold that (into account). That’s why you go back to the eye test.”
Simply watching the game to determine which players are great defensively isn’t as easy as Pedroia suggests, as the eye test can fool you. Then again, so can advanced metrics. Pedroia delivers an important point regarding how we analyze this data. Take UZR for example, which measures the rate at which a fielder is able to make a play on a ball hit into his zone, which is a predetermined section of the field that a player is responsible for based on the position he plays. The problem is that the increasing usage of shifts around the league throws those zones out of whack.
Next: Effects of the shift
Look at it this way. If an opposing defense shifts their infield toward the right side when an extreme pull hitter like David Ortiz is at the plate, you’re likely to see the third baseman positioned in the area the shortstop would normally be. That leaves a gaping hole on the left side of the infield, which Ortiz could take advantage of by dropping down a bunt for an easy base hit. Opposing teams are willing to bank on that not happening too often, since the threat of Ortiz trying to mash a home run is far more dangerous than giving up a bunt base hit, but if he were inclined to try it would it be the third baseman’s fault that he couldn’t get to that ball when it rolls through the zone he is typically aligned in?
Of course not, but one of the flaws of defensive metrics is that we haven’t found a way to accurately account for those variables.
“Defensive metrics, I don’t know what they use. I don’t necessarily care,” said Pedroia. “My job is that there are a lot of people that are going to factor into how I play second. I connect with the first baseman. I’m always talking to the shortstop. We’re all helping each other out. That’s it. We all have to be on the same page, help each other out, position ourselves correctly and execute pitches. If we do that hopefully everybody’s zone rating is great. The bottom line is to prevent runs, and have a plan to execute that plan. If we do that, that’s all we can do.”
Even the best plans can be unraveled by great hitting, as there is no defense for the old “hit ’em where they ain’t” approach. Just as a hitter can’t always place the ball exactly where he wants it to go, a defender can’t always be in the right spot to make a play.
Next: Chip on his shoulder?
It sounds like Pedroia may have a bit of a chip on his shoulder entering this season, which is fine with the Red Sox since he tends to play at his best when he feels he has something to prove. The 5-foot-9 middle infielder overcame the odds to quiet his critics that once said he’d never make it to the big leagues. Not only did he make it, but he was voted as the Rookie of the Year in his first full season and followed that up with an MVP season in his second year.
Now the 32-year old is hearing whispers that his skills are starting to diminish and he can’t stay healthy. All that does is fuel him to prove that his health was the reason behind his declining defensive metrics, but now that he’s healthy he expects to bounce back to the level we are used to seeing from him.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to be ready to play baseball and be healthy and do all the things that I’ve always done,” Pedroia assures us. “I don’t need anybody to motivate me. I’m to the point now where people say bad things, or people question me, that’s great. I hear it, but that’s not my job to go in the locker room and yell at that person. My job is to help the Red Sox win games, and I’m going to do that.”
He may not need the motivation of people doubting him, but it won’t hurt him. Pedroia doesn’t let those words bother him any more than he lets defensive metrics tell him what he’s capable of in the field.
Next: Defensive metrics are here to stay
Defensive metrics aren’t going away. They may have their flaws, but these stats still serve a purpose, so long as we recognize that none of them can tell the full story. We reference advanced stats to help support our case, but they don’t always give us a definitive answer. Most advanced stats, especially the defensive metrics, can’t be evaluated in small sample sizes and need to be used in conjunction with other measurements.
Take Pedroia for example. He won a Gold Glove in 2014 while posting a +17 in the defensive runs saved category. A year later he dropped to -3 DRS. Is that a sign that he suddenly fell off a cliff defensively, or was it due to a nagging hamstring injury hindering his abilities, while limiting him to a smaller sample size of only 92 games?
“Shoot, the year before I think it was one of the best defensive metrics for a second baseman. And the year after it was terrible? Come on,” says a skeptical Pedroia.
DRS is a useful tool that helps tell us a lot about how a player executes in the field, but only when put into the proper context. If Pedroia stays healthier this season, don’t be surprised if those defensive numbers jump back toward his previous levels.
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Pedroia has no use for these stats, preferring to rely on his knowledge of the game to translate what his eyes tell him. Many of these new wave analysts crunch numbers on their computers to spit out stats that may see it differently. When evaluating player performance these methods both have merit, but for a more accurate picture we need to consider both sides.