Domo Does Defense
Some ballplayers are good at defense. Others have brick hands to go along with a diamond bat. I don't care about either of those. What I set out to determine is which fielders are performing well above (and well below) the expectations that their managers should have for them. What makes defense somewhat unique in the SBa is that we have exact numbers for how successful a defender should be. There are no matchups, no ballpark effects, and no "hitting the pitcher card". A shortstop rated as a 3e10 should allow hits 20% of the time, and commit an error 5% of the time.
I'm not going to go into all of the behind-the-scenes data, mostly because there are so many tables and formulas that Sheets is pretty pissed at me right now and I don't feel like explaining all of them. Here's what you need to know:
- To qualify at a position, a player must have a number of x-checks within a deviation of the mean for that position. For example, the average second baseman has 22 x-checks, and the standard deviation for all second baseman checks is 11, so to qualify as a second baseman, one must have at least 11 x-checks at the position.
- None of this accounts for holding runners or playing the infield in. That would be impossible to quantify and attempting to do so would probably make me cry.
- By nature, elite defenders will almost always either underperform or reach expectations. They have hardly any room to overperform. Similarly, trolls in the outfield will rarely be able to underperform, because it is expected that they will do poorly.
- As long as a player qualifies at the position, it does not matter if they have 5 checks or 75 checks. Defensive Performance is measured as a rate stat.
- Pitching defense wasn't done because I forgot and didn't want to do go back and do it. Get over it.
Individual Players
Kyle Seager... has been awful
-Reed, Las Vegas Bandits
We all have players on our team that just feel bad. Foxx and the deadline departure of George Springer being one of the most notable examples, or Kyle Seager, whom had an early 5/5 stretch but has seemingly been terrible since. "Fun Times with [insert player here]" is a common moniker for poor defenders, but which fun times are truly the worst?
I will go through the league, position by position, and briefly discuss the best and the worst in each position group. If you prefer to skip ahead and just look at data, there's a link to a workbook down below. But also you suck, this took a long time to write, the least you could do is read it!
Catcher
While everyone knows he is the best catcher in the league, Kaiju backstop Roberto Perez falls under that "too elite to overperform" category. However his weak-side platoon mate, Gary Sanchez has apparently been learning from Robo. His defensive rating says that of his 10 x-checks, he should have allowed 2 hits and 2 errors, however he has been perfect this season for a 34.0% Defensive Performance Rating (DPR), good enough for the second best mark in the league.
On the flip side, the Moose have seen Tomas Nido make three errors*, which is vastly more than expected when signing a 3e2. Despite not giving up a hit, these errors are enough for Nido to be labelled as the most underperforming catcher at a -12.7% DPR.
*Catchers also receive errors on overthrows, which is almost assuredly 2-3 of Nido's errors since he is a T 1-20.
First Basemen
Primarily a third baseman, corner infielder (and recent Batter of the Week) Edwin Rios has manned the cold corner enough for an above average number of checks at 9. As a poorly rated defender (4e6), the Jaguars have gained a 20.3% DPR from Rios.
Sao Paulo fan favorite Pavin Smith, on the other hand, has only a slightly lower expectation at 4e14, but he has allowed three hits and three errors over six chances for a -45.0% DPR, among the worst in the league. Even more surprising is Unicorn Yuli Gurriel, who is tied as the best first baseman in the league at 1e3, but has already allowed two errors and two hits across eight chances for a -44.9% DPR. Gurriel is the only 1-range defender in the bottom 39 qualifying players.
Second Basemen
The first Black Bear at the top, Mark Mathias has yet to make an error and has only allowed two hits in 13 chances, despite being a 4e6, for a DPR of 18.3%. Black Bear platoonmate Ozzie Albies (1e11) isn't fairing any worse at the keystone, as he is a perfect 30/30 for a DPR of 6.5%.
Profar is benched after some HORRIBLE defense at 2B.
- Jack, Florida Flamingos
Following the public shaming of Jurickson Profar, West Virginia manager Cal sent the tweet, "This just in: bad defender is bad". Profar, a 4e10, should have almost identical rates to the Black Bears' own Mark Mathias, however across 39 chances he has allowed 22 hits and 5 errors. For reference, he is expected to have only allowed 12 hits with 2 errors. This is bad enough for a -33.2% DPR, far and away the most underperforming second baseman in the league. Perhaps there is more to it than being a bad defender...
Third Basemen
Despite generally being on a reserve roster, Justin Turner has made the most of his defensive opportunities when being allowed to play. Turner has had six checks, where he has allowed two hits, but with no errors. As a 4e22, this is a 23.1% DPR, just inside the top 10 in the league.
Another reserve roster mainstay, Jean Segura has been basically the antithesis of Turner, as his six attempts have resulted in three hits and two errors. Segura (3e15) rates better than Turner in both categories, yet his abundance of botches place him squarely as the most underperforming player in the league at a -45.3% DPR.
Shortstop
The Angels are paying 4.3 WARa for a 4e20 shortstop in Bo Bichette. This seems like a lot of scratch for a player that should be bad at defense, but don't tell that to Bo. Across 37 attempts, Bichette has allowed fewer hits and fewer errors than anticipated for a solid 13.2% DPR, lowest of all position leaders.
The second 1-range player on the leaderboards, Andrelton Simmons (1e21) has 13 errors in 80 attempts, putting him on pace for 31 errors in a 162 game season, well above his rating. He has also allowed a hit due to playing out of position (either holding or playing in), which helps drive his DPR down to -6.9%.
Left Fielders
Mark Mathias almost takes a second position as the most overperforming with a 33.7% DPR in left, but instead it is SBa legend Sam Hilliard of Big Sky, clocking in at a best-in-the-league 35.6%. The asterisk with that is that it comes from only a sample size of five checks, but the 3e3 has been perfect so far in those attempts. The first left fielder with more than 10 attempts is Black Bear Eloy Jimenez (4e3) with no errors and only five hits in 16 chances.
Journeyman Corey Dickerson may be able to stick somewhere were it not for his near perfectly imperfect fielding, allowing five hits and an error in only six attempts. As a 4e8, this is bad enough for a -30.6% DPR. For those curious, the next worst is oft-maligned former Kaiju, Franmil Reyes, with a DPR of -28.8%. Imagine being a 5e9 and still somehow underperforming by that magnitude. 10 hits and 2 errors in 10 checks. Yowsa.
Center Fielders
In right field, Manuel Margot is underperforming. Despite the same rating (2e8) in the more difficult center field, he is a perfect 10/10, good for a 24.7% DPR, more than twice as high as speedyboi Tim Locastro's 11.5%.
Do you guys remember last set when Victor Robles was drafted in the keeper rounds by a doe-eyed expansion team because of his defense? Neither do we, let's forget that happened. The former 1e12 is now sitting as a pedestrian 3e5, but even that is proving too difficult a ranking, as he has allowed 5 hits and 2 errors in 9 chances, good for a bottom five -41.8% DPR.
Right Fielders
Another small sample stud, Avisail Garcia (3e8) has only allowed one hit out of six chances, good for a 27.7% DPR. The runnerup, Cameron Maybin (3e7), has allowed two hits and two errors in 17 chances for 19.0%.
Another SBa name famous for his underperformance, the worst right fielder in the league is none other than Robbie Grossman (3e0), formerly of the Dallas Drillers. Grossman has 8 checks in right field and has allowed his on 5 of them for a -32.5% DPR. Additionally, left field Grossman has fared almost as bad, allowing hits on 6 of 11 checks.
Reference Sheet
This spreadsheet will give you a live look (updated automatically) of all players in the league, broken down by position groups. You can also search for individual players in the Summary tab by changing the yellow box to the player you're looking for. Warning: This is not the fastest sheet in the world.
Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sbf57T0IuZNxftVIy0Eu3BaPhp3bZ5EHt3cPsv82v1Q/edit?usp=sharing
Team Performance
So now we've seen performance on an individual level, but the far more pressing question is the much larger sample size. Which team is Domo's darling on defense? Spoiler: It's not who you think.
For the Team Performance portion, I queried every x-chance from every game this season. So some players appear on multiple teams, and even if a player only had one check for you, they effect your ratings. Only one team had a position group with more than 6 players (Zephyr 3B), and even though they do not all appear on the chart, they are still factored into the ratings.
Without further adieu, I present the first ever SBa Defensive Luck* Rankings, in order from the most lucky team in the league to the least lucky.
Big Sky Snow Geese: 2.8%
We have shook up a fair bit since the start of the season but we only got better in that regard. Adding a guy like Urshela who could be fighting for a gold glove and bolstering the defense up the middle with Semien has helped us win games. We have the best outfield in the league bar none.
- Lyle, Big Sky Snow Geese
Yukon Moose: 2.4%
Denver Zephyr: 2.0%
South Burlington Black Diamonds: 0.9%
Milwaukee Bovines: 0.4%
We have one of the best defenses in the league and are performing right where we should be.
- Basebally, Mikwaukee Bovines (paraphrased)
Wichita WonderWolves: 0.3%
Quezon City Questants: -0.1%
Jakarta Jaguars: -0.2%
West Virginia Black Bears: -0.5%
Los Muertos de Monterrey: -1.1%
Sao Paulo Parrots: -1.6%
Philadelphia Birds of War: -1.7%
Dallas Drillers: -2.7%
Overall I feel like the infield has over performed just slightly and the outfield prior to lots of moves and shuffling would be under performing a lot. We have some solid defenders that hold their weight at their main positions but several have had some extremely bad seasons defensively.
- Kalin, Dallas Drillers
Tokyo Kaiju: -2.9%
Glasgow Unicorns: -3.3%
Vatican Angels: -4.1%
Las Vegas Bandits: -5.0%
I think my defense has under what it should, [but] there's no way there should be as many hits as there are... My biggest problem is all the defensive struggles coming in the same games where it makes a significant impact instead of being more naturally spread out.
- Reed, Las Vegas Bandits
And the most unlucky team in the league...
Florida Flamingos: -5.8%
*For these rankings, "Luck" is defined by the composite of all position player x-checks on your team. It does not matter if your team should be good defensively or not, only if they are overperforming their expectations.
Team Ratings can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o5gVm4Wo-dHYniwV44ZT6VG_wN0KNiB8Oy9ZFi7XIdY/edit?usp=sharing
Overall League Performance
As a league, there have been 5,928 position player x-checks so far in season 5. The composite DPR of the league is -1.14%, which is conclusive evidence that Domo is, in fact, a bitch.