re apology for article in article c w zo xl eskimo com steven thornton writes in article apr tesla njit edu drm tesla njit edu writes just watch me mattingly is a below average fielder before you start up yes i have proof there are really only two adequate ways to measure fielding prowess the first which has the advantage of being applicable to older players since it uses raw data available for almost all of mlb history is the total chances per game method favored by the total baseball people among others it basically says that you measure a fielder by how many balls he gets to but it is subject to all kinds of bias and is almost completely useless for first basemen from the raw stats there is no way to tell which of a first baseman s putouts were made on throws from other fielders and which were made on his own plays likewise you can t tell whether a double play was or fielding runs thus gives a first baseman no credit for putouts or double plays only for assists and errors it thus favors first basemen who play deep reaching a lot of balls but forcing the pitcher to cover first more frequently it also hurts first baseman who play behind left handed pitching staffs and thus face few left handed batters a better method but newer and based ondata that has only been collected over the last few years measures the percentage of balls hit into the part of the field the guy is responsible for this is better of course it still isn t all of a first baseman s defense some references mattingly s defensive rating stats method from mike gimbel s baseball player and team ratings defensive average which uses larger and probably better zones has mattingly tied for second in the league on the other hand he has contributed runs by his batting actions a pretty healthy number while batting runs is good it is mostly in the past the runs he produced in don t say much about his value in david grabiner grabiner zariski harvard edu we are sorry but the number you have dialed is imaginary please rotate your phone degrees and try again disclaimer i speak for no one and no one speaks for me
