Chronicles of the Lads

PROBABILISTIC RUNS, 3B
David Pinto has published his 2004 PMR figures for third basemen. My attempt to convert this to runs is below.

You can read an explanation, as well as the shortstop figures, here. Note that like with the outfielders, there is some lack of confidence here as third basemen will differ in their ability to prevent doubles and singles, and that is not reflected here. A deeper explanation is in that link to the center field numbers. You can also find second basemen here.

Player          Runs Above Average

                      Total

Adrian Beltre        24.3637

Scott Rolen          23.4351

Chipper Jones        14.2803

Chone Figgins        13.4836

Eric Chavez          11.8403

Kevin Youkilis       11.5133

Joe Randa            11.2116

Alex Rodriguez       10.2874

Melvin Mora           9.4739

Pedro Feliz           8.7117

Ryan Freel            7.7310

Russell Branyan       7.5510

Bill Mueller          5.4551

Vinny Castilla        3.3685

Corey Koskie          2.9539

Casey Blake           2.8694

Mike Lamb             2.6622

David A Wright        2.0618

David Bell            1.0252

Todd Zeile            0.6792

Juan Castro          -0.2693

Rob Mackowiak        -0.8068

Mark DeRosa          -1.2339

Geoff Blum           -1.8195

Sean Burroughs       -2.2803

Edgardo Alfonzo      -2.3046

Scott Spiezio        -2.5503

Chad A Tracy         -3.1055

Ty Wigginton         -3.1195

Morgan Ensberg       -3.6513

Mike Lowell          -4.7843

Chris Stynes         -4.7948

Hank Blalock         -5.0148

Keith Ginter         -6.0239

Brandon Inge         -6.6714

Desi Relaford        -7.6884

Aubrey Huff          -8.6763

Aramis Ramirez       -9.3431

Eric Munson          -9.5740

Mike Cuddyer        -13.2103

Tony Batista        -14.7281

Wes Helms           -16.3313

Joe Crede           -19.5914

Eric Hinske         -27.3359

Player          Runs Above Average

                   per 4000 BIP  

Pedro Feliz          31.7928

Kevin Youkilis       29.5955

Russell Branyan      27.0387

Chone Figgins        26.5539

Scott Rolen          25.5337

Ryan Freel           24.6781

Adrian Beltre        24.3742

Chipper Jones        23.4566

Eric Chavez          13.7781

Joe Randa            13.4133

Melvin Mora          10.2486

Alex Rodriguez        9.7655

Bill Mueller          8.9119

Mike Lamb             7.7938

David A Wright        4.4085

Corey Koskie          3.8965

Vinny Castilla        3.2679

Casey Blake           2.7868

Todd Zeile            2.4525

David Bell            1.0760

Juan Castro          -0.8817

Rob Mackowiak        -2.5055

Edgardo Alfonzo      -2.7734

Sean Burroughs       -2.7775

Mark DeRosa          -2.8253

Chad A Tracy         -3.9629

Ty Wigginton         -4.3420

Hank Blalock         -4.6046

Mike Lowell          -4.8825

Morgan Ensberg       -5.6981

Scott Spiezio        -5.7104

Geoff Blum           -5.9045

Aramis Ramirez      -10.7905

Tony Batista        -14.5768

Aubrey Huff         -15.6772

Brandon Inge        -15.7920

Chris Stynes        -16.1596

Eric Munson         -16.6666

Joe Crede           -20.6243

Keith Ginter        -20.9182

Eric Hinske         -26.5350

Desi Relaford       -29.6867

Wes Helms           -38.5190

Mike Cuddyer        -49.9933

Looking at the regulars, a lot of it comports with, shall we say, popular opinion. Beltre and Rolen grade quite well. Melvin Mora and Legs Figgins are kind of surprises, Mora because of his many errors and The Legs because of his inconsistency. But when I thought about it, Figgins did improve steadily as the year wore on, so it's not too shocking to see him do well here in a fairly small sample (2031 BIP, about half a season). A lot of the small sample guys -- Youkilis, Feliz -- seem out of place, but, hey, that's why we call it a small sample ...

... at every position we've looked at with PMR, there has been a similar difference between best and worst. The best full-time fielder at a position will be around +23 or +24 runs, and the worst full-time defender will be around -23 or -24.

I'm also going to back to David's 2003 numbers to do the same thing. I've only done 2B so far, so at some point I'll get to posting those, as well. Some have said that you really need two years of data to get a good read on a player's defense, so it's best not to get too carried away with one season. For instance, though Adam Kennedy came out at -2 in 2004, he was +16 in 2003, and were he healthy for 2005 I think starting with +8 or so (his Runs Above Average per 4000 BIP over the two years) would be the good starting point. But I'm getting ahead of myself ...