The Scouting Report, By the Fans, For the Fans

Part 4 - 3B Report (2002 - 2003)

© Tangotiger

Background

If you are new to this project, you should read about it first.

The Preliminary Results

Thank you to all those who participated! I've received almost 500 ballots (and am still accepting them until Opening Day). For this particular article, let's look at the results of 3B, as you Fans see them.

The Fans Runs category is my own weighting system of the 7 categories, with less weight placed on Speed. UZR162 is the player's UZR + DParm per 162 Games, from 2002-2003.

Comments

The Fans really nailed this one. Of the top 8 fielders in UZR, the Fans were highly favorable to 7 of them. The only player they didn't appreciate as much as UZR was David Bell. In the bottom of the pile, the Fans and UZR did not like the same two players: Aramis Ramirez, and Hinske. One guy that I liked to see what Fonzie. Seeing him in New York at 2B and 3B, and I was always impressed with him as an above average fielder. UZR does not see him like that, but the Fans do. In terms of matching, his UZR is similar to Geoff Blum, but the Fans see Fonzie as the equal or better to Blum in all facets of play, with the result of an 18 run difference.

If we look at the correlation line, we see some interesting things. Speed and Arm Strength had the lowest correlation to UZR. This is especially troubling to learn about Arm Strength. However, Speed and Arm Strength also had the least amount of variation among these players. What we have here is an understanding among managers that: we don't want to put fast guys at 3B, and we want guys with a great arm there. So, if there is little variation to begin with, the correlation will be lower.

The other interesting note is that the Fans Runs has a lower correlation than some of the individual categories. That is, there was greater agreement between Hands and UZR than there was between ALL the categories and UZR. Why? There is alot of interdependence here. Running a regression, and the best-fit says to give negative weight to 5 of the 7 categories! That is, the lower your release, strength, accuracy, acceleration, and speed, the better your UZR. In this case, the r was .75. Clearly, this makes no sense from a practical standpoint.

Notes

To qualify for these lists, a player had to have at least 5 ballots for each category, as well as 40 games in each of 2002 and 2003.

I converted the 5-point scale (Great, Good, Average, Fair, Poor) into a scale from 0 to 100, with 50 as the average for all fielders. One standard deviation was set to 20 (meaning that two-thirds of all players' traits will fall within the band of 30 to 70; if a player is higher than 70, then he falls in the top 16% in that category for the league).