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BSL: Team Defense


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#1 MattKory

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Posted 18 February 2021 - 09:00 AM

BSL: Team Defense

https://baltimorespo...at-the-defense/


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#2 Mike B

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Posted 18 February 2021 - 09:32 AM

BSL: Team Defense

https://baltimorespo...at-the-defense/

Interesting read.  I think we should be strong up the middle except for catcher.  Sisco, IMO is well below average, and Severino had a bad year defensively last year.  He is capable of better, so maybe he improves.  Neither is the type to help young pitchers settle in.  Bryan Holaday was used to catch the debuts of Aiken, Zimmerman and Kremer which tells you what Hyde thought of Sisco and Severino's ability to control young arms.

The infield should be okay, with Ruiz and Mancini or Davis (UGH) on the corners, and while I am a little worried that Galvis is in decline range wise, he and Sanchez should form a good DP combination.

The outfield, should be good in center and right.  Hopefully Mountcastle, continues to improve in left.  I hope Stewart spends what ever time he gets, at DH.  He can not catch a cold in LF.


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#3 russsnyder

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Posted 18 February 2021 - 12:23 PM

Interesting read. I think we should be strong up the middle except for catcher. Sisco, IMO is well below average, and Severino had a bad year defensively last year. He is capable of better, so maybe he improves. Neither is the type to help young pitchers settle in. Bryan Holaday was used to catch the debuts of Aiken, Zimmerman and Kremer which tells you what Hyde thought of Sisco and Severino's ability to control young arms.
The infield should be okay, with Ruiz and Mancini or Davis (UGH) on the corners, and while I am a little worried that Galvis is in decline range wise, he and Sanchez should form a good DP combination.
The outfield, should be good in center and right. Hopefully Mountcastle, continues to improve in left. I hope Stewart spends what ever time he gets, at DH. He can not catch a cold in LF.

I really hope Severino just had a bad year behind the plate. He really has to clean that up. He looked lazy and disinterested at times. Good point about Holladay handling the debuts of the young pitchers. Unfortunately, that spoke volumes.
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#4 Mike B

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Posted 18 February 2021 - 12:34 PM

I really hope Severino just had a bad year behind the plate. He really has to clean that up. He looked lazy and disinterested at times. Good point about Holladay handling the debuts of the young pitchers. Unfortunately, that spoke volumes.

I did not want to use the term lazy with Severino, but I did think it at times watching him behind the plate.  I don't think he is a lazy player.  Watching him run the bases, particularly out of the box, the man goes all out.  Like you said, hopefully it was a bad year, because I feel like he was much better in 2019.


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#5 russsnyder

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Posted 18 February 2021 - 09:24 PM


I did not want to use the term lazy with Severino, but I did think it at times watching him behind the plate. I don't think he is a lazy player. Watching him run the bases, particularly out of the box, the man goes all out. Like you said, hopefully it was a bad year, because I feel like he was much better in 2019.

I meant lazy behind the plate.
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#6 BSLRoseKatz

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Posted 19 February 2021 - 03:44 AM

You highlighted just about everyone else but I do think Rio Ruiz is an interesting person to watch defensively, it felt like towards the end of the year he had the yips or otherwise choppy throws kinda often without any real issues fielding the ball  


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#7 dude

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Posted 20 February 2021 - 02:29 PM

I'm trying to give these a couple of days before I comment.

------

 

There a lot of interesting angles for Team Defense.  I'm not sure this is one of them.

 

Q: What is the only important aspect of team defense for the 2021 Orioles season?  (serious question)

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DE and/or BABIP may be something to look at, but neither is causal to defensive performance.

 

I haven't searched for the work (if it's even been done, I think it has for BABIP), but I believe exit velocity or contact rates (hard/soft) would be most highly correlated to the conversion of balls in play to outs.  That shouldn't be surprising since those are the factors that make turning batted balls into outs most difficult.

 

The other aspect of that is defensive positioning.  I've seen some effort to characterize the value of shifting (versus not shifting) but I think there's so many flaws in what we know, I'm not sure it's as useful as we'd hope. 

 

In both cases that should relate most heavily to things like DE, the thing that IS heavily dependent on the result is the pitchers ability to induce weak contact (exit velo, contact rates) and pitch to spots (generating expected outcomes).

 

We typically see most of the dWAR results for players, which are difficult enough to expose anything useful, but I don't think we've seen the same applications for team defense.  The fact for individuals is you only have so many opportunities to make a defensive difference in a game or a week of games.  I think this is actually the interesting thing about Inside Edge data, although it appears Inside Edge wasn't collected for 2020. IE actually tries to show you the number of plays where defensive excellence could actually make a difference.

 

The vast percentage of plays a trash can could routinely make the play.  A well positioned trash can may do even better.  .....but whether if it's a trash can or Billy Hamilton in CF, if the ball never gets hit to CF, the consequence is zero.

 

So the question is...if you can overlap the reasonable ranges of your players and cover (positioning) the likely hit locations and then pitch effectively (weak contact which expands likelihood and leverages positioning) towards those results, can you meaningfully change the number of batters you face in a game?  That's 'Team Defense' that we don't typically see/understand. 



#8 dude

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Posted 20 February 2021 - 03:04 PM

There’s work to do here, but the O’s are just starting to assemble their competitive roster, and with that in mind, this isn’t a bad start at all.

...are they?

 

I think the Orioles have assembled an above average defense for the 2021 season....but it has nothing to do with a competitive roster in 2021 or any other year.

 

Other than Mountcastle, I think all of the defenders are average or better.  I don't actually have much issue with the catching outside of Severino's inability to move his feet sometimes.

 

...but if we look at the 2021 defense...who are we 'starting to assemble' on the competitive roster?  Which 2021 players are part of the Orioles competitive roster?

 

C: Severino /Sisco: No, No

1B Mancini, Unlikely

2B Sanchez: No

SS Galvis: No

3B Ruiz: No

LF Mountcastle: yes, but probably not in LF

CF Hays: Likely, CF?

RF Santander: Unlikely

 

I do agree there's "Work to do".  






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