A Closer Look At Joey Rickard's Defense

If there's anything surprising about Joey Rickard so far, it's been that his bat has been decent but his glove has been underwhelming. At the very least, Rickard was supposed to provide a decent outfield glove as a fourth outfielder type. Instead, he's been installed as the team's everyday left fielder and leadoff hitter.

Right now, Rickard has a wRC+ of 99. The league average left fielder also has a wRC+ of 99. However, the average leadoff hitter has a wRC+ of 109. I've been critical of Rickard offensively and still don't quite understand why he's being used the way he is, but at the plate, he's been fine for now. Getting league average offensive output from Joey Rickard is perfectly acceptable. And it's not surprising or a knock on him at all that he's in the bottom half of leadoff hitters in terms of production. He has not been a disaster there by any means, but he hasn't been great. So it's a little strange that he has such a stranglehold on the leadoff spot in the lineup.

Still, in terms of wins above replacement, Rickard rates negatively. The driving force there by Fangraphs' and Baseball-Reference's versions of WAR (currently -0.3 in both) is his poor early defensive ratings (and a tiny slice is that he has done some bad things on the basepaths). Rickard has spent a decent amount of time in all three outfield positions, and he's amassed a UZR of -6.5 (UZR/150 of -33.9) and a DRS of -6. Now, it's tough to state definitively what exactly a full season's worth of defensive metrics actually means, let alone about 250 innings. So who's is to say that Rickard can't improve, or isn't at least close to average?

But I don't think it's unfair to say that while he's made a few nice plays in the field, Rickard has not come as advertised with the glove. In his time in the minors, Rickard logged more than 1,000 innings each in center field and right field. In left field, he logged more than 500. So he's had a lot of experience. Still, playing competent defense at the major league level is an entirely different animal.

All right, so let's get to some examples. Here's one of Rickard's first tough chances on the season. Take a look:

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You'll notice a few things. First, it was a nice effort, so that's something. The ball was just out of his grasp, and it would have looked pretty nice were he to have made the play. You'll also notice that Rickard didn't take the best route to the ball, and that also it maybe wasn't the best decision to dive and take a chance. Yes, of course it's easy to say that after the fact. But that's what happens with split-second decisions. Flashy plays always look impressive, but sometimes just keeping the ball in front and avoiding mistakes is the job of an outfielder. We'll revisit Rickard's route-taking and decision making.

A day later, Rickard had a semi-tough chance on a ball in front of him:

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I think even Rickard would tell you that he should have caught that ball. But wait, the play isn't over.

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Rickard stayed with the play, gathered the ball, and rifled it home to nab the runner. Nice throw.

Here was a pivotal play in a tie game:

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Rickard struggled with the transfer and ended up double-pumping before unleashing a throw too late to catch the runner at home. Maybe it's a bit unfair to be too harsh on this play; the weather was wet, and that didn't make things easy. But Adam Eaton was just rounding third when Rickard scooped up the ball, and it wasn't like the throw was coming from deep in the outfield.

Here was a decent play by Rickard on a line drive to right-center:

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One thing to pay attention to on hits to the outfield is how quickly a fielder reacts to a ball, particularly a line drive. When the camera shifts to the outfield after a hit, you can tell if a fielder is slow to react and/or gets a bad read. If the fielder is already off and moving -- in the right direction -- then that's a great sign. In the play above, Rickard is already moving. The ball carries a bit more than Rickard anticipates, so he has to jump at the last second to snag the ball. Maybe he got a little lucky, but that ball was also roped.

In a late-game play against the Yankees, Rickard misplayed a carom off the wall in right field:

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There's not much to say here, as it seems like he just missed the ball. But these little things add up.

Among the GIFs in this post, here is what I think is Rickard's second-best play:

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He reacts to the ball off the bat relatively quickly, though he doesn't take a direct route to the ball. Again, line drives are tricky. But even though he hasn't had a bunch of difficult chances yet, less than ideal routes to the ball will make it hard for Rickard to truly utilize his speed and run down tough chances.

But here's my favorite play from Rickard so far:

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Plays like that make me think there's still time for Rickard to show he can be a competent outfielder. Considering how he was described when the Orioles selected him in the Rule 5 draft, I expected Rickard to be a little more polished in terms of reads and routes. But he is a rookie, and he at least won't be asked to play center field unless Adam Jones gets hurt again. Besides, Rickard's arm is OK, but it plays much better in left field.

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I think the Orioles are still trying to figure out what they have in Rickard. If I had to guess, I would say he'll regress a bit with the bat and improve with the glove. I'm more than happy to be wrong that he shouldn't be playing every day, especially as the team's leadoff hitter. Still, at 20-12, the O's are in no position to panic or really change anything. That's probably not what Hyun Soo Kim or Nolan Reimold want to hear.

Regarding Rickard's outfield defense, it's evident that speed is not everything. Clearly being fleet of foot helps an outfielder, but reading the ball off the bat and taking an efficient route to a fly ball or line drive is more important. It's also key to pick and choose the right spots to lay out for a ball. These are things a rookie may learn, but there's no guarantee of that, either.

Is Mark Trumbo A Good Defender At First Base?

If you're going to acquire Mark Trumbo, then you're getting him for his bat. He has a career 108 wRC+, which means he's been 8 percentage points better than league average at the plate over the course of his career.

Specifically, though, you want his power in your lineup. In parts of six seasons in the majors, Trumbo has hit 131 home runs and has an isolated power of .208. I mentioned this the other day, but in the past three years, Trumbo is 24th among qualified players in isolated power. For reference, Chris Davis is first. Adam Jones ranks 23rd. Trumbo is strong, and he hits the ball far. That's valuable.

There's not much up for debate about Trumbo's offensive abilities. He's a high slugging, low on-base percentage hitter, and that's just fine. Most teams, especially American League ones, have room for Trumbo in their lineup.

But what about his defense? If we've learned anything about how to value players, it's that everything matters. And we know that Trumbo is a bad defensive outfielder, so hopefully he doesn't end up playing in left or right field often for the Orioles. His bat would make using him there tolerable, but it's not optimal strategy. Besides, Chris Davis very well may sign with another team, which would open up plenty of work for Trumbo at first base. So is he a good defensive option there? In Tuesday's trade write-up, I took a quick look at his defense both at first and in the outfield according to Ultimate Zone Rating (per 150 games) and Defensive Runs Saved. Let's break it down per season:

Year	Innings	UZR/150	DRS
2010	33	41.6	1
2011	1,257	5.2	9
2012	159	28.7	0
2013	1,030	10.5	2
2014	377	-17.3	-1
2015	152	8.9	1
Total	3,009	6.3	12

Some takeaways: First, Trumbo has only played two seasons in which he's seen more than 377 innings at first base. And in those seasons (2011 and 2013), he graded well in both metrics. Also, his only negative defensive season came in 2014, after he took over for Paul Goldschmidt, who broke his hand in August and missed the rest of the season. Earlier in 2014, Trumbo missed about two months due to a stress fracture in his left foot. He also battled plantar fasciitis.

It's worth noting that after 2011, arguably Trumbo's best defensive season, the Angels explored moving him to third base. (He healed after dealing with a stress fracture in his right foot.) The Angels also signed some guy named Albert Pujols, which explains why Trumbo barely played at first in 2012. He started eight games at third base that season (and wasn't very good) while mostly playing in the outfield. Pujols then missed a chunk of the 2013 season, and that was the last time Trumbo had regular work at first base.

Looking at individual defensive seasons can be misleading and is hardly definitive. Still, Trumbo's overall defense at first base seems solid. That is, unless you place heavy weight on FanGraphs' Inside Edge fielding data. That data, which goes back to 2012 and breaks plays down into six categories of varying difficulty, does not paint Trumbo's first base defense in the best light.

From 2012-2015, among 40 first basemen who have seen more than 1,500 innings at first base, here's how Trumbo ranks in the various categories:

Almost Certain/Certain (90-100%): t-22nd (97.6%)
Likely (60-90%): 40th (60%)
About Even (40-60%): 31st (45.5%)
Unlikely (10-40%): t-37th (0%)
Remote (1-10%): t-25th (0%)
Impossible (0%): All at 0%

So that's not great! Trumbo makes the plays right at him decently enough, but he's not skilled at pulling off difficult ones. But that doesn't mean he still can't make good plays. Here's one, from 2013:



And here's another:



Trumbo is big and strong, and he sometimes makes pretty good plays. He won't often wow you. And you can say the same thing about Chris Davis, who occasionally looks solid at first base but does not impress in the two advanced defensive numbers many analysts trust the most. Trumbo has graded well in those metrics, though it's been a few seasons since he played first base regularly. It will be interesting to see what happens if he does in 2016.

What the Orioles care about most with Trumbo is how well he hits. But if he ends up being the main option at first base, it wouldn't hurt to have an above average defender there.

The Aging of Bad Outfield Arms

A few weeks back, I took a look at how elite arms age in the outfield.  What was interesting in that little study was that performance peaked in year two and then collapsed.  There was some question as to whether it was merely a regression to the mean sort of phenomenom (although if that was the case the trend should be flat instead of a concentrated and significant increase in year 2).  There was some interest in how poor outfield arms aged and whether it looked like a mirror image of the good arms or if bad arms gain a reputation and will be exploited by runners.

If you did not click on the link above, here is what the elite arm graph looked like.


I used the same methodology of the previous post, but used the nine worst outfield arms as defined by Defensive Runs Saved.

	Runs by Arm per 1400 Innings
	1	2	3	4	5
Andre Either	-9.0	-3.6	-5.1	-6.1	-2.6
Coco Crisp	-3.8	-4.4	-3.1	-1.2	-6.3
Chris Young	-2.2	-6.0	-6.9	3.1	-3.1
Justin Upton	1.6	-1.2	-6.3	-5.1	-3.3
Ryan Braun	1.1	-2.1	-4.2	-6.7	-1.1
Corey Hart	-6.4	-3.1	-3.0	-1.2	-5.2
Jason Bay	-2.9	-9.0	-8.2	-2.3	-4.2
Grady Sizemore	0.0	-3.0	-4.0	-2.1	-8.7
Matt Holiday	-9.2	-4.0	-5.2	-1.0	-2.3

This yields an insignifiant p value (0.39) and the following averages and standard deviations:

	1	2	3	4	5
Average	-3.4	-4.0	-5.1	-2.5	-4.1
StDev	4.1	2.3	1.7	3.1	2.3

What does that all mean? 

I am not sure what this means with respect to this population or the statistically significant differences observed in the elite arms group.  No trends can be measured here or inferred.  Bad arms do not seem to improve as a group and neither are they exploited.  The explanation eludes me.  It may well be that the elite arms group was genuinely a unique occurrence.

The Camden Highball (Episode 5): Men who Stare at Men with Gloves

Oh, it is a Thanksgiving miracle!  The long awaited to be edited fifth episode of the Camden Highball is ready for public consumption.  Joining me on the show is Andrew Gibson of Baseball Info Solutions and Camden Chat fame.  We are discussing quite a bit about defensive metrics: what they mean and how they are calculated (in a very general idea-based way).  This means that we discussed the Orioles outfield and the worthiness of their gold gloves as well as one of our favorite subjects here at the Depot, Mark Reynolds.  Kevin sent me an email for me to comment on the Trayvon Robinson and Robert Andino deal that we wrote about earlier.  Let's get started...

Episode 5 of the Camden Highball

00:00:00 Music - Baltimore is the New Brooklyn by J.C. Brooks and the Uptown Sound (in full at end of podcast)
00:00:25 Greetings from Jon
00:02:00 Mailbag from Kevin in Newport News, VA.  Should we be excited about Trayvon Robinson?  What this means for Xavier Avery?
00:09:32 Interview with Andrew Gibson
00:10:25 What are DRS and UZR?
00:12:37 Balls hitting the outfield fence in DRS
00:15:08 Differences between home/road splits for Camden Yards
00:21:10 Good fielding plays explained using Mark Reynolds
00:25:49 Breaking down the arm component using Davis, Jones, and Markakis
00:40:12 Off season perspective on first base, More Mark Reynolds and others
00:45:55 Andrew likes Youk
00:48:04 Jon wonders about Travis Ishikawa and first base defense
00:52:02 Orioles needing to keep window open without selling off future
01:00:39 Baltimore is the New Brooklyn (in full)

We are available on iTunes (though we still seem to have some problems with updating there).  If you have any question you would like to pose to us, feel free to mail them via CamdenDepot@gmail.com or via the Camden Depot Facebook page.

Articles of note mentioned:
Depot's Home/Road UZR Split Post (it was nice to see this article had legs)
Dewan's indirect response on Jones and Markakis
Depot's pilot study on how arm components of defensive metrics change for elite arms

Nick Markakis and the Decreasing Impact of His Arm

Nick Markakis is a subject of much discussion.  Early in his career, he was lauded by scout and statistician alike for his defensive abilities.  Over time, a growing current of dissent has emerged questioning his ability in the field.  On the last podcast, Daniel and I were discussing Markakis' arm among other things.  Looking at pure numbers, Markakis threw out quite a few base runners throughout his career until this season when he killed only three runners in 926 innings.  It was a far cry from his 2008 high of 17, but has also killed 13, 14, and 14.  Defensive metrics suggest a different story with one exceptional year in 2008 and the rest rather pedestrian.  It made me wonder if defensive metrics, like counting stats tell an incomplete story.

Arm ratings in defensive metrics look at three things: holding runners, assists, and kills.  It stands to reason that the runs saved attributed to an outfielder would be greater for killing the runner as opposed to being an accomplice.  Being an accomplice to the out would then be more valuable than holding a runner.  A concern on how well runs saved represent the talent in a player's ability to throw a ball is whether or not he has the opportunity to show off that talent.  In other words, if base runners fear an outfielder's arm then the outfielder will be given fewer opportunities to wipe the runners off the base paths as a function of the runner's hesitancy to test the arm.  However, based on my conversations with baseball folk and through my own work on assessing how a pitcher's fastball velocity changes as he ages, arm strength should be relatively consistent through the majority of a player's starting career.  If the metrics trying to represent the value of a player's arm actually coincide with how talented that play is in throwing the ball, then you would expect a flat line.  Arm value should remain constant as a player ages if his arm quality remains the same.

In this post, I wanted to look at something simple.  A measure of talent is typically a good measure of talent if the measure is consistent.  That if you have an 80 arm in year 1 resulting in 20 runs saved, then, if the metric is strongly related to talent, in year two the 80 arm should result in another 20 runs saved.  I decided to take an elite group of arms and observe how their runs saved attributed to their throwing changes from year to year.  Now, this is a simple study with a population of only ten, but it may serve as a decent launching pad for further discussion.

The list below are the top ten cumulative arms using rARM (DRS methodology) from 2005-2012 using their first five seasons and by defining their first season as the first year they achieve 900 innings in the outfield.  Both Adam Jones and Nick Markakis are in this grouping.

rARM - DRS			Year
	1	2	3	4	5
Jeff Francouer	3	10	2	4	8
Shane Victorino	4	5	3	-1	3
Adam Jones	5	10	5	8	-1
Alex Rios	7	4	8	7	8
Alfonso Soriano	7	14	4	1	-4
Hunter Pence	0	8	6	-1	5
Jayson Werth	3	3	5	3	-1
Melky Cabrera	3	9	1	0	4
Nick Markakis	2	2	10	2	0
Matt Kemp	8	7	-4	4	4

Here is the same list, but with the ARM metric from the UZR methodology.

ARM - UZR			Year
	1	2	3	4	5
Jeff Francouer	3.5	16.6	2.5	5.3	9.7
Shane Victorino	5.3	3.9	3.0	-1.0	2.2
Adam Jones	3.3	6.6	2.5	5.4	1.7
Alex Rios	11.7	6.5	5.6	6.0	5.6
Alfonso Soriano	4.9	14.3	4.8	-3.5	0.5
Hunter Pence	-0.1	8.2	6.6	-1.0	3.5
Jayson Werth	4.2	4.4	3.3	5.4	-1.4
Melky Cabrera	3.4	4.4	1.1	-3.9	3.0
Nick Markakis	1.1	2.7	6.7	0.9	1.1
Matt Kemp	8.0	4.3	-6.1	4.0	3.4

I took the sum of both the rARM and ARM metrics by year as well as those metrics normalized to what would be expected over 1400 innings.  What I mean normalized or adjusted values would be the following: if player A saved 10 runs over 1000 innings then he would be projected to save 14 runs over 1400 innings.  Whether right or wrong, I did this to cut down the variation in the numbers above by changing the counts into rates.  If there is an issue with doing this, then I am sure someone will be kind enough to inform me.




The difference between the cumulative runs saved looks significant.  I decided to run an ANOVA on the adjusted Runs Saved for the population (not cumulative), which resulted in significant p values for both DRS (p=0.04) and UZR (p=0.01).  Further analysis of both metrics indicated that year 2 performance was significantly greater than years 3-5.  This is illustrated below.

I am uncertain what exactly this means, if anything.  One could construct a nifty narrative about how it takes a fielder a year to learn his position to perfect his performance and then perhaps an additional year for the league to respect him.  This would account for the population to increase in their performance and then have the value associated with the arm decrease as opportunities to kill the runner decrease due to the runners holding.  As mentioned earlier, fielders are credited for holding a runner, but not to the same degree if they are able to eliminate the runner from the base paths.  It should be noted that this is less of a conclusion and more of a hypothesis based on this observation.  I do not know if what we see in the graph above would be repeatable with a more robust dataset or if there is a better hypothesis to explain this observation.

The alternative hypothesis would be playing into the early defensive peak.  It may be that around what normally would be the second year of a player having a starting job.  The narrative here would be that a player's ability peaks early in his career and then tails off.  That certainly is the case with range and it may well be that the opportunity to kill a runner has as much to do with a player's arm as it does with a player's range.  It may be that by not being able to put himself in a position to get to a ball quickly that the fielder is simply reducing the number of chances he has to impact base runners.  Additionally, it may be that ability in range or route running may decrease, resulting in the player putting himself in worse position for a throw.  That would be a situation that likely would have more affect on accuracy than arm strength.

Simply put, I have questions.  Perhaps, as my post on UZR in the Camden Yards outfield led to a great deal of words being hashed out, including by John Dewan in his Fielding Bible, maybe this post will also launch a thousand blogs just the same.