| Ladson loves the leather. |
From the 2/20 Q&A with GM Mike Rizzo: "Defense has been the weakest part of the team since 2008."
From that same interview: "How tough was it to watch the team play defense the last three years. The team was always at or near the bottom of that category?"
These are all very strong claims - could they be true? (Spoiler: No.)
Because the issue is overall team defense, the Nationals' Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) seems like an appropriate proxy. DER is the rate at which balls in play are converted into outs by a team's defense. (Total errors can be telling, but generally rates make for superior metrics.) The equation is:
1 - ((H + ROE - HR) / (PA - BB - SO - HBP - HR)) ; where ROE = reached on error
As a stand-in for team offense I used a rate-based version of Marginal Lineup Value (MLVr); for pitching I used the pitching staff's Value Over Replacement Player (VORP).
Below are the Nationals' NL rankings (there are 16 teams in the NL):
However flimsy, I can at least begin to test Ladson's claims. Let's revisit the quotes:
"The reason the Nationals lost so many games the last few years is because of defense." The reason the Nats lost so much the last few years is because they were not very good. Full stop. It is not at all evident that defense was the only or primary reason for their general haplessness. If the team's defensive ranking lagged behind mediocre showings in pitching and offense, then his claim might warrant further analysis. It doesn't.
"Defense has been the weakest part of the team since 2008." According to my rankings, defense has - relative to their NL competitors - been the team's strongest suit in two of the last three years. Granted, the table above is not a definitive treatment of the issue, but rather a simple sanity check on some fairly provocative claims. For those interested in alternative defensive measures, fangraphs.com has a fun statistical team defense page that's worth perusing. (The Nats ranked 6th in the NL in Ultimate Zone Rating last season and 8th in UZR/150 - thanks, Zim!)
"How tough was it to watch the team play defense the last three years.[sic] The team was always at or near the bottom of that category?[sic]" This is embarrassing. To request confirmation of a personal opinion when interviewing the GM is such a wasted opportunity. If Ladson really wanted to discuss defense, there are no shortage of questions that might provoke an interesting response:
- How would you assess the team's defense last season?
- What defensive metrics does the team use in evaluating players? Are there specific measures you believe are under- or overrated?
- Several teams in the last few years - perhaps most prominently the Boston Red Sox - have put greater emphasis on team defense. Do you expect this trend to continue? Why or why not?
Teasing out insights on how the Nationals front office is approaching the task of building a team that isn't terrible should be the priority, not trashing previous squads. Of course, if you're referencing a completely undefined category called 'defense' in your interview, you may be satisfied with eliciting meaningless generalizations.
My best guess is 'defense' means 'team errors.' The problem is that every baseball writer must surely know by now that there are much better ways to understand and quantify a team's defensive performance. The information contained in an error total is incredibly limited (a fact that is hardly mitigated by MLB's attempt to create an objective criteria in 'ordinary effort'). Defensive plays critical to the game's outcome regularly occur outside of this framework - getting a bad jump on a fly ball; knocking down a grounder to prevent a run from scoring; going from first to third on a weak outfield arm; etc. etc.
Many years ago, defense was considered the underdeveloped branch of sabermetrics. If not exactly the Great Unknown, then at least the Great Lesser Known. It is a designation that no longer fits today. It hasn't fit for quite some time. We know roughly how many runs Adam LaRoche will save the Nats on defense (and how many win shares that translates to). This progress does not reduce the importance of defense or excuse the Nats' poor defensive play - it simply sets that facet of the game in a larger, more actionable context. For a team that has consistently been one of the worst in the majors, the most pressing issue is not how the Nats can get better defensively but simply how the Nats can just get better.
My best guess is 'defense' means 'team errors.' The problem is that every baseball writer must surely know by now that there are much better ways to understand and quantify a team's defensive performance. The information contained in an error total is incredibly limited (a fact that is hardly mitigated by MLB's attempt to create an objective criteria in 'ordinary effort'). Defensive plays critical to the game's outcome regularly occur outside of this framework - getting a bad jump on a fly ball; knocking down a grounder to prevent a run from scoring; going from first to third on a weak outfield arm; etc. etc.
Many years ago, defense was considered the underdeveloped branch of sabermetrics. If not exactly the Great Unknown, then at least the Great Lesser Known. It is a designation that no longer fits today. It hasn't fit for quite some time. We know roughly how many runs Adam LaRoche will save the Nats on defense (and how many win shares that translates to). This progress does not reduce the importance of defense or excuse the Nats' poor defensive play - it simply sets that facet of the game in a larger, more actionable context. For a team that has consistently been one of the worst in the majors, the most pressing issue is not how the Nats can get better defensively but simply how the Nats can just get better.
Links of potential interest:
- For a brief primer, MLB.com takes a crack at summarizing four common defensive metrics - Ultimate Zone Rating, Plus/Minus, Defensive Runs Saved, and Probabilistic Model of Range.
- For something a little more entertaining, New York Magazine tackles defensive metrics - and the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry - here
- Noodling around glossaries is always interesting. Here's the Hardball Times glossary.
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