Do the other 2nd baseman not get credit for their defense too?

Pedroia, Kinsler, and Utley are all in the top 15 of defensive players according to that same list I provided. Much of their value comes from defense as well. Zobrist is still higher.

I understand that he is solely basing this on OPS, but when you call the list “the best”, and you put Zobrist in the “average category”, I will protest. 30 second baseman. 10 elite, 10 marginal, 10 crappy. Zobrist isn’t marginal.

Dude is elite, not marginal.

Zobrist is a tricky person to break down, because he derives so much of his value off defense; however, he isn’t strictly a one position person. So even with MGL’s guidance of 3 years of data to judge UZR, we still need to take Zobrist’s defensive ratings with a grain of salt. For instance:

Prince Fielder has played almost every game of baseball last three years, and has logged roughly 4200 Innings at first. Here’s a breakdown of Zobrist’s top 3 positions played defensively since he came up in ’08:

2b – 2185
OF – 1651
SS – 1020

Only at 2b does he even have half the innings (roughly 1.5 years) of Fielder.

hahaha I kid, I kid.

Oh, another good one… why isn’t Luis Rivas on this list?

again, I kid, I kid.

No one called Zobrist marginal. Seriously, people…

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2009&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&players=0&sort=20,d

But yeah, not a top 10 2nd baseman.

Weak list.

Weak list.

However, I do agree with those complaining about the lack of explanation of the method or reasoning. For one thing, I would just find it interesting to learn something about how these projections are done…because it seems like it would be a pretty complicated process, unless it really is just educated guessing with no real math behind it.

Also, re: the Pedroia projection – fuck the heck??

I’m not fully on board with your argument about ten or eleven singles a year. Give a team four outs in an inning and bad things are going to happen beyond just that hit.

My point, of course, is similar to the one you made about Ankiel. There is a point beyond which OPS cannot carry you at certain positions. Pitcher is obvious. My position is that it matters a great deal for the center of the diamond also, especially catcher.

But I’m not serious with this stuff. I understand the stats, but I don’t spend a lot of time with them and I definitely don’t calculate them myself. I may be proven wrong in the long run, but I think run prevention is undervalued at this point.

What I have a problem with is that these projected OPS’s appear to be pulled out of Matthew’s … … hat. There is no explanation of why you expect Player X to have a higher OPS than last year and Player Y to have a lower one. What the hell is the point?

Zobrist: 15.2 bWAR, 19.2 fWAR
Pujols: 21.3 bWAR, 21.6 fWAR
Halladay: 21.2 bWAR, 22.2 fWAR
Longoria: 20.3 bWAR, 21.3 fWAR

Might be interesting to see them listed by WAR, though.

How about these great second baseman for 2012: Ryan Howard, Jim Thome, Carlos Lee, Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera and Lance Berkman?

To post a set of projections of any kind with no explanation of the rationale or system used to arrive at all or any of them does not improve our understanding one bit. It is worse than useless. It’s an insult to our intelligence and a waste of our time.

Give us more of this and I will simply stop reading your posts.

Weak list.