Simon: Why are Mike Trout’s defensive numbers so bad in 2013?
From SABR member Mark Simon at ESPN.com on June 7, 2013:
If you were to go to Baseball-Reference.com and generate a list of the players with the worst defensive runs saved totals this season, you’d see a lot of names of players whom I think we can agree do not typically perform well defensively.
We’re talking Michael Morse, Dan Uggla, Lucas Duda and Raul Ibanez.
But right near the very top is the guy who we named Defensive Player of the Year in this space last season — Mike Trout.
This seems like a reasonable poster case for those who say that defensive stats are not reliable until large amounts of data are accumulated. How could Trout possibly end up on this list? And there’s something to be said for that. It wouldn’t be shocking if Trout performed to a level close to his 2012 numbers for the rest of 2013.
We’re not saying that Trout’s -12 defensive runs saved total is predictive of anything. But how could this system have so many players pegged “right,” yet be so incredibly off on Trout?
Scott Spratt of Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) and I took a closer look at the data.
Here are three reasons Trout’s numbers are where they are right now.
Read the full article here: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/36800/why-are-trouts-defensive-numbers-so-bad
Originally published: June 7, 2013. Last Updated: June 7, 2013.