Strat-O-Matic and Fielding

[rog]

I believe I'm the only one here who rates Andrelton Simmons as a better shortstop than even Brandon Crawford.  And for Boly, at least -- our resident Strat-O-Matic expert -- I'm going to make an extremely strong case why Simmons is indeed the better of the two.

And that case begins with Hal Richman, the founder of Strat-O-Matic Baseball.

As was mentioned here before, Hal is one of 12 voters for the annual Fielding Bible Awards.  Hal has picked Simmons as #1 each of Simmons' five full seasons.  The Fielding Bible Award has gone to Simmons each of those five seasons.  In fact, except for this past season when the Fan Poll of Tom Tango placed Simmons #3 (with Crawford #4), Simmons has been a unanimous winner.  In other words, out of a possible 60 1st place votes by expert sources, Simmons has been ranked #1 in 59 of them.  The one who didn't pick him #1 this past season?  The fans, the least expert of the experts.

Crawford has fared quite well himself.  He has one more full season than does Simmons, and Hal has rated him #9, #10, #11, #2, #2 and #2.  The overall Fielding Bible Award has ranked him #7, #19, #7, #2, #2 and #3.  Out of 72 possible first place votes, he has received none.

(As an aside, I believe Francisco Lindor and Addison Russell make up the Fab Four of defensive shortstops, and I think each is among the best to ever play the position.)

Boagie points to Crawford's beating out Simmons for the 2015 NL Gold Glove.  And indeed he did.  But there were two big reasons why Brandon won.  First, the Gold Glove is ironically awarded with OFFENSE entering into the voting, and Brandon has the best offensive season of his career.  Second, and talk about irony, it was an ANALYTICAL measure that won the award for Brandon.  Even though Simmons ranked ahead of him in virtually every other analytical measurement of shortstop fielding, the one included in the Gold Glove voting favored Crawford.

It is commonly agreed that when using metrics to judge fielding, one should somewhat average out all the measurements, since while each has value, none is perfect.  It would be something like saying that the best hitter isn't necessarily the guy with the top batting average, or the most home runs, or the most runs scored, or the most RBI's, or the highest slugging percentage, or the highest OPS (with the last one coming closest).

If we compare the two primary defensive metrics we see that in Defensive Runs Saved, Simmons has 163 DRS in his career, while Crawford himself has an admirable 71.  Despite playing one fewer season, Simmons has more than double the Defensive Runs Saved as does Crawford.

In Uniform Zone Rating (UZR) see that Simmons has 99 compared to Crawford's 55.  On a per season basis, Simmons once again more than doubles Brandon.

So, if we say Brandon is better than Simmons, we're saying that we alone know more than the inventor of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, which as Boly showed regarding the Marlins' outfielders, gives category ratings to every player every season.  I'm going to bet, Boly, that there are full seasons where Simmons got a higher rating than Brandon but nary a one where Brandon got a higher score than Simmons.

If we say Brandon is better than Simmons, we're saying that we know more than every single expert in the Fielding Bible Poll, who with the except of by far the least expert of group, the Fan Poll, have voted unanimously for Simmons in each of his five full seasons.  (It might be noted that this past season when Simmons fell to #3 in the Fan Poll, he still beat Crawford, who was voted #4.  As an aside, the Fan Poll is more expert than it sounds.  It is taken on the website of Tom Tangotiger, an expert in the field -- no pun -- of defensive baseball.)

Hal Richman says that Simmons has been the best fielding shortstop in each of his five full seasons.  All the experts have unanimously said Simmons has been the best in each of his five full seasons.  The metrics say that Simmons has been FAR better than Crawford, so much better that even an error factor -- again, no pun -- would leave Simmons easily ahead.

If we look at the highlight films of both Simmons and Crawford -- Simmons' being spectacular for its athleticism and Crawford's for his smoothness -- we see several plays Simmons made that we haven't seen Crawford make and that he likely wouldn't have made.  I myself can't see any Crawford plays that Simmons couldn't make.

I believe that Crawford does several things better than Simmons -- but that Simmons' combination of athleticism, body control and an arm that is amazingly even stronger than Brandon's is better overall.

The experts say so.  The metrics say so. The highlight films say so.  In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen an objective, expert opinion that stated that Simmons was better.  There must be a few of them out there, but if so, they're scarce.

So when we say that Crawford is better than Simmons, we're saying that we know more than the experts and the metrics combined.  Even the number and length of video highlights is very heavily tilted in Simmons' favor.

When I disagree with the experts and the metrics, I have a heck of a hard time saying I know more about baseball than those sources.  I have a high regard for my opinion, but I have a hard time saying I am a better judge than the experts and the metrics combined.

Outside of Giants fans, we won't get a lot of support for Brandon.  Nationwide we'll get a ton of support for Simmons.

And again, I believe Simmons, Crawford, Lindor and Russell are among the greatest ever.  There is nothing CLOSE to a slouch in the bunch.   But the support for Simmons as the best of even that historically significant group is huge.

Here is what the Fielding Bible said about Simmons this year:

The name Andrelton Simmons is synonymous with the word Defense. With his 2017 Fielding Bible Award as a shortstop, that makes five years in a row. A first in Fielding Bible Award history.

The details they gave when describing him might have been even more flattering.

This isn't really a you say po-TAY-toes, I say po-TAH-toes thing.  This is more like speaking English as a second language.

Simmons is that good.  The experts and the metrics virtually all say so.

Now, looking it up on the web, I did find an article in the New York Times in July of 2016 that said (based on the metrics at that time in the season) that "Brandon Crawford is the best defensive player in baseball".  It should be noted that by the end of the season, most of the metrics had changed in favor of Simmons.

The McCovey Chronicles said a third of the way through the 2016 season that "Brandon Crawford stands alone."  Even though The Chronicles are a web site based on the Giants, I'd say they're pretty objective.  But, again, that was said a third of the way through the season, and by the end of the season, Crawford DIDN'T stand alone.  

At the time both of the above were written, Simmons had missed a third of the games played to that point.  By the end of the season, he had surpassed Crawford on a game-for-game basis.

Regarding Simmons' prowess, mlb.com said this past August  "From the day he broke into the big leagues with the Braves in 2012, Andrelton Simmons was not just one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball, but one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball history."

An April, 2015 ESPN article was entitled "Andrelton Simmons might be the greatest defensive shortstop ever."

From SI.com this September:  "This play by Andrelton Simmons on Sunday night against the Astros is the kind of thing that makes the heart of every baseball coach swell and Tom Emanski swoon, and it should be shown to every single Little Leaguer from here until the sun burns out. Here's the best defensive shortstop in baseball putting on an absolute show on the field by showing a tremendous sense of heads-up play and fundamentals.



"Forget your performative demonstrations of hard-nosed play and red-assery. Andrelton Simmons shows how you play the game the right way.
"



You get the idea.  The talk about Crawford centers on a great start to his 2016 season.  That was in part because of Simmons' having been on the disabled list, and Simmons caught up by the end of the season.  The talk about Simmons speaks to his being one of the best ever, "showing a tremendous sense of heads-up play and fundamentals."

Crawford's shortstop play has been great.  Simmons' has been even better.

[Islandboagie]

Rog- If we look at the highlight films of both Simmons and Crawford -- Simmons' being spectacular for its athleticism and Crawford's for his smoothness -- we see several plays Simmons made that we haven't seen Crawford make and that he likely wouldn't have made.  I myself can't see any Crawford plays that Simmons couldn't make.

Boagie- Crawford made a play where he barehanded a bad hop and threw out Charlie Blackmon who runs very well. It's hard to believe anyone could have made that play better.

[sfgdood]

My HS baseball coach told us that the GG players aren't the ones that make plays all the others can't...it's the one that makes more plays that all of them should make all the time.

[rog]

My HS baseball coach told us that the GG players aren't the ones that make plays all the others can't...it's the one that makes more plays that all of them should make all the time.


Rog -- It's a combination of both, Randy, but let me address your point:

On balls rated with a 90% to 100% likelihood, Brandon has fielded 97.8%. Simmons has succeeded at a 98.7% rate. Simmons has been better on the routine play.

On balls rated 60% to 90%, Brandon has been successful on 82.0%. Simmons has succeeded 80.8% of the time. Brandon has been the better on the near-routine play.

On balls rated 40% to 60%, Brandon has been successful 51.9% of the time. Simmons is at 71.9%. Simmons has been shockingly better on the you do or you don't plays.

On balls rated 10% to 40%, Brandon has succeeded 42.4% of the time. Simmons has fielded 44.4%. Simmons has been a little better on the difficult plays.

On balls rated 1% to 10%, Brandon has fielded 5.8%. Simmons has been successful 12.6% of the time, or nearly twice as often as Brandon. Simmons has done much better when a spectacular play is required.

So what we see is that Simmons has been more successful on all but the nearly-routine plays. He's been steadier on the routine plays (botching only 1.3% of them compared to Brandon's 2.2%). He's been far better on the you do or you don't plays. He's been slightly better on the difficult plays. He's been staggeringly better on the spectacular plays, as good as Brandon himself is on those.

Now, if we consider both the routine plays and the near-routine ones, Brandon narrows the gap a bit. But since there are about 10 times as many routine plays as near-routine chances, Simmons is still well ahead.

Now if we look at just last season, it becomes much closer:

Routine -- Brandon 97.8% Simmons 98.7% Simmons was still better on the routine play.

Nearly -- Brandon 84.4% Simmons 81.3%. Brandon was better on the near-routine chances.

Do or don't -- Brandon 59.1% Simmons 50.0% Brandon was well ahead here.

Difficult -- Brandon 43.8% Simmons 50.0% Simmons was well ahead.

Spectacular -- Brandon 0.0% Simmons 8.7% Simmons was way ahead of the spectacular plays.

Because of his prowess on both the routine and the difficult to spectacular, Simmons was still better by this evaluation, but not by as much. Crawford has improved (although I didn't think he had his best season in the field in 2017), and he's gotten closer.

Based on your coaches' definition, Randy, Simmons is likely the better player. If we include all plays, all the way down to spectacular, Simmons still prevails in this rating (Which is based on all plays by all players, whereas we get to see a small percentage of the plays made by every shortstop but Brandon.)

Here's what I think: Historically, Brandon is fabulous. But we rank him as even better than he is compared to the other top shortstops of today because they too are historically marvelous, and we don't realize how good they too are.

Around baseball, Simmons sets the standard, although Crawford is ranked as highly as any of the others, with that pair plus Lindor and Russell standing out from the crowd IMO.

IMO there are four of the let's say 20 greatest defensive shortstops of all time playing today. Crawford is great, and he's in amazing company.

Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/4186/strat-matic-fielding#ixzz514ZcashU

[rog]

Boagie, the computer ate a post I made a couple of days ago regarding that fabulous play you mentioned that Brandon made. I was HIGHLY impressed while watching it at the time. Still am.

Then I saw a highlight of nearly the exact play made by Simmons. The only difference is that the ball Simmons' played went even farther sideways, and he barely grabbed it with his arm fully extended. Because Crawford's arms are shorter, I believe the ball would have gone off Brandon's fingers, whereas Simmons' longer limbs enabled him to just barely reach the ball.

It is one of the plays I've seen Simmons make on his many highlight films that I think Brandon, as great as he is, would have just missed out on -- not because Simmons was better on the play (Brandon was brilliant), but simply because Simmons' arms are just enough longer that he got the ball in his palm, whereas the ball would likely have hit Brandon's fingers.

I think Duane and Mike would have cited Brandon's great effort (which it was), whereas the Braves' or Angels' announcer was able to describe it as great play (which it too was).

In other words, while the two plays are surprisingly similar, I believe Simmons would have made the play Brandon made, whereas Brandon would have fallen just short (heroically).

I think Crawford is smoother. (Aside from perhaps Vizquel, has any shortstop been smoother than Brandon?) But I think Simmons' slightly greater range and slightly stronger arm (at least it's rated that way) enable him to go slightly deeper in the hole than Brandon. I think Simmons may be the best tagger this side of Javier Baez, giving him additional outs.

Why not take a look at this highlight film of Simmons? It is the most comprehensive I can find.

www.dailymotion.com/video/x5vmhxm


The mere quantity of Simmons highlight films compared to those of Crawford should tell us something. Simmons has a 25-minute highlight film from 2013 ALONE.

Make a list one by one of the plays on Simmons' highlight film, and I'll comment on how I think Crawford would compare. By the way, I think Crawford would have made most of the plays. But not all.

See what you think (You too, Boly.), and I'll give you my verdict play by play. If you wish, I'll pick a Brandon video too and make similar notes. Or perhaps you guys would like to choose one of Brandon's.

[klaiggeb]

Rog, I'm not interested.

Personally, I really don't care who is 'rated' the better of the two.

That's why I haven't chirped in with an opinion.

I don't care for Simmons.

We don't have him.

We have Crawford, who's darned good.

So who is marginally #1 is a moot point for me.

boly

[rog]

Well, hopefully Boagie at least will look at highlights of the two and objectively compare them.

Not that this is the most important thing to talk about this off-season, but I'm disappointed you're not more objective Boly. Two things about that have bothered me recently.

First, by choosing Crawford Simmons you're saying you're a better fielding evaluator than Hal Richman, the creator of Strat-O-Matic, the game you love. In fact, you're saying you're MUCH better than he, since you can make this judgment despite having watched Simmons make only a small fraction of the plays Hal has likely seen him make.

Hal not only thinks Simmons is better (as do most); he has consistently and in fact unanimously chosen
Andrelton over Brandon. Not just the majority of the time, but every single year. In fact, Simmons has been a unanimous choice by every voter every year except for what I would consider to be the most imprecise -- the fan vote, which placed Simmons #3 and Brandon #4 (behind Lindor and Russell, also great defensive shortstops IMO). In the five full seasons Simmons has played, he's received 598 points out of a possible 600.

I also thought driving home yesterday about how you base part of your opinion on Brandon's being able to handle the routine play more often than Simmons. The question I would ask is, how could you possibly know? Simmons has been involved in over 2000 routine plays. How many of those have you seen? I don't care if Simmons has botched two or three or even four routine plays that you're seen, you simply haven't seen enough to judge accurately.

The Inside Edge evaluation based on over 2000 routine plays for each is that Simmons has been clearly better. They have two advantages over you and me. First, they have seen many times more plays by Simmons than either of us. Given that you sadly can't get all the Giants' games because of your lousy cable situation, they have seen more of Crawford's plays than either of us. Second, they're more objective than we. It's their JOB to be objective.

Let me give you an example that came to my mind, also while driving home yesterday. You mentioned when Brandon Crawford made not one, not two, but three throwing errors in one game that you had never seen him do it before. In reality, he had done so less than three months previously. Perhaps you didn't see the game.

Let's suppose your only exposure to Brandon's fielding came in those two games. Based only on those two games you would think he was the worst-throwing shortstop you had ever seen. Even if you had seen him play 20 games, you would think he stunk.

We know, of course, that Brandon is a very good throwing shortstop. In fact, he has made only 44 throwing errors to Simmons' 39. (Brandon has had 400 more chances; their RATE of throwing errors is almost identical.) Simmons' throwing arm is usually considered the strongest of any shortstop, but Brandon's is also spectacular.

Here is why I keep bringing this up. You are showing a huge lack of objectivity in this judgment. As you know, I have a great deal of respect for you. But how can I have respect for your fielding judgments (which I'd like to have a GREAT deal of respect for) when you show such bias and ego in this particular evaluation?

I have such great respect for you that it hurts ME to see you so unobjective.

We don't have to agree. Heck, although Boagie thinks that if a sabermetrician says it, I believe it, even the stats themselves can disagree, especially in fielding. That's why most believe the best way to statistically evaluate fielding is to use all of them and come to what seems a reasonable average. And no one denies the eye test is important.

But if you (or I) come to our conclusion unobjectively and without examining all the available evidence, shouldn't our evaluation be given far less credence?

If you or I had seen only the two games in which Brandon made a shocking three throwing errors in one game -- or even if as I said you or I had seen 20 -- you would have thought Brandon was a bent shotgun when a rifle was needed. If I had seen only those two games, I would have been suspicious, but would have realized that despite the shocking magnitude of the throwing errors -- six in just two games -- I simply didn't have enough information to make an informed judgment.

I would naturally have wanted to see more, but I would have quickly gone to whatever objective information I could find in order to expand my opinion. I would have seen that Brandon has only 44 throwing errors in seven seasons and quickly have realized that what I saw was an aberration, an extreme outlier.

I wouldn't have been fooled by those two -- or 20 -- games. Based on what you've indicated here, you would have. And you might even have compounded your mis-evaluation by concluding that if he made that many throwing errors in JUST two games -- or even 20 -- he COULDN'T have a highly-accurate arm.

And yet we know Brandon has one of the best arms of any shortstops in the game -- powerful AND accurate.