Curtis Granderson, defense, and swearing
That’s what this post is about, baby. Because this guy? He has a bone to pick with defensive metrics. And me? I have a bone to pick with his pickin’ bone.
What’s that? Where does the swearing come into play? Heck if I know!
Is Curtis Granderson the worst defensive centerfielder in baseball?
Nah, Nate McClouth’s worse. Why do you ask?
Of course he’s not. But that’s what the advanced defensive metrics say about him.
What? Fucking numbers! I cannot believe they’d disrespect a Yankees center fielder like this! Don’t they know that Joe DiMaggio played center field for the Yankees once? That is the kind of history you’re fucking with, numbers!
And Steve Berthiamue is right, if you take those numbers literally, it’s hard to really make the case for Granderson as the American League’s most valuable player.
Other things that make it hard to make the case for Granderson as MVP:
• Jose Bautista
• Dustin Pedroia
• Ben Zobrist
• Tacoby Bellsbury
• Adrian Gonzalez
• Miguel Cabrera
• Kevin Youkilis
• Asdrubal Cabrera
Those players are all better than Curtis Granderson this year. They all play in the American League. And for fuck’s sake, did you notice that four of them play for the Red Sox? Holy mother of pasta the Red Sox are good.
Of course, you shouldn’t take those numbers literally.
What? How should we take those numbers, then, Dr. Genius? We should take them figuratively? Like they’re some type of interpretive number-dance, and really they’re just here to remind us that, even though the Yankees are the fucking best (and don’t you forget it!), hey, other guys play too?
You should take them seriously, this isn’t going to be an anti-defensive metrics harangue by any means, but not literally.
I’m serious. What the hell do you think "literally" means? Because what you’ve just written is "pay attention to defensive metrics, except don’t."
Mostly because there’s still a lot we don’t know about scientifically measuring defense.
But one thing we do know is: shitty play doesn’t become awesome play because you’re a Yankee.
(click “view full post†to continue reading)
Grown-ups have solved the riddle of getting that not to display once you’ve already clicked through to the full article. Hell, even chimpanzees like me can manage it.
To illustrate this point, it’s worth considering the different nature of playing offense and defense in baseball.
Oh, by all means, professor! Let us indeed consider the Platonic form of fielding. That will be a good use of everybody’s time. If you could write about it like a nitwit too, that would be great.
Hitting, difficult as it may be from a physical standpoint, is actually amazingly simple conceptually. You have one batter at a time, and his goal is very straight forward; get on base so as not to cost the team an out, and get as many bases as possible.
Does that seem like two goals to anybody else? Let’s see, one, tw– yeah, definitely two.
ATTENTION HITTERS: Here is your goal!
1) Get on base.
2) Get on another base.
Dr. Baseball signing off!
Offensive statistics then are very easy to figure out, all things considered, because at the end of the day they’re simply measures of performance of a very straight forward and simple (to understand) task.
I’m starting to think this guy really believes "straightforward" is two words. Also I’m starting to think he’s never heard of park factor, and that he sincerely believes that hitting exists in a vacuum where the dead hand of defense cannot reach.
Defense, by contrast, has a lot more moving parts and a lot more strategic complexities.
In other words, "there are nine dudes."
Consider just one decision that has to be made by the typical outfielder; whether or not to dive for a ball in the air.
Meditate upon it. Behold its inner nature.
On the one hand, it’s very straight forward.
(giggle)
Dive and make the catch it’s an out, let the ball drop in and it’s a hit.
What happens if you just fucking sit down on the ball like Manny did that time? Wow, this is hard!
But of course, what happens if you dive and don’t catch the ball?
Oh, I know this one! It’s scored as either a hit or an error, depending on how clean-cut and likable you seem to the octogenarian in the scorer’s booth, which is why we should ignore advanced defensive metrics and just stick with good ol’ errors. How many errors does Curtis Granderson have this year? Zero, asshole. Because he’s a clean-cut Yankee boy!
In other words, there’s a lot of moving parts to consider just on this single kind of play, and it’s vey possible that allowing the base hit is in fact the best play in a number of cases.
No. No it is not. "Allowing" the base hit — as in, you could have gotten one or more outs, but your Master Baseball Plan involved giving up a base hit — is always a bad decision. That’s why dudes get benched for half-assing. Do you see?
And there’s a host of other factors we don’t really know how to control for. For example, how do you control for defensive positioning
Uh. That’s, like, the exact phenomenon zone-based metrics were created to handle. Which was like twenty years ago.
And this is something that seems highly relative to Granderson, since he often seems to be playing very shallow to me (something that seems to be noted very frequently when I watch national broadcasts of Yankees’ games).
"Relative?" Positioning is relative to Granderson? You mean like Joe Giardi sets up his defense by telling Nick Swisher "twelve steps to Granderson’s left and three steps back?" Or do you perchance just not know what words mean?
If you meant "relevant," then, yes, I agree: Curtis Granderson very very often sets up totally in the wrong place. It’s obvious enough that even the halfwits on YES have noticed it. This may not be good fodder for your argument, which is, if you recall, that Granderson is the best defensive CF since the Lord God Jesus himself, and there’s a big conspiracy involving number-manufacturing corporations to conceal the truth.
And indeed, when you dig deeper into the numbers, it’s going back on balls deep to centerfield where Granderson looks the worst.
So he sets up in the wrong place, and then he has trouble getting to the ball… so that means… hold on; carry the 7… Granderson for MVP!
If he’s not making the adjustment then maybe that should count against him, but what if it’s on the coaching staff?
It should count against him. If his horoscope said he should play shallow? It should count against him. Ancient Egyptian curse? It should count against him. Martian mind-control rays? It should count against him. You sir are thinking of "excusesball," where your goal is to blame your failings on other people and finish the season with a perfect 0.000 fault average. The 2011 champion of excusesball? Fucking LeBron James, of course.
This isn;t an argument for Granderson being the MVP
… it’s an argument for Granderson being my BFF. (fade out; sappy music plays; nobody notices that you’ve weirdly used a semi-colon where you should have an apostrophe)
nor is it an argument that you should ignore defensive metrics when they don’t fit your preconceived notions.
No, you should only ignore them when they say negative things about Yankees.
A counter-intuitive measurement may well be right, but it may also be completely random statisical noise, or the result of something that’s not wholly under the control of the player.
I love how it’s "counter-intuitive" that a dude who plays crazy shallow and doesn’t get to any hard hit balls — like, at all — might be stinking it up in the field. As for "not under the control of the player," hey dummy, we’re talking about things that have happened, not like potential future occurrences. Luck’s a factor. Big one. Deal with it.
And Curtis Granderson is most certainly not the worst defensive centerfielder in baseball.
No, Nate McClouth is. I told you that 1358 words ago. Pay attention.
Granderson’s second, though.
