[IBL] IBL Range Ratings

Tue Mar 27 10:32:14 EDT 2018

I know Sean will do the longer explanation and I don't want to
misrepresent anything he says, but having been involved with Sean as the
other person who has done a bunch of work on the game I thought I would
add my thoughts.
Every single season we have people who feel that one of their players
got an undeserved rating on defense. Usually this is because they have
bought into a reputation-based narrative for that player's skill. Just
because a player makes some plays that end up on a highlight reel
doesn't mean they are a great defender. Derek Jeter is the perfect
example -- his "run to the right and make the jump throw" overshadowed
his inability to get any ball hit to his left. Yet he won gold gloves
because people remember the jump throw.
Also, if we are being realistic, over the course of a season, how many
more plays do you think Arenado will make at 3B in the IBL as opposed to
Machado? 10? 50? I have no idea.
We strive to try and create a game where we represent the proper talent
level of a player. Defensive ratings are hard because we don't really
have an idea of how much noise goes into the ratings:
* defensive shifts
* how individual teams position their fielders outside of shifts
* how do players adjust for having "good" or "bad" fielders beside them* impact of different surfaces at stadiums
* players hiding injuries that impact their play

If it wouldn't cause endless complaining, I'd be okay with us modifying
the ratings for range to be what Sean initially shares with us before
the finely-grained ones come out. Having (to use a made-up example)
Billy Hamilton be a "great" defender in CF causes less problems than
arguing if he should be a C or a D.
--
  Chris Hartjes
  chartjes at littlehart.net

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018, at 9:20 AM, Doug Palmer wrote:
> 
> I address this to all the IBL’ers as there may be one of you out
> there with insight into my query.  I was going to address this only
> to Sean and Rusty as I’m sure they’re the ones with the answers, but
> perhaps there are others out there who have asked the same question
> in the past.> 
> My question involves the range rating for the players and how they are
> determined.  Maybe it’s because “range” is hard to objectively define,
> but when I watch a game, there are certain players who seem to have a
> reputation to be able to get to EVERYTHING hit their way, Nolan
> Arenado and Manny Machado for example, are always on Sportcenter
> highlights getting to balls that seem impossible to get to.  We’ve all
> seen the shots of Arenado diving to a ball deep in the hole and
> gunning a runner out, or Manny so far into foul territory that he’s
> practically in the dugout, yet nails the guy at first.  But that
> doesn’t translate to this game for some reason.  Arenado is a C range
> player and Manny is a D.> 
> Now, relatively speaking, Arenado seems to be the best fielding 3B in
> the IBL (range wise). His 8/C rating at third really doesn’t seem to
> be beat.  So I headed on over to Fangraphs and looked at defensive
> metrics from last year.  First, I wanted to look at UZR (ultimate zone
> rating) which is one of the metrics that stats guys use to determine
> defensive prowess.  And I get the following:>  
> 
> UZR shows that Anthony Rendon with his 13.6 rating is FAR better than
> Nolan Arenado.  But Rendon is a 9/D thirdbaseman and Arenado is a 8/C.
> Arenado has a better range, so UZR can’t be the metric.  So I next
> looked at RngR which seems to be a metric as to how many runs a
> fielder saves by getting to balls in his vicinity.  And again, Rendon
> is far and away the best:>  

> 

> 
> 

> I looked at defensive WAR, Error Runs (ErrR) and nothing that puts
> Arenado ahead of Rendon.  So then I looked at more 3B to see if any
> pattern arose and I couldn’t.  The following players have a D range at
> 3B: Machado, Rendon, Donaldson, Freese and *_Jace Peterson_* to name
> but a few.  Jace Peterson?  He’s not even on any of these lists, but
> he’s a D range 3B.  Granted Jace is a part time player and would have
> a limited sample size, but here are his defensive numbers:>  

> 
> 

> 

> 

> So I’m confused.  And if anyone knows how range is handled in PtP/IBL,
> I sure would be curious to know.  And I apologize for the long email.
> I tried to be as brief as possible J> 

> Thanks!

> 

> Doug Palmer

> 

> Baltimore Sand Crabs

> 

> 

> 

> 
> 

> 
> 

> 

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