Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Must Read

This is a fascinating look at infield defense. A couple of things stand out:
  • Very few ground balls are hit up the middle. This would imply that for a shortstop and second baseman, the least essential skill is going to your left for a shortstop and going to your right for a second baseman.
  • The Yankees were well above average in terms of fielding ground balls up the middle last year. This is surprising since most metrics rate Derek Jeter as very bad at this particular skill. Is Robby Cano off the charts at this particular skill? Did Yankee pitchers play out of their minds? Or Is Derek actually good at this, all other analysis to the contrary? I really want to see this explained.
  • The Yanks biggest weaknesses were between short and third and right down the third base line. This may imply that A-Rod has terrible range at third base and/or that Derek Jeter's jump throw from the hole is inadequate to make up for range in that direction.
  • Cleveland was unspeakably horrible.

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