Fun with the Hardball Times Part 1

You will have to excuse my exuberance. I get so excited this time of year that I tend to go all over the place. I started off looking at wins above replacement (and I’ll get back to it) but my off-season revolves around three things: The Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus, and the Winter Meetings. The Winter Meetings are next week and I just got my Hardball Times for my birthday.

I begun the off-season by looking position by position. I’m pretty proud that I got through that. I had every intention of looking at the three Astros stars. I got through Carlos Lee and couldn’t make to Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman. I am currently putting my study of how rosters are built on the back burner (although THT has that too). I’ll probably get to that towards the end of the off-season to see how well the Astros spent their money.

I’ll be hitting the Hardball Times pretty hard until the Astros start making some moves. It has so much useful information that I could spend the entire off-season on it. We will start with the team information and move to the individual. Today, we will look at team fielding as it pertains to the Astros.

Before we begin, I should note the book version of the Hardball Times actually utilizes both their own in house defensive numbers (revised zone rating and outs outside of zone) and the John Dewan Fielding Bible system. The look at teams will come from the Dewan perspective, but the THT data reveals pretty much the same thing.

Total Fielding: -38 (26th)

Middle Infield: -26 (26th)

Corner Infield: -19 (25th)

Outfield: +7 (13th)

We have learned a great deal about the relationship between fielding and pitching. Kansas City was the worst fielding team in the league by far and that more than anything tells you how dominant Zack Greinke was this past season. The Boston Red Sox finished below the Astros, so even good teams can have bad fielding years, but three out of the four teams that finished below the Astros finished well out of the playoffs.

A good fielding team does not guarantee a good pitching staff, but it certainly does help. Not all of the teams with good fielding numbers had good pitching staffs, but all of them had better pitching staffs then you might think by looking at them. The same could be said in reverse on the bottom. Roy Oswalt could be said to have suffered from poor run support, but he has suffered more from poor fielding. A look at the 2004 and 2005 teams is a study of great fielding as much as great pitching.

The last exhibit of the relationship between fielding and pitching is the 2009 Seattle Mariners. They led the AL in runs allowed with only 692. They also led the ML with a +106 Dewan rating. It can’t be a coincidence. They finished 11th in the AL with 811 runs in 2008 with virtually the same pitching staff. Guys like Jarrod Washburn and Felix Hernandez had amazing single season turnarounds. The Mariners had only to make a couple of important personnel moves. Acquiring Franklin Guitterez to play centerfield (and moving Ichiro Suzuki back to right field) was huge.

The Mariners signed Jack Wilson to play shortstop, so don’t be surprised if they continue to be one of the better fielding teams in the AL. The Astros are already on their way to improving their fielding rating by exchanging Miguel Tejada for Tommy Manzella at shortstop. They may or may not re-sign Tejada and move him to third base. Unfortunately, they can’t dump their other defensive liability (Carlos Lee) yet, but their middle infield rating should improve. They won’t have a defensive turnaround like the Mariners, but a move into the middle tier is certainly possible.