In contrast to the tracking method of ZR, this method does not involve the assignation of zones to specific fielders. Another limitation of zone-based defensive metrics is that they cant be used for seasons before 1989. [fn]Fielding Bible, Volume II, 86. Plus/Minus Runs Saved is the largest component of Defensive Runs Saved for all positions except catcher. Alyssa . Each one saves .73 to .76 runs per Plus/Minus point. All these items are taken into account to arrive at the probability that a batted ball will become an out. Become a Stathead today and run queries with our, Most Unique Players by Age by Similarity Scores, Most Games without a World Series Appearance, Most Games without a Postseason Appearance, Highest Career and Single-Season Salaries, Scores from any date in Major League history, Minor, Foreign, College, & Black Baseball, Frequently Asked Questions about MLB and Baseball, Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE. The caught-stealing percentage is tracked for pitchers as it is for catchers. In 1989, STATS, Inc., developed Zone Rating (ZR). [fn]www.tangotiger.net/scout[/fn] Its a reasonable way to double-check a players defensive ability as indicated by the metrics. He thus had 28.02 expected errors. The movement of a pitch is defined in inches, both in Or, rather, is the converse still truethat the compensation to players whose glove is better than their bat is not commensurate with their true value? [/fn] It was by far the leagues best for center fielders and probably cant be sustained on an annual basis. MLB Player Fielding Stats - As 1B - 2022 Statistics: Batting | Pitching | Fielding Season: League: Position: Qualified | Non-Qualified CLEAR Glossary GP: Games Played GS: Games Started. [/fn] High infield pop-ups are grouped with fly balls. This article was written byJeff Zimmerman - Dan Basco, This article was published in Summer 2010 Baseball Research Journal. Sean Forman at Baseball-Reference.com has begun to update Total Zone for major leaguers daily during the season. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by. Each fielder is responsible for one or more of them. [fn]Scott Gray, The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 36. [fn]John Dewan, The Fielding Bible (Skokie: ACTA Sports, 2006), 149. All voting is based on a combination of defensive statistics and visual observation. [fn]Ibid., 10. Dewan explains: Chase Utley played 96.7 percent of a full season of innings at second base and 0.97 percent at first. These are the worst glovemen of all time at every position. Applying the Positional Averages, we get .967*32 + .0097*13 = 30.9 + 0.1 = 31., In 2008, Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies led MLB with 192 Total Runs, reflecting not only his good hitting but also his 34 Defensive Runs Saved and his high percentage of innings played at second base. Fielding Average Records for First Basemen. Fielding percentage puts a fielder's number of putouts and assists in comparison to the total number of opportunities they've had for putouts and assists. How is ZR calculated? Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. [fn]Day, Deconstructing the Midas Touch.[/fn]. become a hit. K/BF: Strikeouts per batter faced. The FIP calculator will return your Fielding Independent Pitching. Phoenix, AZ 85004 How far, in feet, a fielder or runner has traveled on a About that you can be the judge. FPCT= \frac {Putouts + Assists} {Putouts + Assists + Errors} James also assumes that all positions contribute equally to a baseball gamethat the players who contribute more offensively contribute less defensively, and vice versa. And, as with Defensive Runs Saved, the data for UZR is based on video replays available from Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). What are synonyms for Fielding percentage? [fn]Ibid., 168.[/fn]. Individual Conference Pitching Statistics # Player ERA WHIP W-L APP-GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/AVG WP HBP BK SFA SHA Bio Link; Totals: 0.00: NaN: 0-0: 0-0: 0: 0: 0: 0.0: 0 In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he posted career highs in batting average (.304), slugging percentage (.496) and OPS (.888) to help the Marlins squeak into an expanded postseason field and . [fn]Total Baseball, 7th ed., 2494. If its considered a miss, how significant is the miss? Wyatt Crenshaw is the Pac-12 leader with his .484 batting average this season while Luke Hill is second at .481. Kenny Rogers led major-league pitchers in Defensive Runs in the period 20068, when he had 27. But the brother of Giants infielder Wilmer Flores (they have different middle names) established his name among baseball's top prospects with a breakout season between High-A and Double-A with a 2.79 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 130 . At the low end are the three outfielders, whose numbers are .56 to .58. We often hear that 90 percent of baseball is pitching. This was among statistical categories that werent included in official records in the early days but that nonetheless were recorded in box scores, from which later researchers have reconstructed season totals. For his caution is extreme. For first basemen, assists are counted but not putouts, which are considered to be not meaningful in most cases, resulting in the anomaly that the first baseman fielding the ball and throwing it to the pitcher covering first is rated more highly than the first baseman who fields the ball and runs to the bag himself. A hit would have to be recorded not only as a hit for the batter and against the pitcher but also as a missed opportunity for the fielder(s). raw numbers and as a measurement against average. Most Wickets; . Many a mortal swaggers slowly 9 March 1917. The Longhorns also averaged a program record 6,918 fans in attendance at home last season, the fifth-highest average attendance in the country. Meanwhile, Mitchel Lichtman independently began efforts of his own to improve on the basic Zone Rating metric. ), to check the reliability of their statistical analysis. These are designated Plays Out of Zone, or OOZ. He cant get more than one Touch per play. Range Factor (commonly abbreviated RF) is a baseball statistic developed by Bill James.It is calculated by dividing putouts and assists by the number of innings or games played at a given defense position. Though they err and err again. and 32 degrees. What softball measurables do college coaches look for in a pitcher? One player at each position receives the award. Each Stolen Base Saved is worth .62 Defensive Runs for Stolen Bases Runs Saved. Or write about sports? Through games March 2, 2023. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. A pitching staff that is more left- or right-handed than average will affect the number of fielding opportunities for the various position players, with a left-handed pitcher, for example, likely to increase the number of opportunities for the left fielder, third baseman, and shortstop and to decrease the number of opportunities for the right fielder and first and second basemen. He has a .916 average fielding percentage in his minor league career. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by. PMR adjusts for the direction of the hit, the type of hit, the speed of the batted ball, pitcher handedness, batter handedness, and park factors. There is no magic number for the amount of data on a player to be reliable, but after, say, three years, I consider a players UZR to be pretty darn reliable. Sitting and watching or scoring a game, any casual fan can deduce that a batter who gets 1 hit in 4 at-bats in a game is batting .250 for the game. How much time, in seconds, it takes a runner to get from [fn]John Dewan, The Fielding Bible, Volume II (Skokie, Ill.: ACTA Sports, 2009), 114. Defensive Runs for pitchers is a measurement, of course, of the runs they save with their glove, not with their arm, except when they throw to a base after a ball is hit into play. Many historical player head shots courtesy of David Davis. Even though our calculator can do the work for you, it doesn't hurt to learn how to do the math yourself. Range Factor (RF) and Relative Range Factor (RRF). The PhD in Community Health Sciences is an academic degree that prepares students for a career in which research predominates. For the outfielders and corner infielders, it is adjusted to reflect the number of bases saved (on plays that could be or were extra base hits)the result is an Enhanced Plus/Minus number. This page tracks fielding errors statistics. Already by 1876, putouts, assists, and errors were added together to determine chances, and fielding percentage was calculated as it is now. Defense Efficiency Record (DER). He had 648 chances (231 putouts, 414 assists, 99 double plays) and only committed 3 errors which equals a .995 fielding percentage. xwOBA is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle [/fn]. That is, he made 33 more plays than the average shortstop. He guesses that, in some form or other, its still a part of their statistical-analysis toolkit. See also Baseball fielding positions Get table as CSV (for Excel) Get Link to Table. velocity and launch angle. In The Fielding Bible, Volume II, John Dewan takes the defensive metrics in the first volume and translates them into runsinto runs saved, that is, or Defensive Runs Saved. Defense for them was the entire project of preventing runs, and that includes pitching as well as fielding. [fn]Major League Leaderboards, 2009, All Positions, Fielding Statistics | FanGraphs Baseball (Fangraphs.com). Also factored into the formula for Defensive Runs for outfielders is opposition baserunning. In a relative analysis, the fielder who fields .940 in a .915 league has had a better season. To determine the weight given to each position, the Runs Saved number is then multiplied by the percentage of possible innings played at that position. Speeds of batted balls are classified as soft, medium, or hard. She will concentrate on shortstop in 2023. They would have to be estimated for games before 1952.). [fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, Volume II, 86. Pitchers, catchers, and first basemen are unlikely to exceed 1-2% either way, infielders typically range between plus or minus 3-4%, and outfielders can be plus or minus 5% or more, given their unique opportunity to combine fielding acumen with running speedtwo distinct skills that can be additive in their benefits. Probabilistic Model of Range. In the 1980s, Tom Tippett developed Adjusted Range Factor. Many of these metrics measure very specific observations (ability to field balls to his right, ability to handle bunts, etc.). Statistic Description: Fielding Percentage (Putouts + Assists) / (Putouts + Assists + Errors) Note that seasons prior to 1876 are not included in single-season marks, but are included in career marks. Statcast defines a 'hard-hit ball' as one hit with an ERA- is a park-adjusted and league-normalized Earned Run Average, where 100 is the league (NL or AL) average. A raw Total Zone value is park-adjusted and converted to a value, positive or negative. Most Catches; Most Run Outs . A casual fan (or even the fan who understands sabermetrics, for that matter) would not be able to figure this out simply from watching a live game. Most innovations in defensive metrics during this period fall into one of two flavorsmetrics that can be derived from the established statistical categories (putouts, assists, errors, total chances) and metrics that require batted ball information, including hit locations. (.989) among A.L. Division 1 Height: 5'9'' or taller Pitch velocity: 63+ MPH Unable to figure out how to measure fielding, they set their metric for it at 0that is, they threw up their hands and just assumed that its overall effect on the games outcome was neither positive nor negative. SM%: % of total pitches that are swings and misses. Career Fielding Percentage:.934. Research is complete through completion of the previous season and includes all the fielding average variations. [/fn], Of all the advanced defensive metrics, only Total Zone has been consistently recorded for minor leaguers, since 2005. )[fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, 11. A brief inquiry into their history might give us a new perspective on defense and on the report that defense is the new OBA. Fans who have seen players in person vote on those players abilities. [fn]Ibid., 1113. I dont think anyone questions that were going to have a better defensive team. In the original Zone Rating from STATS, players get extra credit for fielding a ball out of their zone. ERA- is a park-adjusted and league-normalized Earned Run Average, where 100 is the league (NL or AL) average. Of that 36 percent of the total, it was 36 percent for the pitcher, 14 percent for the catcher, 6.5 percent for the second baseman, 6 percent for the first baseman, and less than 6 percent for each of the remaining positions. have developed a kind of attention deficit disorder when it comes to defense. player has saved over his peers. Some players who have won Gold Gloves and have a reputation for good defense do have high ratings in Total Zone for their career: 1B Keith Hernandez, 2B Frank White and Bill Mazeroski, SS Mark Belanger and Ozzie Smith, 3B Brooks Robinson, LF Carl Yastrzemski, CF Willie Mays, and RF Roberto Clemente. Still, the usefulness of the Gold Glove Award in evaluating defensive talent across MLB would be greater if the details of the vote were made publiconly the winner is announced, so we dont know by how much he won or who else was in the running. More than victory for his team xBA measures the likelihood that a batted ball will First basemen have the lowest (13), and left field (19) and right field (20) are not much higher. [/fn] In his initial attempt to arrive at a single number for the defensive value of a player to his team, James used a complex formula. School: North Fort Myers Year: Senior About: The Wofford College signee is one of the top third basemen in the area with a .969 fielding percentage. Expected Weighted On-base Average (xwOBA). Welcome to Total Zone. Hugh Fullerton, a baseball writer, came up with a different formula in 1921. [/fn] The official scorers decision to charge a fielder with an error is broadly based on his judgment that the play could have been made with ordinary effort, whereas the decision to charge a fielder with a Defensive Misplay is based on a long list of criteria54 of themthat are spelled out with some specificity. This is an improvement on Zone Rating in that a 6-second fly ball, for example, is treated differently from a 3-second line drive or a 4.5 second fliner. Anything below 88mph is considered 0. Lets say the official record is that in 100 attempts the catcher has been credited with throwing out 40 runners but that in ten cases the runner was caught by the pitcher initiating the throw to one of the bases to pick the runner off. In The Fielding Bible, Volume II, Bill James assumes that 72 percent of Runs Saved are by pitchers and 28 percent by fielders (other than pitchers). Means a slip-up here and there, [fn]Mitchel Lichtman, interview with Jeff Zimmerman, 25 March 2010. David Laurila of Baseball Prospectus asked him whether defensive metrics [are] an important part of your evaluation process or do you rely primarily on scouting? Hendry replied: Its scouting for me. The match between Jamess Win Shares defensive values and Pete Palmers Fielding Runs was only about 50 to 60 percent, whereas their different methods for arriving at runs created gets essentially the same answers, according to James, about 99 percent of the time. James in Win Shares concurs that fielding statistics dont easily lend themselves to the evaluation of first basemen. Baserunning Runs, an estimation of how many runs a player generates through extra-base advancements on batted balls (it does not include basestealing). Although, batting averages can vary based on the level of competition and position. Try again and win at last, The formula is simple: the total number of putouts and assists by a defender, divided by the total number of chances (putouts, assists and errors). Register now to join us on March 10-12, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ. People scout players and they rate their defense, and thats what I go byand the personnel that we have in our own dugout.[fn]Jim Hendry, interview with David Laurila, Prospectus Q&A, 12 July 2009 BaseballProspectus.com. outfield. one base to another, like Home To First. Defense Great defensive units consistently set up their offensive crew with good field position. . Significant differences between DA and ZR mean that a given fielder may look better in ZR than in DA or vice versa. Where was the fielder stationed at the moment of contact? [/fn] Still, DER is highly correlated with winning. Steve Sommers has actually gone as far as combining both UZR numbers and the Fan Scout Report to come up with a combined value. window") of the runner is at least 30 ft/sec. (Some of those balls would have turned into doubles. Infielders are rated on their ability to handle balls hit straight at them and, to determine if theyre weaker or stronger on one side, theyre rated on their ability to handle balls hit to their right and then to their left. . [fn]Steve Somer, Defensive Projections, Take 2, Play a Hard Nine, 21 November 1009, http://playahardnine.wordpress.com. [fn]Peter Abraham, Calling Jamess Number: Stat Guru Senses New Defensive Focus, Boston Globe, 15 January 2010. [/fn] The Plus/Minus numbers for the infielders at the corners are adjusted to create an Enhanced Plus/Minus, which reflects the value of bases saved on balls hit down the line. (Skokie: ACTA Sports, 2006), 1516[/fn] Here is a list of the winners. About Sharing Tools. Individual Conference Pitching Statistics # Player ERA WHIP W-L APP-GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/AVG WP HBP BK SFA SHA Bio Link; Totals: 0.00: NaN: 0-0: 0-0: 0: 0: 0: 0.0: 0 The newer metricsRange Factor, Relative Range Factor, Adjusted Range Factor, Defense Efficiency Record, Fielding Runs, and Fielding Winsare generated from calculations based on these simple box-score statistics. What Im most curious about in 2010 is how much better were going to be defensively, Bill James, who works as special advisor on baseball operations for the Red Sox, said earlier this year, during the offseason. In Revised Zone Rating (described below), no extra credit is given for them, theyre merely tallied separately. Safeco Field has one of the biggest. Video scouts opinions of the degree of difficulty are never considered; the video scouts simply watch game film and plot the data points. Addie Joss first said that, in 1906, according to Bill James, who adds that, when Joss was criticized for it, he tried to explain that he meant that pitching was 90 percent of defense. The Sun Devils are 3-0 in one-run games this season, a notable tally as ASU went just 1-7 in one-score games last season. 3 words related to fielding average: baseball, baseball game, average. Since the Total Zone rating is simply a measure of fielding range, additional components must be added, depending on the position. Catchers do not have any Plus/Minus value; their Defensive Runs Saved consists of Stolen Bases Runs Saved and Adjusted Earned Runs Saved.We start with Stolen Bases Saved. Many voters have a strong statistical background; others do not. It varies from era to era, so that it fails to measure a teams defense relative to the league average at the time, and it does not do a great job of distinguishing pitching effectiveness from fielding. For example, each hard fliner hit 350 feet at vector 180 (the vector representing straightaway center field) is compared only to other hard fliners hit 350 feet at vector 180. All logos are the trademark & property of their owners and not Sports Reference LLC. Runs Created is an estimation of how many runs a player generates on offense with his bat and basestealing ability. In The Fielding Bible, team defense for the thirty MLB clubs is rated in 19 different locations on the field where balls enter play. Clubs rely on their scouting and data-collection agencies to help fill voids that statistics cannot measure and to verify that the statistics are truly showing us the best fielders. First, in RZR, the hit locations by pixel, described above, are used to plot batted balls; balls hit in specific directions and at specific distances are predetermined to fall in a players zone or out of zone. BIS video scouts plot hit locations, and then an automated code determines whether the ball landed (or was caught) in a particular RZR zone. [/fn] Double plays and double-play opportunities are tracked, as are pivots and pivot opportunities, where, for example, the second baseman would get credit for a pivot in a 6-4-3 or 5-4-3 double play. Players attempt to catch a fly ball or popup and it drops between them. Visit ESPN to view 2022 MLB team stats. As baseball historian John Thorn notes, Fielding skill was still the most highly sought after attribute of a ball player.[fn]Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game: Baseballs Lifelong Fascination with Statistics (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), 9.[/fn]. [/fn] A players Fielding Runs number is either positive or negative, unless its zero; an average fielder at any position would save zero runs. The first item, at least, in Schwarzs list of questions is addressed with the help of Baseball Info Solutions and the availability of new kinds of data, which are used for Revised Zone Rating, Plus/Minus, Ultimate Zone Rating, and Probabilistic Model of Range (all described later). [/fn], Even the statisticians and analysts who develop and work with the advanced defensive metrics are constantly referring back to the empirical evidence, what they see a fielder do, as well as to his reputation (how many Gold Gloves has he won? [fn]Ibid., 6367.[/fn]. [fn]Doug, Miller, Four New Defensive Stats Explained, 11 January 2010, MLB.mlb.com.[/fn]. But none of these [defensive metrics], Alan Schwarz wrote back in 2004, have gained any real currency, because they all basically derive from the same specious input: putouts, assists, and errors. A big advantage of these metrics is that they can be calculated for any year from 1876 to the present. [/fn] In 1875, Al Wright, following a similar philosophy, took the sum of putouts and assists and divided that by gamesa metric that rewarded players for how often they got to a batted ball. Also in contrast to the Gold Glove Awards, The Fielding Bible Awards are accompanied by publication of the results of the votingthey appear annually in The Bill James Handbookand so we can see who came close (or not so close) to winning. 3. Mitchel Lichtman took Zone Rating one step further, using a different approach from that in The Fielding Bible. Share & Export. Ryne Sandberg 18 of 20 Ryne Sandberg will go down as. Do you have a sports website? produces a result. DER can be applied to historical data. In 1887, the practice of counting wild pitches and passed balls as errors, or battery errors, was discontinued. After this breakdown, there are two specific splits: distance (in feet) and direction (indicated by a vector). Individual Conference Pitching Statistics # Player ERA WHIP W-L APP-GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/AVG WP HBP BK SFA SHA Bio Link; Totals: 0.00: NaN: 0-0: 0-0: 0: 0: 0: 0.0: 0 The equation for Def on FanGraphs is below: Def = Fielding Runs Above Average + positional adjustment. Down the years in proud parade, For example, a fielder who catches a 25% Out Probability play gets +.75; one who fails to make the play gets -.25. 8085. If the ball goes between the first baseman and second baseman for a hit, does this count as a missed opportunity for the first baseman, the second baseman, both, or neither? A player is likely to get more opportunities if he plays on a team whose pitchers have a low strikeout rate. [fn]Ibid., 22728. While at STATS, Dewan began plans to improve on Zone Rating, introducing what he called Ultimate Zone Rating in STATS 2001 Baseball Scoreboard. pitch. How high/low, in degrees, a ball was hit by a batter. Errors didnt figure into it at all. Many thanks to him. [/fn] In The Fielding Bible, Volume II, separate Plus/Minus values are given for the three categories of distance (shallow, medium, deep). [fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, 199.[/fn]. This is determined from BIS data on the direction, speed, type, and distance of every batted ball. An important advantage of RRF is that can it be used for seasons as far back as 1876. DAN BASCO is a graduate student and teaching assistant in the statistics department at the University of Akron. Individual Conference Pitching Statistics # Player ERA WHIP W-L APP-GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO 2B 3B HR AB B/AVG WP HBP BK SFA SHA Bio Link; Totals: 0.00: NaN: 0-0: 0-0: 0: 0: 0: 0.0: 0 At the high end are the infielders and the pitcher. The American career mark is held by Ed Walsh.The most errors committed by a pitcher in a season is 28 by Jim Whitney, which also is the National League record.The American League record of 15 is held by three pitchers, Jack Chesbro, Rube Waddell, and Ed . [fn]Mitchel Lichtman, interview with Jeff Zimmerman, 25 March 2010. Synonyms for Fielding percentage in Free Thesaurus. What makes PMR different from the other metrics is that it builds on team DER, as an expected team DER is calculated and compared to a teams actual DER. Here are some examples: Conversely, fielders are credited for plays theyre not expected to make. However, the average fan attending a game cant do the equivalent with advanced fielding statistics. Defensive Runs Saved, UZR, and Total Zone have begun to be updated regularly during the season. Utleys teammate Ryan Howard finished second to Albert Pujols (a worthy choice, as his 171 Total Runs were the highest in MLB after Utleys 192). At this point, its hard to say. finishing the season with an .899 fielding percentage, one of the lowest at any position for a full-time player in the modern era. Read more about how a shift is defined here. [/fn] At Baseball-Reference.com, Total Zone Total Fielding Runs is regarded as the best all-inclusive defensive statistic for historical data and more recent data alike. A constant multiplier is applied for all players at a given position, but it varies by position. [/fn], Cubs general manager Jim Hendry agrees. Adrian Beltre and Scott Rolen led among third basemen. In baseball statistics, fielding percentage, also known as fielding average, is a measure that reflects the percentage of times a defensive player properly handles a batted or thrown ball. From 2008 to 2009, for example, the Tampa Bay Rays went from worst to first in DER and from worst to first in the American League East standings. The dearth of familiar statistical categories that can serve as a common criterion that all voters can take into account makes the Gold Glove Award even more susceptible to being discounted by skeptics than are, for example, the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards. Jump is a Statcast metric that shows which players have The reason there are still more inefficiencies on the defensive side is that defense remains hard to quantify, Jeff Kingston, assistant general manager of the Seattle Mariners, told Sports Illustrated earlier this year. League Year-By-Year Fielding--Averages. Check out the Spring 2023 North Carolina Boys Baseball Fielding Percentage stat leaders, including stats for Put Outs, Assists, Errors, Total Chances, and Games Played Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) is the defensive metric used in our WAR calculations to measuring fielding runs above average relative to the average player at that position. [fn]Dewan, Fielding Bible, 217. Here's how that breaks down . The three outfield positions are assessed separately. . The biggest problem with both the box-score category of metrics and the zone/tracking category of metrics is that theyre not useful for comparing contemporary and more-recent players to players before 1989. How quickly was he able to close the gap between his glove and the ball? These metrics are beyond the ability of the typical fan or researcher to calculate on his own; he must simply trust the work of private data-gathering servicesfor the most part, STATS, LLC (formerly STATS, Inc.) and Baseball Info Solutions (BIS)and rely on the numbers they report. We do know that, like most statistics, Defensive Runs Saved, UZR, and Total Zone give a more accurate picture of player performance over the course of an entire season or, better, multiple consecutive seasons. Tracking by Eyeballing. This effectively minimizes subjectivity. In 2009 they won 87, scoring 31 fewer runs than the year before, but the runs they allowed were 119 fewer. The likelihood, in percent, that an outfielder will be a batted-ball event with a launch angle between eight The statistical measurement of defensive performance has undergone profound development in the past forty years. So if only two out of 25 fielders caught hard fliners hit 350 feet at vector 180, those two would be rewarded significantly; the players who missed the play would be penalized, but not much. We were concerned several years ago that the advantage of the things that we knew could play itself out when you reach the point that everybody knew those things, Bill James told a gathering of the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America earlier this year. . Revised Zone Rating is simply a percentage of the balls fielded successfully in a players zone; it lists Out of Zone plays separately. You may also select a position to zoom in. Franklin had a UZR value of 29, indicating that, in theory, he saved 29 runs. John McGraw divided it up this waybatting is half of baseball, pitching is one-third, and fielding is one-sixth.