The 2006 Scouting Report, By The Fans, For The Fans

[tangotiger]

It’s the fourth annual fielding survey. I’m hoping for another great turnout this year. Please take a few moments, and participate!

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/

 

{This message approved by Moderator, and not considered spam.}

[UMFan83]

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try

[TruffleShuffle]

I'd love to participate, but being out here in central PA, I just don't watch enough games to give these guys a fair evaluation. I'm interested to see the results, though.

[tangotiger]

Last year's results can be found here:

 

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/scoutResults2005_CHN.html

 

I urge you not too look at the data too closely, if you intend to vote.

[ToupeeOnFire]

I had a lot of fun rating Jacque Jones.

[Geech]

This is the greatest thread ever.

 

Edit: Nevermind, it got fixed.

[Drew Doughty]

What happened?

[tangotiger]

Results are up!

 

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouti...nners.html

 

Thanks to all who participated.

 

(Last-minute balloting will continue for a few more weeks.)

[SouthSideRyan]

Here's the correct link. http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/scout2006_winners.html

 

Thanks for including us Tango.

[UMFan83]

Look at the Cardinals results...you think their fans overrated Rolen (88 is by far the highest I've seen in my brief glances) and Edmonds (80)?

[tangotiger]

Thanks for the correction.

 

As for Rolen, no reason to look around for the leaders, as they are all listed on the page you clicked. Ichiro and Everett led. Rolen always does well in these things, and Rolen also led the league in UZR from 2000-2005.

 

I'd like to hear from you guys on the Cubs. UZR has the Cubs as the third best fielding team in the league. The Fans rated Cubs as one of the worst-fielding teams in the league.

 

Specifically, it would be about Pierre, since he's the one that does the best in UZR, and does below-average for a CF according to the Fans.

 

So, how did the Cubs fielding look generally, and how did Pierre look specifically?

[CubinNY]

Thanks for the correction.

 

As for Rolen, no reason to look around for the leaders, as they are all listed on the page you clicked. Ichiro and Everett led. Rolen always does well in these things, and Rolen also led the league in UZR from 2000-2005.

 

I'd like to hear from you guys on the Cubs. UZR has the Cubs as the third best fielding team in the league. The Fans rated Cubs as one of the worst-fielding teams in the league.

 

Specifically, it would be about Pierre, since he's the one that does the best in UZR, and does below-average for a CF according to the Fans.

 

So, how did the Cubs fielding look generally, and how did Pierre look specifically?

 

I would say Pierre is adequate at getting to the ball, due to his speed. As you know his arm is terrible, but he does seem to hit the cut off-man most of the time.

 

I was most disapointed with Cedeno. he gets to balls well but his arm is strong and not accurate.

 

I thought Aramis was above average defensively, but he did have some foot work issues from time to time.

 

Michael Barrett is arguably the worst defensive catcher in the big leagues. He sets up way too late, he lunges for balls instead of blocking them and his release point on throws to second is erratic. He is bad.

 

JJ, well, he made some great diving plays this year. He seems to get to balls well but his throws are nothing short of comical. If he isn't air mailing the ball, he's throwing it into the ground.

 

Murton was a little below average I think. He missed some balls he should have caught this year. However, like Pierre he hit the cut-off man most of the time.

 

Overall I'd say the defense was average.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Thanks for the correction.

 

As for Rolen, no reason to look around for the leaders, as they are all listed on the page you clicked. Ichiro and Everett led. Rolen always does well in these things, and Rolen also led the league in UZR from 2000-2005.

 

I'd like to hear from you guys on the Cubs. UZR has the Cubs as the third best fielding team in the league. The Fans rated Cubs as one of the worst-fielding teams in the league.

 

Specifically, it would be about Pierre, since he's the one that does the best in UZR, and does below-average for a CF according to the Fans.

 

So, how did the Cubs fielding look generally, and how did Pierre look specifically?

 

Pierre's arm was so bad that my guess is that Cub fans consider his entire defense deficient based on the poor arm.

[goonys evil twin]

I don't understand the point of this thing. It seems to me to just be a poll of preconceived notions.

[tangotiger]

I don't understand the point of this thing. It seems to me to just be a poll of preconceived notions.

 

Perhaps you should spend more time looking at the results. Start with ARod, and see how he did in 2005 and 2006. Then, go to Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter. After you've spent 10-20 minutes looking at the results, please post your informed opinion.

 

***

 

This also has historical value. For example, Adam Everett could conceivably be out of the league in 4 years, and having never won the Gold Glove. Yet the Astros fans consider him to be the best fielder in the game. In 10-20 years, we'll have the Fans' Scouting Report to look back to, to confirm that view.

 

Right now, I say Gary Pettis or Paul Blair or Curt Flood or Richie Ashburn or Tris Speaker, and who knows what the true feeling of the fan at the time was.

 

***

 

Finally, this report should be given more weight than any single fan. If someone wants to say that Pierre had a good arm, then I've got 40 fans to tell me otherwise, so I know not to listen to that person.

 

While it's easy for a Cub fan to be right about his Cub players, how would they know how to react fairly to say Brandon Inge to be traded here?

[goonys evil twin]

I don't understand the point of this thing. It seems to me to just be a poll of preconceived notions.

 

Perhaps you should spend more time looking at the results. Start with ARod, and see how he did in 2005 and 2006. Then, go to Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter. After you've spent 10-20 minutes looking at the results, please post your informed opinion.

 

Is it not an opinion poll? Hasn't it been shown time and time again that fan's opinions are heavily influenced by preconceived notions*?

 

 

* and bias

[SouthSideRyan]

Thanks for the correction.

 

As for Rolen, no reason to look around for the leaders, as they are all listed on the page you clicked. Ichiro and Everett led. Rolen always does well in these things, and Rolen also led the league in UZR from 2000-2005.

 

I'd like to hear from you guys on the Cubs. UZR has the Cubs as the third best fielding team in the league. The Fans rated Cubs as one of the worst-fielding teams in the league.

 

Specifically, it would be about Pierre, since he's the one that does the best in UZR, and does below-average for a CF according to the Fans.

 

So, how did the Cubs fielding look generally, and how did Pierre look specifically?

 

Pierre's arm was so bad that my guess is that Cub fans consider his entire defense deficient based on the poor arm.

 

I'd agree on this, I think too many people were biased by Pierre's awful arm that they downgraded him on everything(quite possibly subconsciously) Personally I had him above average in the fielding categories, but man that arm is weak.

 

I'm inclined to think the same thing about Jacque Jones, whose range I was pretty impressed with.

[tangotiger]

I don't understand the point of this thing. It seems to me to just be a poll of preconceived notions.

 

Perhaps you should spend more time looking at the results. Start with ARod, and see how he did in 2005 and 2006. Then, go to Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter. After you've spent 10-20 minutes looking at the results, please post your informed opinion.

 

Is it not an opinion poll? Hasn't it been shown time and time again that fan's opinions are heavily influenced by preconceived notions*?

 

 

* and bias

 

It seems you have the preconceived notions. Did you look at the ARod results in 2005 and 2006? Did you not see the huge shift? Do people's preconceived notions change every year?

 

Andruw dropped substantially, as did Torii Hunter. Junior too. Look at the results. They reflect a CHANGE in the opinion of the fan. It's a snapshot reflect of how the fan feels and thinks he sees.

 

Look at the data, analyze, and then provide your opinion.

[goonys evil twin]

Thanks for the correction.

 

As for Rolen, no reason to look around for the leaders, as they are all listed on the page you clicked. Ichiro and Everett led. Rolen always does well in these things, and Rolen also led the league in UZR from 2000-2005.

 

I'd like to hear from you guys on the Cubs. UZR has the Cubs as the third best fielding team in the league. The Fans rated Cubs as one of the worst-fielding teams in the league.

 

Specifically, it would be about Pierre, since he's the one that does the best in UZR, and does below-average for a CF according to the Fans.

 

So, how did the Cubs fielding look generally, and how did Pierre look specifically?

 

Pierre's arm was so bad that my guess is that Cub fans consider his entire defense deficient based on the poor arm.

 

I'd agree on this, I think too many people were biased by Pierre's awful arm that they downgraded him on everything(quite possibly subconsciously) Personally I had him above average in the fielding categories, but man that arm is weak.

 

I'm inclined to think the same thing about Jacque Jones, whose range I was pretty impressed with.

 

Look at the categories though. Instinct? Pierre sucks at that. First step? I think that goes along with instinct, and is pretty clearly not good. Speed? Yeah, very good. Hands, as in catching the ball? Not sure how to rate that. Release? Again, awful, he doens't position himself well to get off strong throws. And then of course the throwing strength and accuracy are both bad. Out of all that, the only thing he does well is use speed to get places, but he's bad before and after that speed is useful.

[goonys evil twin]

It seems you have the preconceived notions. Did you look at the ARod results in 2005 and 2006? Did you not see the huge shift? Do people's preconceived notions change every year?

 

Andruw dropped substantially, as did Torii Hunter. Junior too. Look at the results. They reflect a CHANGE in the opinion of the fan. It's a snapshot reflect of how the fan feels and thinks he sees.

 

Look at the data, analyze, and then provide your opinion.

 

Yes they change. Your preconceived notions are influenced by every new bit of information processed. What you felt about ARod going into 2005 was probably not the same as what you felt going into 2006.

 

 

It seems to me like the most likely outcome is each team's votes will be influenced mostly by their own fans. And depending on how fans feel about a player, that will affect them. I just don't see the point in asking fans to fill out these somewhat vague categories. Derek Jeter is considered by most Yankees fans to be a "great" defensive shortstop. He's considered by most everybody else to be nothing more than average. He's listed as the best defensive player on the Yankees though

 

I looked at it. I just don't see the point. Unless of course the point is just to measure fan bias or something. There's really nothing to analyze. It's not objective data. Take the Izturis data. Are you going to tell me you can get any sort of realistic assessment of his defense. People were told he "drives in runs with his glove" and they were influenced by such hyperbole. You can instruct people all you want to just base it on their eyes and block out all other data, but it's unrealistic. Izturis is rated as the best defensive player on the Cubs, yet he barely logged any innings at all this year. You had 10 ballots for Freddie Bynum, listed as a better LF than Matt Murton, even though most of his time was logged at 2B.

[tangotiger]

And it is opinion like that, that is relevant for the historical record. Those that think that Pierre is a plus CF are in the definite minority.

 

I have the good luck of seeing two of the top play-by-play (PBP) metrics (Dewan and UZR), and both agree that Pierre is one of the top CF in MLB!

 

Clearly, either the bias of the fans against Pierre is so great, or the bias in the data is just as great. Who to believe? Who knows. That's why it's important to gather data, the fans opinions, which has nothing at all to do with the data that is analyzed by these PBP systems.

 

After enough years of performance data, and fans' observation, we can have a better understanding.

[tangotiger]

Izturis had data from two teams. You can look at his Dodgers data as well.

 

The listing is not dependent on playing time, any more than a batting average of .500 will still show up at the top if the guy is 1 for 2.

 

Ryan Zimmerman is a rookie. Betancourt was one last year. Do fans have preconceived notions on that?

 

Your definiton of preconceived notion doesn't make sense, since their preconceived notion seems to change! That's not a preconception. That's just an opinion at that moment in time.

 

As for Jeter, yes the Yankee fans have him as their best fielder. But, he's far lower than other SS. He's like a 63, and Everett was an 89 or something. If you click on the SS link, you will see how far down Jeter is.

 

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/pos2006_SS.html

 

I count 20 guys ahead of him and 20 behind him.

[goonys evil twin]

And it is opinion like that, that is relevant for the historical record. Those that think that Pierre is a plus CF are in the definite minority.

 

I have the good luck of seeing two of the top play-by-play (PBP) metrics (Dewan and UZR), and both agree that Pierre is one of the top CF in MLB!

 

Clearly, either the bias of the fans against Pierre is so great, or the bias in the data is just as great. Who to believe? Who knows. That's why it's important to gather data, the fans opinions, which has nothing at all to do with the data that is analyzed by these PBP systems.

 

After enough years of performance data, and fans' observation, we can have a better understanding.

 

If the goal is to understand who the generic fan likes, then I guess we can get a better understanding. Anything else? I don't think so.

[goonys evil twin]

Izturis had data from two teams. You can look at his Dodgers data as well.

 

The listing is not dependent on playing time, any more than a batting average of .500 will still show up at the top if the guy is 1 for 2.

 

So he had Cubs and Dodgers votes, seperately? Anybody who voted for him with the Cubs had nothing to base it on, and were almost definitely influenced by all the talk of him driving in runs with his glove.

 

 

It's an opinion poll. More in depth, but no more valuable than your typical poll on espn.com.

[USSoccer]

I'm inclined to agree with Goony on this. The data you are basing the results on are nothing but opinions. Asking fans to judge a players footwork and hands is just asking for preconcieved notions and biases to run rampant. "Reaction" and "instincts" are not measurable. They are subjective.

 

I suppose it's useful in the sens that in 10 years you can look at hopefully improved fielding metrics, and compare it back to people's preconcieved notions of a player's defensive ability, and completely discredit the conventional wisdom on a particular player, but for now all it does is reinforce untrue stereotypes of players.