Dexter Fowler's Revenge Tour

JudasIscariotTheBird · April 22, 2016

Didn't see this posted anywhere else yet. Could go in a number of places, but decided to put it here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-defensive-metrics-mightve-saved-jake-arrietas-no-hitter/

imb · April 22, 2016

holy horsefeathers, dexter fowler is on pace to have the second-highest WAR of his career ... by mid-May

Aaron_Kennelly · April 22, 2016

holy [expletive], dexter fowler is on pace to have the second-highest WAR of his career ... by mid-May

If we extrapolate Dexter's WAR from last year, so that he would play at that pace for the rest of the year, and give him, say, 650 PA this season, then he would finish the season with 4.5 fWAR.

Banedon · April 25, 2016

holy [expletive], dexter fowler is on pace to have the second-highest WAR of his career ... by mid-May

Dude wants to get paid.

Cubbie Swagger · April 26, 2016

I just read that Fowler put on 20 lbs of muscle this off-season. I hadn't noticed. Hopefully someone can hit us with some shirtless pics.

Ding Dong Johnson · April 26, 2016

I just read that Fowler put on 20 lbs of muscle this off-season. I hadn't noticed. Hopefully someone can hit us with some shirtless pics.

it was just regular muscle, nothing fancy

sneakypower · April 26, 2016

past calendar year, he's been worth 5 wins, scoring 108 runs- good for 2nd in the NL

BigSlick · April 27, 2016

Didn't see this posted anywhere else yet. Could go in a number of places, but decided to put it here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-defensive-metrics-mightve-saved-jake-arrietas-no-hitter/

This is a really great read and it seems very believable to me, without any stats to back me up, that Dex playing too shallow has hurt his defensive value. He's athletic and seems (again all anecdotal) to get good jumps on balls. I'll definitely trade a handful more singles over giving up doubles and triples over his head.

Aaron_Kennelly · April 27, 2016

Didn't see this posted anywhere else yet. Could go in a number of places, but decided to put it here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-defensive-metrics-mightve-saved-jake-arrietas-no-hitter/
This is a really great read and it seems very believable to me, without any stats to back me up, that Dex playing too shallow has hurt his defensive value. He's athletic and seems (again all anecdotal) to get good jumps on balls. I'll definitely trade a handful more singles over giving up doubles and triples over his head.

Yeah, I'll trade the singles all day in order to take away some extra-base hits over his head. It seems really counterproductive to play that shallow in order to stop some balls from falling in front of you.

It also seems like playing shallow would shrink his range down artificially, because balls hit deep or going to tend to hang in the air longer. So the extra balls he could get to by playing shallow aren't going to hang in the air as long. Which means, he has less time to cover ground. And that means his probable catch zone radius is going to be smaller. I wonder if we have any data to back this notion up.

Statcast is going to be a great tool to help with defensive positioning. You can plot how often a ball is hit to every spot on the field and how long the ball hangs in the air, and then come up with the optimal spot to stick a guy, based on a catch probability zone.

BigSlick · April 27, 2016

Didn't see this posted anywhere else yet. Could go in a number of places, but decided to put it here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-defensive-metrics-mightve-saved-jake-arrietas-no-hitter/
This is a really great read and it seems very believable to me, without any stats to back me up, that Dex playing too shallow has hurt his defensive value. He's athletic and seems (again all anecdotal) to get good jumps on balls. I'll definitely trade a handful more singles over giving up doubles and triples over his head.

Yeah, I'll trade the singles all day in order to take away some extra-base hits over his head. It seems really counterproductive to play that shallow in order to stop some balls from falling in front of you.

It also seems like playing shallow would shrink his range down artificially, because balls hit deep or going to tend to hang in the air longer. So the extra balls he could get to by playing shallow aren't going to hang in the air as long. Which means, he has less time to cover ground. And that means his probable catch zone radius is going to be smaller. I wonder if we have any data to back this notion up.

Statcast is going to be a great tool to help with defensive positioning. You can plot how often a ball is hit to every spot on the field and how long the ball hangs in the air, and then come up with the optimal spot to stick a guy, based on a catch probability zone.

It's also much, much easier to get to balls in front of you than balls over your head, playing dudes shallow seems to make little sense to me, but I await more learned gentlemen with more evidence to show how wrong I am.

Tracer Bullet · April 29, 2016

This is a really great read and it seems very believable to me, without any stats to back me up, that Dex playing too shallow has hurt his defensive value. He's athletic and seems (again all anecdotal) to get good jumps on balls. I'll definitely trade a handful more singles over giving up doubles and triples over his head.

Yeah, I'll trade the singles all day in order to take away some extra-base hits over his head. It seems really counterproductive to play that shallow in order to stop some balls from falling in front of you.

It also seems like playing shallow would shrink his range down artificially, because balls hit deep or going to tend to hang in the air longer. So the extra balls he could get to by playing shallow aren't going to hang in the air as long. Which means, he has less time to cover ground. And that means his probable catch zone radius is going to be smaller. I wonder if we have any data to back this notion up.

Statcast is going to be a great tool to help with defensive positioning. You can plot how often a ball is hit to every spot on the field and how long the ball hangs in the air, and then come up with the optimal spot to stick a guy, based on a catch probability zone.
It's also much, much easier to get to balls in front of you than balls over your head, playing dudes shallow seems to make little sense to me, but I await more learned gentlemen with more evidence to show how wrong I am.

I actually found that not to be true. I'll admit that this is all anecdotal and playing CF in Iowa HS ain't exactly the NLC. But other than balls directly behind me, I found going back easier. I think it's that on a ball hit deep, it's a dead sprint until you get there. You either get there or the ball hits the fence. On shallow hits, there's a point at which you need to decide if you're going for it or pulling up and that hesitation felt like it cost me some range. And on almost every short ball, except gappers, you have to play conservative as a ball getting by you is a disaster.

I don't know how to possibly measure that and I'll admit I could be totally wrong. But that was definitely my experience in about 100 games in high school OF.

Tracer Bullet · April 29, 2016

oh and that article linked in there "does playing shallow work" is ridiculous. what a terrible way to measure which players play shallower. what if those guys have to go back more often b/c their pitchers give up more deep flies? or guys come in b/c the pitchers get more bloopers or more liners? bill james should be embarrassed to have his name on that.

David · April 29, 2016

Yeah, I'll trade the singles all day in order to take away some extra-base hits over his head. It seems really counterproductive to play that shallow in order to stop some balls from falling in front of you.

It also seems like playing shallow would shrink his range down artificially, because balls hit deep or going to tend to hang in the air longer. So the extra balls he could get to by playing shallow aren't going to hang in the air as long. Which means, he has less time to cover ground. And that means his probable catch zone radius is going to be smaller. I wonder if we have any data to back this notion up.

Statcast is going to be a great tool to help with defensive positioning. You can plot how often a ball is hit to every spot on the field and how long the ball hangs in the air, and then come up with the optimal spot to stick a guy, based on a catch probability zone.
It's also much, much easier to get to balls in front of you than balls over your head, playing dudes shallow seems to make little sense to me, but I await more learned gentlemen with more evidence to show how wrong I am.

I actually found that not to be true. I'll admit that this is all anecdotal and playing CF in Iowa HS ain't exactly the NLC. But other than balls directly behind me, I found going back easier. I think it's that on a ball hit deep, it's a dead sprint until you get there. You either get there or the ball hits the fence. On shallow hits, there's a point at which you need to decide if you're going for it or pulling up and that hesitation felt like it cost me some range. And on almost every short ball, except gappers, you have to play conservative as a ball getting by you is a disaster.

I don't know how to possibly measure that and I'll admit I could be totally wrong. But that was definitely my experience in about 100 games in high school OF.

I think that's how Dexter felt, too, which is why he always played shallow and was resistant (even in ST this year) to playing deeper like the Cubs were asking him to.

imb · April 29, 2016

Yeah, I'll trade the singles all day in order to take away some extra-base hits over his head. It seems really counterproductive to play that shallow in order to stop some balls from falling in front of you.

It also seems like playing shallow would shrink his range down artificially, because balls hit deep or going to tend to hang in the air longer. So the extra balls he could get to by playing shallow aren't going to hang in the air as long. Which means, he has less time to cover ground. And that means his probable catch zone radius is going to be smaller. I wonder if we have any data to back this notion up.

Statcast is going to be a great tool to help with defensive positioning. You can plot how often a ball is hit to every spot on the field and how long the ball hangs in the air, and then come up with the optimal spot to stick a guy, based on a catch probability zone.
It's also much, much easier to get to balls in front of you than balls over your head, playing dudes shallow seems to make little sense to me, but I await more learned gentlemen with more evidence to show how wrong I am.

I actually found that not to be true. I'll admit that this is all anecdotal and playing CF in Iowa HS ain't exactly the NLC. But other than balls directly behind me, I found going back easier. I think it's that on a ball hit deep, it's a dead sprint until you get there. You either get there or the ball hits the fence. On shallow hits, there's a point at which you need to decide if you're going for it or pulling up and that hesitation felt like it cost me some range. And on almost every short ball, except gappers, you have to play conservative as a ball getting by you is a disaster.

I don't know how to possibly measure that and I'll admit I could be totally wrong. But that was definitely my experience in about 100 games in high school OF.

did you ever slide into first base

Sammy Sofa · April 29, 2016

Could you really hear a fastball?

Tracer Bullet · April 29, 2016

It's also much, much easier to get to balls in front of you than balls over your head, playing dudes shallow seems to make little sense to me, but I await more learned gentlemen with more evidence to show how wrong I am.

I actually found that not to be true. I'll admit that this is all anecdotal and playing CF in Iowa HS ain't exactly the NLC. But other than balls directly behind me, I found going back easier. I think it's that on a ball hit deep, it's a dead sprint until you get there. You either get there or the ball hits the fence. On shallow hits, there's a point at which you need to decide if you're going for it or pulling up and that hesitation felt like it cost me some range. And on almost every short ball, except gappers, you have to play conservative as a ball getting by you is a disaster.

I don't know how to possibly measure that and I'll admit I could be totally wrong. But that was definitely my experience in about 100 games in high school OF.

did you ever slide into first base

I didn't. But I did lead my team in steals 2 years in a row, so my credibility is solid.

JudasIscariotTheBird · April 29, 2016

DIVE into first. Not slide. DIVE.

minnesotacubsfan · April 29, 2016

I totally lead my team in ba, slg, obp, ops, field percentage and I love played infield and I can totally say that nothing pissed me off more then a lippy cf'r who let hits get past him. Even if he stole bases

Sammy Sofa · April 30, 2016

DIVE into first. Not slide. DIVE.

OVER the bag, dammit!

Tracer Bullet · April 30, 2016

I totally lead my team in ba, slg, obp, ops, field percentage and I love played infield and I can totally say that nothing pissed me off more then a lippy cf'r who let hits get past him. Even if he stole bases

Field %? Lol. You must be a lame-o 1b. Just shut up and scoop.

Tracer Bullet · April 30, 2016

It would be interesting to see an actual study of playing depth for OF.

minnesotacubsfan · May 1, 2016

I totally lead my team in ba, slg, obp, ops, field percentage and I love played infield and I can totally say that nothing pissed me off more then a lippy cf'r who let hits get past him. Even if he stole bases

Field %? Lol. You must be a lame-o 1b. Just shut up and scoop.

SS, 2b bitch

Tracer Bullet · May 1, 2016

I totally lead my team in ba, slg, obp, ops, field percentage and I love played infield and I can totally say that nothing pissed me off more then a lippy cf'r who let hits get past him. Even if he stole bases

Field %? Lol. You must be a lame-o 1b. Just shut up and scoop.

SS, 2b bitch

nice. you be the king of the IF. just get out of my way.