Historical SFR

A couple days late in my summary of this week's effort on Baseball Prospectus but this week I ran the Simple Fielding Runs (SFR) system against Retrosheet data from 1988-1998. This was possible without modifying the system since the relevant hit type and fielder data is present for those eleven seasons (in the same ratios as available for 2003 through 2007 for the major leagues and 2005-2007 for the minor leagues).

Although you'll need to read the piece to get all the details, suffice it to say that Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken, Mark Lemke, Ryne Sandberg, Matt Williams, John Olerud, and Mark Grace all come out looking pretty good as you might expect.

A reader asks, however, how Roberto Alomar and Omar Vizquel look and so here's a look at their complete data calculated for SFR thus far.

Roberto Alomar, 1988-2004 at Second Base
Year    Team       Age   Balls Runners    Diff     SFR    Rate
1988    SDN         20     624     126       8     5.9    1.06
1989    SDN         21     672     153      -4    -2.8    0.98
1990    SDN         22     593     138      -9    -7.2    0.93
1991    TOR         23     744     192      10     7.2    1.05
1992    TOR         24     619     167      -4    -3.3    0.97
1993    TOR         25     650     161      -6    -4.8    0.96
1994    TOR         26     395     101      -3    -1.9    0.97
1995    TOR         27     564     127       2     1.7    1.02
1996    BAL         28     605     130      15    11.1    1.11
1997    BAL         29     383      76      19    14.0    1.25
1998    BAL         30     587     144      15    10.9    1.10
2003    CHA/NYN     35     523     148     -22   -16.7    0.85
2004    ARI/CHA     36     125      37      -6    -4.4    0.84

                          7083    1699      13     9.6    1.01

Interestingly, while SFR didn't like Alomar much in San Diego and Toronto, it did in his three years in Baltimore. Keep in mind that for infielders SFR does not take into account park effects and that both the shortstop and first baseman have an impact on the second baseman since the system parcels out balls assigned to each via overall distributions. Both of these may play a factor here although I haven't researched Baltimore particularly although I did note that Sean Smith's system incldues a similar disparity. Overall Alomar rates out at +9.6 runs and a rate (computed as the ratio of expected runners reached to actual runners) just above average at 1.01.

Omar Vizquel, 1989-2007 at Shortstop
Year    Team       Age   Balls Runners    Diff     SFR    Rate
1989    SEA         22     557     130       9     6.6    1.07
1990    SEA         23     356      90       0     0.1    1.00
1991    SEA         24     609     152      13     9.5    1.08
1992    SEA         25     656     189       1     1.0    1.01
1993    SEA         26     719     188       3     2.6    1.02
1994    CLE         27     293      70      10     7.3    1.14
1995    CLE         28     570     133      18    13.4    1.13
1996    CLE         29     655     168       5     4.2    1.03
1997    CLE         30     633     142      15    11.2    1.10
1998    CLE         31     656     185      14    10.5    1.08
2003    CLE         36     295      59      14    10.4    1.24
2004    CLE         37     597     159      -3    -2.6    0.98
2005    SFN         38     654     153      13     9.4    1.08
2006    SFN         39     590     147       9     7.0    1.06
2007    SFN         40     639     134      38    28.5    1.29

                          8478    2097     159     119    1.08

Vizquel is predictably excellent for most seasons and rated highest last year although once again, his third baseman certainy had some influence.

Those interested in this topic should definitely check out Sean Smith's work at The Hardball Times where he expands his TotalZone system and provides lots of interesting results.