Filling in the Gaps

This week on Baseball Prospectus I make a few changes to the algorithm for Simple Fielding Runs in order to run it on the Retrosheet data set encompassing 1957 through 1983 (there are issues with 1984-1987, especially 1984 and 1985 where the identification of the fielder is more frequently absent). One of those changes involves the addition of pitcher handedness as a variable and the other, like the scientists at Jurassic Park who filled in the missing dinosaur genetic code with that of a frog, uses probabalities to estimate the missing pieces.

Overall, the SFR system is analagous to the work that Sean Smith has been doing on TotalZone and our results are fairly similar. For example in SFR Brooks Robinson (shown right) comes out at +293 runs during his career (easily the career leader) while TotalZone has him at +269. Likewise Mark Belanger SFR is +198 while TotalZone is +232 runs. There are certainly places where it differs, however, as SFR doesn't rate Frank White or Keith Hernandez nearly as highly as TotalZone seems to. In the column I also show detailed data for Lou Whitaker, Pete Rose, Mark Belanger, Brooks Robinson, Ozzie Smith, and Bill Mazeroski.

One of the iron gloves discussed a little in the piece is Dick Allen, who managed to show up in the bottom 10 in our rate statistic at both third and first base. His career line is shown below.

Dick Allen
Year      Pos    Balls Runners    Diff     SFR    Rate
------------------------------------------------------
1964    Third      575     137     -23   -17.6    0.83
1965    Third      515     123     -34   -26.3    0.72
        Short        1       1       0    -0.3    0.24
1966    Third      329      86     -23   -17.8    0.73
1967    Third      437     122     -35   -26.9    0.71
1968    Third       37      17      -9    -6.7    0.48
1969    First      234      52     -19   -16.6    0.64
1970    First      177      26      -2    -2.5    0.91
        Third      121      38     -12    -8.9    0.70
1971    First       56       6       1     1.0    1.22
        Third      230      64     -16   -12.7    0.74
1972    First      261      28       6     4.6    1.21
        Third        7       3      -2    -1.3    0.47
1973    First      132      18      -2    -1.5    0.89
        Second       6       1       0     0.1    1.11
1974    First      212      29      -4    -2.8    0.87
        Second       1       1      -1    -0.5    0.27
1975    First      227      40     -13   -10.5    0.66
1976    First      158      25      -6    -4.4    0.78
1977    First       93      13       1     0.9    1.09

                  3809     830    -192    -151

Enjoy. And no, I don't yet have a spreadsheet with the full results but expect to do so in the near future.