Team Defenses

[Kevin Seitzer]

The Dodgers infield did have among the softest-hit set of groundballs of any infield in baseball. Enough to make about 14 points of difference in batting average.

[onejayhawk]

The Dodgers infield did have among the softest-hit set of groundballs of any infield in baseball. Enough to make about 14 points of difference in batting average.

Yowza.

J

[onejayhawk]

Fake teams did an article. At best it is a start toward something useful.

http://www.faketeams.com/2015/1/12/7528495/fantasy-defense

J

[The Dane]

I knew the Giants infield defense was good, didn't realize how good

This surprised me too. I'll admit, in the run-up to the Series, I didn't really know much about the Royals, but I heard SO much about their defense. And their speed. But mostly defense. What I saw of them in the playoffs confirmed all the spooging over their defense. Then, the (small sample, for sure) Series came, and it was not lost on me that the Royals had fantastic outfield defense, but their infield was nothing special, while the Giants were the opposite, great infield, nothing special in the OF. So, while all the talk going in was how the Royals had a huge advantage in defense, it seems to me that it was somewhat overblown.

Even the narrative of the Series bore this out.

[Gregg]

Ah, anecdotes and confirmation bias.

The 2014 Royals' defense absolutely blows the Giants' out of the water.

Yeah, but somebody has to be second best.

[The Dane]

Ah, anecdotes and confirmation bias.

The 2014 Royals' defense absolutely blows the Giants' out of the water.

I won't really argue with you about anecdotes, because as I said, I didn't really know the Royals well before the post-season and I admit the small sample bias...

However, narratives are narratives and anecdotes are all anyone will be telling in 50 years. People will remember SF's botched play in the OF and the arguable Gordon running on the basepaths, but ultimately, vaunted KC defense or no, the narrative that will last will be Madbum winning the whole thing by himself, true or not.

I will argue however about your claim of confirmation bias. I have always understood confirmation bias as: Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. (freshly googled) My bias going into the series was OVERWHELMINGLY that KC had a superior defense to the Giants. I watched the analysis and read the data and I went into Game One fully expecting KC to absolutely own SF defensively. However, that was not the case in the series I watched. In the Series, their outfield defense was easily as advertised, but I thought the SF infield outplayed KC, which completely shattered my expectations and did not confirm anything for me. I guess you could argue that I am a Giants homer and I was looking for ways to praise the Giants, and while this may certainly be true on a completely subconscious level, I work very hard to keep my emotions and my analysis/expectations separate when it comes to fantasy baseball, and the Giants, As, Angels and Dodgers (who have all at one time or another been "my" team). I expected the Giants to win in 5 games because of superior starting pitching and a little more power. KC would make a series out of it with their speed and defense and shortening games with that awesome bullpen. Giants had all sorts of experience as an advantage as well. These are things that I feel were confirmed by the Series. Perhaps, they are merely the biased thoughts of a fan, but I think it's hard to argue that the Giants won that Series and they did so with better starting pitching, that in the Series KC's whole-team defense was not really THAT much better than the Giants', and that the bullpen and the team speed weren't really that big of factors when all was said and done.

Anecdotes and small sample size: Guilty as charged.
Confirmation bias: Nope.

[Kevin Seitzer]

People have a really hard time evaluating infield defense accurately with their eyes when watching TV because they usually miss half of the play. You rarely see the positioning or the jump. So you end up focusing on how good a player is at scooping up the ball (in terms of reliability, mechanics, athleticism, etc.) and the strength and accuracy of his arm. Or his ability to turn the double play. Those are important, but they are collectively less important than the ability to get to the ball in the first place. Even on the rare occasions you are shown the positioning or the jump, your ability to compare that to how other players do is very limited because you don't typically see that on every play.

In the outfield, the same challenges exist, but you also get to evaluate the route and speed to the ball. So it's a bit easier to evaluate outfield defense on TV because you get to see a larger portion of what is relevant.