Metrics Put the Ninja on Top

By Friar Wire

By Patrick Kurish (@PKurish)

We all know there is a lot that goes into the study of baseball sabermetrics. That being said, there is a particular metric that favors a certain Ninja.

Using the Defensive Misplays and Good Fielding Plays ratio (explained below), Alexi Amarista turned in a 2.57 (36 good plays/eight misplays + six errors), percentage points better than COL Troy Tulowitzki for the best rate among the 35 Major League shortstops with the most innings played during the 2014 season.

Devised by Bill James, who is widely considered to be the father of sabermetrics, and John Dewan, the author of the Fielding Bible and former CEO of STATS, Inc., this metric quite simply directly compares a fielder’s good defensive plays to his misplays and errors in a way that cannot be seen by just looking at a boxscore. Each play is reviewed by multiple trained Baseball Info Solution staffers on a video-review team and is classified by approximately 30 categories of good plays as opposed to 60 categories of misplays or errors.

Examples of a “Good Fielding Play” would include anything from a “Web-Gem” type catch on a fly ball or play on a ground ball to holding a runner on base by fielding a ball in play quickly. Conversely, a “Misplay,” which much result in a negative consequence, holds the fielder to a higher standard than the traditional error. This is to say that plays such as overthrowing a cutoff man or failing to cover a base or botching a double-play opportunity, plays that are typically not ruled errors by the Official Scorer, are classified as “Misplays” under this particular metric.