Brandon Crawford's Defense

Here's one data point that suggests that Crawford is a great defensive shortstop.

6 months ago antinous 21 comments 0 recs |

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EME (!) and Kieschnick make appearances too.

Proud member of the Adopt-a-Giant program (Aaron Rowand)

by antinous on Aug 4, 2009 10:18 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Thomas Neal too!!!!!

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
PABLO SANDOVAL AM STEAL DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

by jponry on Aug 4, 2009 10:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

And Darren Ford, haha

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
PABLO SANDOVAL AM STEAL DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

by jponry on Aug 4, 2009 10:22 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’m beginning to wonder if the data source isn’t McC postings… :)

Proud member of the Adopt-a-Giant program (Aaron Rowand)

by antinous on Aug 4, 2009 10:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

In the comments, he hypothesizes that the SJ home scorer might score more plays as LD as opposed to FB than he should, which would inflate their numbers. :(

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
PABLO SANDOVAL AM STEAL DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

by jponry on Aug 4, 2009 10:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I thought EMEs defense was supposed to be terrible!

by OTTOMATIC on Aug 4, 2009 10:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice to see.

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.
PABLO SANDOVAL AM STEAL DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

by jponry on Aug 4, 2009 10:20 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

there has never been any doubt about his defense

I saw a lot of him in college and he is an absolute wizard at SS. The questions have always been about his bat

by FluLikeSymptoms on Aug 4, 2009 11:26 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

considering his position

we should give him all the time in the world to get it together offensively

by superk1ng on Aug 5, 2009 2:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Comments section

OK, more on the Giants stuff.

Three of the guys Simeon mentions (Kiesch, Neal, Ford) make up the starting outfield for San Jose. So I suspect there is scorekeeper bias, at least for those three.

Sean broke out home/road numbers, which are posted on Minor League Splits. They are pretty chaotic, in part because of the samples we’re working with. But…

Home/Roads for those three guys:
Ford: +18 / +7
Neal: +14 / +2
Kiesch: +13 / -2

Counting backups, home/road for the San Jose outfield is +54 / +11, and 7 of that 11 is Ford, who probably is a solid defender. (At the very least, he’s superfast.)

In this case, "scorekeeper bias" might mean that the regular scorekeeper leans (extremely?) toward classifying balls as line drives. Since, across baseball, LDs are much less likely to be caught than FBs, if everything not-caught is classified as an LD, well…those outfielders would look like they are doing a great job.

by jctGamer on Aug 4, 2009 11:37 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

My bad, y’all.

Merkin Valdez? Manuel Mateo? A rose by any other name...

by rotorueter on Aug 5, 2009 6:47 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, if the home scorekeeper is overstating the # of LD's

That should be evident in home/away Ld%

McC's Outstanding Newcomer '08.

by FairweatherFan on Aug 5, 2009 7:21 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I must have seen a fluke game or something, he was terrible defensively when I went. He had 2-3 errors (and 1-2 more that were questionable) without doing anything that looked impressive. I’m not a scout (obviously), so maybe he just didn’t get to showcase his range/arm and it was just a bad day for his glove, but man he was terrible. On a positive note, the Trenton (Yankees affiliate) SS was even worse…

by Missing Barry on Aug 5, 2009 12:18 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

extremely SSS

Even the best defensive player can look crappy in one game. With Crawford, every where he’s been (UCLA, SJ, and Conn.) pretty much all the evaluators have reported he has great D, but needed to work on his consistency.

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

by Fla-Giant on Aug 5, 2009 12:45 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You sure 1 game isn’t a big sample?

“all the evaluators have reported he has great D, but needed to work on his consistency.”

Interesting.

by Missing Barry on Aug 5, 2009 12:57 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

who has said that he needed to work on his consistency? I have never seen anything like that

by FluLikeSymptoms on Aug 5, 2009 1:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Why the surprise?

That’s a standard complaint for 99.9% of all minor league middle-infielders. That, besides learning how to hit, is the main reason they’re in the minors. Crawford is better than most, but he does have 13 errors in 102 games. That would project to 20 errors in a full season, hence the need for consistency

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

by Fla-Giant on Aug 5, 2009 2:26 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

so that’s your scouting report? I was just wondering what scout had said that

by FluLikeSymptoms on Aug 5, 2009 2:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I never claimed all the evaluators were pro scouts, one of the evaluators that I was referring to was a poster that had seen Crawford play several games at either SJ or Conn. I also remember reading a quote from a scout, or scouts, after last year’s draft that said something similar. I just don’t have the time and energy right now to go looking back through threads and last year’s draft previews and reviews to get you a link or a quote. As I stated though, I can’t believe that you find this particular critique of Crawford controversial. Do you think that he doesn’t need to work on his consistency?

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

by Fla-Giant on Aug 5, 2009 6:13 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Everything I have heard and seen myself is that he could be an above average MLB defensive SS today. That’s why I was wondering about the suggestion that he needs to work on his consistency. If a professional scout was saying he is inconsistent I would take that to mean he has lapses in concentration and/or effort (because the talent is certainly there) and I would find that somewhat troubling. If it’s just somebody looking at his error totals and inferring for there then that doesn’t trouble me at all. I’m not attacking your point (although I do disagree), I’m just interested in all things related to Crawford and was curious of the source of this particular claim.

by FluLikeSymptoms on Aug 5, 2009 8:05 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Got it

You Bruins have to stick together. My memory of the context for the blurbs I read was that it was just a matter of concentration and not effort, and that it wasn’t a major flaw in his game. I’m very high on Crawford myself, and have been incredibly impressed that he’s been able to keep his concentration on D through the very poor offensive stretch he went through in June and July. That says a lot about his professionalism and ability to properly handle on-field adversity. There are a lot of major league players whose D would have been noticeably affected by such a long hitting slump.

I still believe Crawford will be the Giants’ SS by 2011, if not sooner. I think he’ll be a .260 +/-.010 hitter with above-average power for a SS, and stellar D. What his many critics are forgetting is that Dodd is a horrible park to hit in and it tends to infect a hitter’s swing the first season there. So he’s not as bad as he looked his first 2 months in Conn., just as he’s not as good as he looked the first 4 weeks in SJ (which skewed expectations). Next year he should start in AA again, but the park will be in Richmond, so let’s wait and see how he does there.

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

by Fla-Giant on Aug 5, 2009 8:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs