Your outfield would be DeRosa, Rowand and Dye from left to right. Not very good and old.

But Dye as a bench player is fairly worthless since he can’t play anything but LF (and even that is a stretch.) And Dye as a starter would be incredibly depressing.

He might not take Eugenio’s roster spot.

…and his offense actually hasn’t been especially good two of the last three years, either.

they make Trade Rumors look like Remlinger and DeRosa discussing Plato.

Dye = crapulent

Pure ignorance

“It’s one thing to dislike a statistic; it’s another thing to dislike a statistic just because you’re too lazy to bother learning about it.”

You could replace “statistic” with “black person” or “homosexual” or “foreigner”, and it still works to explain so much of the baseless hate and distrust in this world.

/soapbox

I doubt it’ll make a difference, but I figured I might as well try.

@Ted: The problem I have with this line of thinking is that our eyes are very much subjected to bias and limited samples. Unless you’re working for BIS or STATS, chances are you’re not tracking a player every single second of every single game. You can evaluate players on your own team to a certain extent, but not to defenders of all teams.

If we see a player make a diving play (or multiple diving plays), we assume that the play is difficult. In actuality, it’s quite possible that his range is so poor that he HAS to dive to make a play- when an average defender at the position would make the same play with ease. Our eyes, unless trained exceptionally well, won’t pick this up.

If these numbers had no merit to them, organizations like the Red Sox, Rays, Mariners, Yankees, etc. wouldn’t be going anywhere near them. But they are. They rely heavily on a combination of scouting and defensive statistics so they can make informed decisions- and if they’re using these numbers (or ones very similar to them), then that indicates superior baseball minds find meaning behind them and that they should be taken seriously.

You’ve admitted that you don’t understand the way UZR works. How can you legitimately criticize something you have no understanding of? I suggest you do the heavy lifting and read up on it. And do it with an open mind. Otherwise you’re not going to absorb any information.

That being said, here’s the two-part primer that started it all:

Part 1: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/lichtman_2003-03-14_0/

Part 2: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/lichtman_2003-03-21_0/

The methodology has since been cleaned up. But this should get you started.

Is UZR perfect? No, not at all. But it’s an excellent tool and should be taken seriously.

is Sabean could swoop in with a 4.5 million dollar deal and overpay for Dye… Although signing him to the league minimum would be an overpay