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Glancing At Gomez

Rather than focusing on what a miserable weekend it was (which we all can agree, it's the Twins' fault and not mine or yours...okay, maybe mine), let's focus on how much fun Carlos Gomez has been.

He runs into the wall, sprawls himself out, careens are the basepaths at break-neck speeds and generally just throws his body around with little regard for the consequences.  His speed, athletic ability, and willingness to just lay himself out in the field were some of the (very few) bright spots for the Twins over the weekend.  It got me to thinking about his defensive skills, and now I'm curious as to how he compares to some of the leagues best center fielders.

I compiled a list of 38 center fielders who have put together the most innings spent in the field and, again thanks to stats available from The Hardball Times, I'll be comparing him to the league-average Revised Zone Rating (based on those 38 players) as well as other notable center fielders.  The second list gives you the ten guys who have made the most outs outside of their zone, through Sunday.

Name RZR Name OOZ
Jacoby Ellsbury .971 Carlos Beltran 40
Curtis Granderson .952 B.J. Upton 40
Aaron Rowand .947 Carlos Gomez 37
Corey Patterson .946 Ichiro 36
Mike Cameron .938 Adam Jones 35
Grady Sizemore .936 Lastings Milledge 35
Carlos Beltran .934 Torii Hunter 34
Melky Cabrera .932 Chris Young 33
Matt Kemp .931 Michael Bourn 32
Carlos Gomez .928 Willie Taveras 32
Jim Edmonds .917
LEAGUE AVERAGE .916
Coco Crisp .907
Ichiro .899
Joey Gathright .897
Andruw Jones .896
Torii Hunter .855
Vernon Wells .824

Naturally, just like when we were discussing Delmon Young's defense last week, this won't give you the entire defensive picture but it will give you a pretty good idea of how solid Gomez has been on the big scale.  But even from these two sets of numbers, we can glean a couple of things that help us confirm what our eyes tell us about Carlos in the field.

1.  Carlos Gomez has incredible range which, on the whole, is superior to most center fielders in baseball.

2.  He's above average in turning balls into outs, but good marks in this category alone will not denote excellent range or excellent defensive skills.  There are a lot of big names underneath that "LEAGUE AVERAGE" mark.

It's a very cursory look, but intriguing still to see where our center fielder rates.  Enjoy your Tuesday.

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Edmonds

IMO, OOZ is a better measure of range than RZR. RZR is more like fielding efficiency for the plays you’re expected to make. OOZ is a measure of the plays you make but are not expected to.

The only surprising name for me is Edmonds. He appears to be an outlier. He’s a guy who makes most of the plays in his zone, but almost no plays outside of his zone. The reason guys like Ichiro, Hunter and Jones are below average is they play deep to cut balls off in the gaps, but struggle to catch balls in front of them. They get a lot of credit for robbing homers and doubles because these are highlight plays. But they don’t get criticized for failing to get to Texas leaguers.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 10, 2008 11:41 AM EDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Edmonds = Punto?

Slick and reliable if they can get to it, but if not, they’re exposed.

For the record, Edmonds made 18 plays outside of his zone, which isn’t bad considering how much time he’s spent in center this year (328 innings…for scale, our Gomez has spent 498 innings in center). By comparison, Coco Crisp has also made 18 plays out of zone in 348 innings, while Aaron Rowand has made just 21 plays in 496 innings.

It would be interesting to see the ratio of plays made out of zone per inning, so we could see how often these guys are making superior plays. It’s a better way of looking at it for guys who get a decent amount of time, rather than just the flat number.

by Jesse on Jun 10, 2008 11:53 AM EDT to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

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