Monday, July 19, 2004
Future Baby Names (Part 4, D-Backs Review)
Here are last week's reviews of the outfield, infield, and pitching.
A couple other things I didn't get to last week...
Defense
The D-Backs' defense has been maligned. There is truth in this malignment. By traditional fielding stats -- 2nd in most errors committed, 15th in fielding percentage. By more modern fielding stats -- in defensive efficiency as of this morning the D-Backs ranked 13th out of 16 NL teams.
If you look at the Hardball Times' Win Shares analysis, the story is even worse. Here are NL teams' defensive win shares, as of the All-Star Break:
CHC 22.8
STL 22.6
HOU 22.2
FLO 21.8
MON 21.3
LAD 21.2
MIL 20.8
SDP 20.6
PHI 18.2
SFG 17.8
NYM 17.6
PIT 16.9
ATL 16.9
CIN 16.3
ARI 15.7
COL 15.3
Clearly, the D-Backs aren't good defensively. The upside (if there can be an upside) is that this lousiness isn't the major cause of their problems. The average for those 16 teams is 19.3 (the median is 19.4), and so if Arizona fielded an average team defensively, they'd only add 3.6 more Win Shares, or just about 1 win. It's frustrating to watch Cintron or Bautista or Terrero or Gonzo or whomever make a stupid fielding move, but it's not why this team is 31-62.
Attendance
Reality check time. What has Arizona's average attendance been so far this year? Go ahead, guess. 32,642. And where does that place Arizona? 14th in MLB, 8th in the NL (which includes 2 teams with new stadia). Is attendance down from last year? Sure. We've got the worst record in baseball. But this is by no means a disaster. Even the relatively considered piece by Barbara Yost in this morning's Republic doesn't quite catch that attendance is only down 3% from this point last year. And even if attendance drops by 10% when all is said and done (requiring 29,000 per game from here on out), that seems to me a somewhat inelastic drop given the drop in performance.
OK, I sorta feel the need to move on so I'll end this review here.
A couple other things I didn't get to last week...
Defense
The D-Backs' defense has been maligned. There is truth in this malignment. By traditional fielding stats -- 2nd in most errors committed, 15th in fielding percentage. By more modern fielding stats -- in defensive efficiency as of this morning the D-Backs ranked 13th out of 16 NL teams.
If you look at the Hardball Times' Win Shares analysis, the story is even worse. Here are NL teams' defensive win shares, as of the All-Star Break:
CHC 22.8
STL 22.6
HOU 22.2
FLO 21.8
MON 21.3
LAD 21.2
MIL 20.8
SDP 20.6
PHI 18.2
SFG 17.8
NYM 17.6
PIT 16.9
ATL 16.9
CIN 16.3
ARI 15.7
COL 15.3
Clearly, the D-Backs aren't good defensively. The upside (if there can be an upside) is that this lousiness isn't the major cause of their problems. The average for those 16 teams is 19.3 (the median is 19.4), and so if Arizona fielded an average team defensively, they'd only add 3.6 more Win Shares, or just about 1 win. It's frustrating to watch Cintron or Bautista or Terrero or Gonzo or whomever make a stupid fielding move, but it's not why this team is 31-62.
Attendance
Reality check time. What has Arizona's average attendance been so far this year? Go ahead, guess. 32,642. And where does that place Arizona? 14th in MLB, 8th in the NL (which includes 2 teams with new stadia). Is attendance down from last year? Sure. We've got the worst record in baseball. But this is by no means a disaster. Even the relatively considered piece by Barbara Yost in this morning's Republic doesn't quite catch that attendance is only down 3% from this point last year. And even if attendance drops by 10% when all is said and done (requiring 29,000 per game from here on out), that seems to me a somewhat inelastic drop given the drop in performance.
OK, I sorta feel the need to move on so I'll end this review here.
Comments:
In defense of the defense, it should probably be mentioned that the pitching staff is at least partly to blame; I wrote about this a bit on my blog, but essentially if the pitchers concede line drives, the defense has no realistic chance of making the plays. DE is helpful but not sufficient.
In defense of the defense, it should probably be mentioned that the pitching staff is at least partly to blame; I wrote about this a bit on my blog, but essentially if the pitchers concede line drives, the defense has no realistic chance of making the plays. DE is helpful but not sufficient.
Comment posted by 
: 1:17 PM
: 1:17 PM
A couple of thoughts on the attendance figures: this year, the tally is boosted by the Yankees sellouts. If you take those three extreme aberrations out of the picture (they're 9,000+ higher than any crowd since Opening Day), the average drop in the other home games is more than 6%.
Either way, in the NL, only us, the Expos and Pirates have seen attendance drop significantly this season. [Marlins' crowds are up 63% and the Phillies 69%!] Overall, attendance in the majors was up 11.4% this season at early July, so even no change would be well below average.
I'd be *very* interested to know how many walkup sales they're getting these days, as opposed to tickets sold before the start of the season, when we were serious NL West contenders [my, how long ago that seems now!]. I know that if I hadn't bought tickets the first day they went on sale, I probably wouldn't go. Might try scoring some cheap lower deck seats off scalpers, but that won't boost the attendance any, assuming those tickets are already counted as 'sold'.
The real test comes when we see how many season tickets are renewed for 2005...
Jim McLennan
But It's a DRY Heat...
Either way, in the NL, only us, the Expos and Pirates have seen attendance drop significantly this season. [Marlins' crowds are up 63% and the Phillies 69%!] Overall, attendance in the majors was up 11.4% this season at early July, so even no change would be well below average.
I'd be *very* interested to know how many walkup sales they're getting these days, as opposed to tickets sold before the start of the season, when we were serious NL West contenders [my, how long ago that seems now!]. I know that if I hadn't bought tickets the first day they went on sale, I probably wouldn't go. Might try scoring some cheap lower deck seats off scalpers, but that won't boost the attendance any, assuming those tickets are already counted as 'sold'.
The real test comes when we see how many season tickets are renewed for 2005...
Jim McLennan
But It's a DRY Heat...
Comment posted by : 1:29 PM
: 1:29 PM
The good news about the decrease in attendance is that there are no crowds anymore! I like going to games *more* when less people show up and it is definitely easier to get walk up tickets now. Plus, this should free up some good season tickets for next year.
Ryan
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Ryan
Comment posted by : 1:51 PM
: 1:51 PM
