Examining the Tigers Defense Take III

In my previous two posts, I've looked at the Tigers infield defense and outfield defense. Now, it's time to put those numbers in to perspective.

We've learned that the Tigers currently (as of August 9th) are at a very poor -18.93 runs defensively. But this number doesn't tell us much other than they are 19 runs below-average. How many other teams are below average defensively? How many are below the Tigers? How many above? Well, I'm here to quell all of those questions.

Currently, this Tigers defense ranks 23rd out of the 30 MLB ball clubs. The only teams below Detroit are: Pittsburgh (-25.3 runs), Florida (-31.4), Baltimore (-33.4), Texas (-39.9), New York Yankees (-56.9), Minnesota (-77.4) and Kansas City (-77.5). The Twins completely insane season continues to defy odds. Not only are their runs totals way over-performing their club hitting vitals, this metric has them giving away what is close to 8 games due to terrible defense. They get praised for "picking it" and "playing the right way" with all of their bunt attempts and pure team speed, but they seem to be missing Jason Bartlett at the Shortstop position where he's currently rated as the 8th best defensive shortstop down in Tampa Bay. He was included in the deal that brought Delmon Young to Minnesota (Matt Garza also went to Tampa) who is currently -14 runs in left field, tied for the worst left fielder defensively in the game right now.

As for the Tigers, their best defender is Placido Polanco and his 11.4 runs defensively which is 4th among all 2nd basemen behind only Chase Utley (PHI; 29.6), Mark Ellis (OAK; 21.2), and Adam Kennedy (STL; 16.5). The low mark for Detroit has been Magglio Ordonez who is rated as being better than only 6 fielders in the entire game of baseball ahead of only Melvin Mora (BAL, 3B; -17.5), Edwin Encarnacion (CIN, 3B; -17.9), Nate McLouth (PIT, CF; -20.1), Vernon Wells (TOR, CF; -22.9) and Bobby Abreu (NYY, RF; -26.7).

We've shed light that the Royals are the worst fielding team in the game, but who is the best? Well, it's a wonder how the Cardinals have some how stayed in relative contention while having what is on paper a terrible starting rotation which has somehow been good; maybe that's due in part to their defense. The Cards rank first at 50.43 runs defensively. That's 5 wins they've gotten this year, based solely from their defense. Here are all teams and their total runs defensively this year:

STL	50.53
ATL	48.73
CHN	47.8
OAK	45.29
MIL	35.06
LAN	34.84
HOU	31.64
PHI	30.14
SD	25.1
NYN	20.82
TOR	18.16
TB	17.98
LAA	10.69
SF	1.075
COL	0.979
SEA	0.527
CLE	-5.21
CHA	-7.61
BOS	-8.24
WAS	-9.85
ARI	-12.3
CIN	-16.6
DET	-18.9
PIT	-25.3
FLA	-31.4
BAL	-33.4
TEX	-39.9
NYA	-56.9
MIN	-77.4
KC	-77.5

Big, big hat tip to Justin Inaz and him developing this method last year, as well as, Myron Logan for doing this and being so open with people downloading his spreadsheet. Of course, big thanks goes out to one of my favorite sites on the internet, The Hardball Times, for purchasing the defensive info that makes up this metric and Baseball Info Solutions for tracking it and selling it. I plan to use this method in late October to do some player evaluations on who the Tigers should plug their potential holes at in their roster for the 2009 season much like I did for the Tigers shortstop and left field vacancies last October.