Nick Markakis, Greek God of Exit Velocity

thewupk said:
Why would his defensive WAR go down? dWAR = runs saved + positional adjustment. The loss of runs saved from moving to center (because of the better quality of defenders) is offset by the addition in his positional adjustment. So his total dWAR would be pretty much the same.
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Because his defensive WAR wouldn't get that huge boost by being far and away the best defensive player at his position. I'd think the positional adjustment would bridge the gap some, but it seems if he's not the best by far like he is in RF (because it isn't a focal point for defense like CF is), his WAR would drop.

Let's say he goes from easily being the best defender in RF (where not a lot of great defenders play), where he's getting a big boost in WAR because he's so much better defensively, to being the 6th best CFer (I know there's no set runs saved for #6, or wherever). He wouldn't be getting that big boost in WAR by being the best. Positional adjustment would completely bridge that gap?
 
thewupk said:
Why would his defensive WAR go down? dWAR = runs saved + positional adjustment. The loss of runs saved from moving to center (because of the better quality of defenders) is offset by the addition in his positional adjustment. So his total dWAR would be pretty much the same.
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It's a stretch to assume that his runs saved would be the same in CF as in RF. More ground to cover, different angles, etc.
 
yeezus said:
Because his defensive WAR wouldn't get that huge boost by being far and away the best defensive player at his position. I'd think the positional adjustment would bridge the gap some, but it seems if he's not the best by far like he is in RF (because it isn't a focal point for defense like CF is), his WAR would drop.

Let's say he goes from easily being the best defender in RF (where not a lot of great defenders play), where he's getting a big boost in WAR because he's so much better defensively, to being the 6th best CFer (I know there's no set runs saved for #6, or wherever). He wouldn't be getting that big boost in WAR by being the best. Positional adjustment would completely bridge that gap?
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This is a small sample size but it pretty much shows you how the adjustments work (on fangraphs at least). The positional adjustment is there to make it that if a great defensive RF were to move to center he would still have the same value defensively even though he's obviously not as good compared to CFers as he was to RFers.

Heyward since 2012 has been a +20 runs saved guy according to UZR per 150 games. That coupled with the negative 6-7 runs (based on playing time) positional adjustment for a RF has been putting his dWAr component at 16-17 runs in a given year. Now Heyward does have limited time in CF so we can't 100% gauge how he would do in a full season due his body size and the wear and tear of a long season. But he has logged 239 innings there and his UZR extrapolated to 150 games is 10.2 runs.

Given that 10.2 were to hold up over a full season he would then get a positive 2.5 positional boost from playing center to put his dWar component at 12.7 runs. So not quite the 16-17 runs he's averaged in right the past few seasons but it's not some huge drop off either. And that difference would account for half a WAR.

Again the positional adjustment isn't 100% accurate of what would happen but it does give you a pretty good idea. I just think the idea that Heyward is overrated because he's insanely good in right but wouldn't be in center is silly. His WAR wouldn't come crashing down because that's not how the system is setup. He may take a small hit but if he was a 5 WAR cf I believe certain individuals opinions of him would change. And there is no reason to believe that wouldn't be the case.
 
DirkPiggler said:
It's a stretch to assume that his runs saved would be the same in CF as in RF. More ground to cover, different angles, etc.
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As my post above explains. His runs saved wouldn't be the same. And they don't have to be for his to have dWAR to be similar.
 
Heyward as a RF was elite enough to win a platinum glove. As smart as his baseball iq is and how great of an athlete he is, I have no doubt he could be an elite cf. I think the Braves could have put him there but saw Andruw deteriorate from the wear and tear and wanted Jason to be healthy long term so they put him in right.
 
I think the fact that this thread is now about Jason Heyward has some relevance to the Markakis signing discussion.
 
thewupk said:
Well Heyward's defensive WAR was more like 2.5 instead of 3 in 2015. Also inside edge fielding is way more subjective than UZR or +/-. It would also seem it doesn't account cutting balls off and holding/throwing out runners as well. As well a 'remote' conversion from an outfielder running in on a bloop over 2nd shouldn't be value as a 'remote' conversion in the gap or down the line.
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I know they're getting better, but there's a large element of subjectivity in UZR and DRS, right?

What isn't subjective is the number of chances he handled. 291. Even if they misclassified some of his chances - "routine" vs. "likely", for instance - and they missed badly, say, there were actually double the number of chances an average fielder wouldn't have made that Jason did - that's 16 balls. So average is 275. Jason's 291. That's one every ten games or so.

And let's say that's worth 2.5 WAR not 3.

He provides $20m of value with 16 catches in a year adjusting for your points.

I just don't buy that. He's not saving anything like 24 RAR. He doesn't get enough non-routine opportunities to impact the game with defense in RF (28 in 2015, to be exact). You can't make that big a difference playing defense in RF.

And I like/love Jason Heyward. But his wonderful defensive skills don't make enough of a difference to pay him like an elite player, which the Cubs have done.
 
Julio3000 said:
I think the fact that this thread is now about Jason Heyward has some relevance to the Markakis signing discussion.
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Yes. I think the marginal utility of Markakis at $11m versus Heyward at twice that represents a very shrewd signing.

Add his burgeoning exit velocity to his clutchness, leadership, toughness and grit and it's no comparison.
 
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