O/U on how long until I find out Cheat has written the exact same post and will bury/delete this one: 1 hour.
At his Angels blog, Chone has up his 2009 defensive projections. My understanding is the run values are compared to average per 150 games played. It does not have pitcher or catcher projections, which isn't surprising. Catcher defensive values haven't really been worked through yet. Additionally, it regresses to a run value supplied by the Fan Scouting Report that Tango runs rather than to 0 and features data going back at least 3 years, iirc, from both BIS and Stats Inc. As the title indicates, these are intended to capture true talent going forward rather than merely record performance. Justin Inaz, oft linked by Tango, gives his impressions. Money quote:
So, as far as I'm concerned, these are the best publicly-available defensive ratings you will find. I'd trust them more than UZR, more than PMR, and more than Dewan's +/-, at least when looking at those statistics in isolation. Ideally, we'd use PMR or +/- instead of RZR, and use UZR instead of ZR. But there are usually minimal differences between those choices, at least compared to the differences between the statistics from Baseball Info Solutions (RZR, PMR, and +/-) and Stats Inc (ZR and UZR).
Also, I thought the presentation was a little difficult to work with, so I c/p'd without permission to google docs. It's here and sorted by position, so you can see how everyone stacks up.
Implications For 2009 White Sox
- Alexei rates out at just about average at 2B, SS and CF. With only 1 year of data, his rating heavily relies on the FSR. Tango thinks a good deal of the FSR, as you can see. The "rough around the edges but good athlete" conclusion seems most apt. It's looking like Alexei can do better than merely hack it at the hardest positions on the field.
- We will likely have another year of crappy fielding in the outfield. Dye and Quentin are projected at -6 and -5 respectively and Swisher is -3 in CF. None of them are total butchers, but collectively they certainly could be one reason why Javy goes Dent on us and threatens to kill some newborns. Or just implode in the 5th again.
- Josh Fields' bat has a ton of work to make up his -9 in the field. Uribe still gets a +5 at SS, BA gets a questionable -2, Getz a 1 based on severely limited playing time and Alex Cintron sucks at everything.