Sunday, June 27, 2004
Would Andruw Jones Help The White Sox Defensively?
The latest rumor is that the White Sox will trade Magglio Ordonez and a "pitching prospect" (perhaps Jon Rauch) to the Atlanta Braves for Andruw Jones and Russ Ortiz.
Much of the scuttlebutt about Andruw Jones is that he will dramatically improve the Sox in terms of outfield defense. Andruw Jones is, by reputation, one of the best defensive centerfielders "in the last thirty years." But, as seen with Derek Jeter's lame reputation as a good fielding shortstop, reputations can be outright wrong.
Digging deeper into Andruw Jones' fielding statistics, we see a couple of things.
First, that his zone rating (which defines what percentage of the balls hit to his area of the field are fielded by him) has steadily declined from .922 in 1998 to .786 this season. By comparison, Aaron Rowand's ZR in CF is .910 this year, was .960 in 65 games last year, and .946 in 76 games in 2002. Note that Rowand was mostly a defensive replacement in CF in 2003 - he averaged fewer than 6 innings per game in CF in 2003.
Second, note the number of balls in play that are doubles and triples against the White Sox vs. against the Braves. Here's a table (haven't done one of these in a while):
As you can see, the Sox have been better over the last two years in preventing doubles and triples as a percentage of balls in play than the Braves. This is backed up by other data putting the Sox second only to the Mike Cameron-led Mets in fewest doubles and triples per fly ball. The three-headed monster of Rowand/Lee/Maggs looks good in these data, and either Chipper and Sheffield were dragging Andruw down, or Andruw has been tailing off (as his ZR suggests).
Third, I looked at the number of putouts in CF by Andruw Jones vs. Rowand over the last three years. Here's the data:
Here, Andruw comes out a little better than Rowand - he's more likely to get a fly ball than his LF and RF teammates. This suggests that maybe Andruw was carrying the weight in Atlanta - and could help to explain the previous 2B/3B figure.
After sorting through all this data, it's hard to tell whether Andruw Jones would have a signifianct impact on the White Sox with his defensive play. I'd probably say he's better than Rowand in CF, but not so much so to warrant a CF/RF combination of Jones/Rowand over Rowand/Maggs. The latter is going to create many more runs than the former. Of course, there are contract issues involved with Maggs (Jones is signed through '07 at about $13 million per, while Maggs is a FA), but unless Atlanta is going to pick up $4-$5 million of Jones' salary over the next few years, this deal simply isn't worth making.
Comments-[ comments.]
The latest rumor is that the White Sox will trade Magglio Ordonez and a "pitching prospect" (perhaps Jon Rauch) to the Atlanta Braves for Andruw Jones and Russ Ortiz.
Much of the scuttlebutt about Andruw Jones is that he will dramatically improve the Sox in terms of outfield defense. Andruw Jones is, by reputation, one of the best defensive centerfielders "in the last thirty years." But, as seen with Derek Jeter's lame reputation as a good fielding shortstop, reputations can be outright wrong.
Digging deeper into Andruw Jones' fielding statistics, we see a couple of things.
First, that his zone rating (which defines what percentage of the balls hit to his area of the field are fielded by him) has steadily declined from .922 in 1998 to .786 this season. By comparison, Aaron Rowand's ZR in CF is .910 this year, was .960 in 65 games last year, and .946 in 76 games in 2002. Note that Rowand was mostly a defensive replacement in CF in 2003 - he averaged fewer than 6 innings per game in CF in 2003.
Second, note the number of balls in play that are doubles and triples against the White Sox vs. against the Braves. Here's a table (haven't done one of these in a while):
| Year/Team | Balls in Play | 2B | 3B | % 2B/3B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 Braves | 2071 | 131 | 10 | 6.81% |
| 2004 White Sox | 2033 | 119 | 6 | 6.22 |
| 2003 Braves | 4556 | 309 | 25 | 7.33% |
| 2003 White Sox | 4334 | 279 | 24 | 6.99% |
| 2002 Braves | 4371 | 240 | 32 | 6.22% |
| 2002 White Sox | 4514 | 287 | 16 | 6.71% |
As you can see, the Sox have been better over the last two years in preventing doubles and triples as a percentage of balls in play than the Braves. This is backed up by other data putting the Sox second only to the Mike Cameron-led Mets in fewest doubles and triples per fly ball. The three-headed monster of Rowand/Lee/Maggs looks good in these data, and either Chipper and Sheffield were dragging Andruw down, or Andruw has been tailing off (as his ZR suggests).
Third, I looked at the number of putouts in CF by Andruw Jones vs. Rowand over the last three years. Here's the data:
| 2004 Rowand | 96 | 308 | 0.31 | 2.81 | 759 | 10.69 | 0.26 |
| 2003 Rowand | 101 | 378 | 0.27 | 2.40 | 1588 | 9.80 | 0.25 |
| 2002 Rowand | 203 | 601 | 0.34 | 3.04 | 1706 | 10.53 | 0.29 |
| 2004 Jones | 160 | 613 | 0.26 | 2.35 | 636 | 8.83 | 0.27 |
| 2003 Jones | 390 | 1329 | 0.29 | 2.64 | 1464 | 9.04 | 0.29 |
| 2002 Jones | 404 | 1357 | 0.30 | 2.68 | 1534 | 9.47 | 0.28 |
Here, Andruw comes out a little better than Rowand - he's more likely to get a fly ball than his LF and RF teammates. This suggests that maybe Andruw was carrying the weight in Atlanta - and could help to explain the previous 2B/3B figure.
After sorting through all this data, it's hard to tell whether Andruw Jones would have a signifianct impact on the White Sox with his defensive play. I'd probably say he's better than Rowand in CF, but not so much so to warrant a CF/RF combination of Jones/Rowand over Rowand/Maggs. The latter is going to create many more runs than the former. Of course, there are contract issues involved with Maggs (Jones is signed through '07 at about $13 million per, while Maggs is a FA), but unless Atlanta is going to pick up $4-$5 million of Jones' salary over the next few years, this deal simply isn't worth making.
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