Debunking Some Reds Myths

Wooeee! Look at this fun little feature! What a clever prompt I've created for myself! Here we go!

So, anyways, I feel compelled to bring some clarity to both the local and national consciousness about the Reds and certain players. And since I'm not a scout nor a beat writer nor a really rich old guy who lives near Sarasota or Cincinnati, I gotta do this based solely on statistics. Bear with me.


MYTH 1: Alex Gonzales Gots Glove

This isn't a myth so much as a lame excuse for me to bring up the disparity between what EVERYONE says about A-Gon's defense and what the statistics say. I can't say I've ever seen the guy play defense, but word is he's ultra-smooth, and he's been given rave reviews by pitchers, managers, and beat writers alike (although the only statistic they ever point out is that he only made 7 errors last year, woopdeefreakingdoo).

So it was kind of disconcerting when I looked up his BP card and found out that he rates below average in pretty much all defense metrics they use (keeping in mind that even sabermetricians aren't really pleased with the ability of any currently available defense metric available at the moment):

FRAA(Fielding Runs Above Average): <0 in all but 2 of his 9 full seasons, which is at least better than Felipe Lopez (negatives in every season), but certainly no Juan "manos de oro" Castro (negatives in only 2 of his 11 seasons). I wish I knew what this meant.

That said, I'm pretty sure there's something there that the stats are picking up. I posted an abbreviated version of my theories on C. Trent's blog a couple weeks ago and he responded as such:

after watching lopez, aurillia and clayton for the last couple of years, he
looks like ozzie freakin' smith. i think the guy is really, really good

i've read as much as i can about sabermetric ways to measure defense -- picked up john dewan's fielding bible -- and as impressive as the research and the conclussions are, i still look at defense as a know it when you see it kinda thing

In spite of and because of C. Trent's dorkiness, I believe him. Plus, there was that one time I saw Gonzales turn a slick-ass double play. You should have seen it. Can't put a number on that shit. Yeah! Stats are for fats!

No seriously, though, in this case I do actually think the stats blow.



MYTH 2: There are more myths

It's true, there aren't. I just wanted to bring up the Gonzales thing. It wigs me out. Suck it.