Smell the glove: the outfielders

In Dan Fox’s latest column at BP, he looks at minor league outfielders using his SFR (Simple Fielding Runs) system. (You can read the primer on what it is and how it works here.) He has some pretty interesting findings, including a pretty vast disconnect between what the scouts and stats say about Cameron Maybin. Scouts love Maybin, Dan’s system has him pegged as one of the worst fielders in the minors. So I guess that makes Maybin the OF/minor league version of Derek Jeter.

But scouts and stats agree on Colby Rasmus. On 535 balls hit to Rasmus, his SFR was 9.1. Baseball America said that he has game changing range and a strong throwing arm. Kevin Goldstein recently pointed out that one of Colby’s weaknesses is that “he relies too much on his athleticism at times in the field, and needs to improve his reads and routes.” That jives with SFR. On 264 fly balls, Colby was -2.4 SFR. On 171 line drives, Colby was + 12.3 runs, indicating his range was indeed game changing. On 515 total opportunities, Colby’s arm was worth an additional 4.4 runs. When you add what he did throwing and fly catching, Colby was worth an extra 14 runs in the field. Out of all Texas League regular center fielders, Rasmus saved the most runs.

After Colby, who else did well in SFR? Prepare to be a little surprised.

• Amaury Marti was 9th overall in the minors with 23.4 SFR. He saved 15.6 with his glove on 446 balls hit to him, and 7.8 runs in 525 total throwing ops while playing LF in the Mexican League. This really comes as no surprise, as Marti can play all three OF positions at the same time. The amazing thing is that he does it all barehanded while wearing ankle weights. (How else do you think he got his massive calves?)
• Adjusted to 550 throwing ops and 600 fielding ops, Palm Beach’s James Rapoport comes out a +24. The man’s only two skills right now are strongly hinged to his speed: Fielding and stealing bases. He has 55 steals in 198 games, but just a .299 on base % and a .285 slugging %.
• 47th round pick Mateo Marquez was the best short season A ball outfielder with 14.2 SFR in just 150 balls. While he may field like a gold glover, he still hits like your typical 47th rounder.

Other outfielders in BA’s Top 30 or Sickels Top 20

• Brian Barton played most of his innings in LF in the Eastern League- 311 balls, 3 SFR. 293 ops, -5.4 throwing.
• Jon Jay-81 balls, 5.6 SFR. 79 throwing ops, .2.
• Joe Mather, PCL-272 balls, 5.6 SFR. 251 total throwing, -2.9. Texas-81 balls, -2.7 SFR. 80 total throwing ops, 3.7.
• D’Marcus Ingram-192 balls, -7.7 SFR. 218 throwing ops, 1.4.

So we find Barton has a noodle of an arm, and Jay has pretty good range as advertised. And Joe Mather seems to do a little better then what his scouting reports suggest. Ingram’s crummy score surprised me. BA said:

Ingram has a plus arm in center field, where he covers a lot of ground and has good closing speed on balls hit into the gaps.

Looks here like Mr. Stocky didn’t cover quite enough ground. We’ll find out if this is more of a norm for him or just an aberration.

You can actually download the entire spreadsheet, which includes 4000+ players here.