One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
Andujar can’t improve defensively? That’s news to me.
I guess he should just not have bothered at all with working on his defense.
OT: MLB Discussion Thread: Part XXV
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Andujar can’t improve defensively? That’s news to me.
I guess he should just not have bothered at all with working on his defense.
East Coast Bias
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Machinehead
GoAwayTrouba
He could improve. He also might not.
And if we acquire Harper, we absolutely can't DH Andujar. It's not good to box yourself in.
Bob Richards
Mr. Mojo Risin'
I'd call it more of a deduction than assumption. I mean for starters the guys 6'7 and almost 300 pounds...
One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
That last part I agree with, that’s why I think Machado makes much more sense. There’s little to no flexibility as it is in correlation to DH/OF spots.
One Winged Angel
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17futurecap
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I felt he should've retired after 2014 and the surgeries, but somehow he's added 6 years onto his career span. He's been pretty good too.
He could improve defensively. It's just, history has shown it's pretty rare for a guy to improve defensively by any type of significant amount once they've debuted in MLB. It's even more rare for guys who have been playing their position throughout their career in the minors. Like, guys that start at 2B and then get switched to 3B at AAA will often show improvement, but the guy that's been playing 2B for seven years in the minors and then sucks in their ML debut generally continues to suck.
Also, it matters whether it's a technique problem or a range/instinct problem. If you have bad throwing technique or terrible footwork, that's something you can work on with legitimate hopes of improvement. If you have horrible range, get bad jumps, and just generally don't read the ball off the bat well (Andujar), then there's really not much hope for improvement.
Still though, he could improve. No doubt. It's unlikely but possible.
darko
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One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
That doesn’t say why you can’t assume he’ll get better.
All it does it cite that he had a historically bad season defensively as a rookie 3B and point to Robinson Cano as having as bad of a season defensively.
Then it says he has no range and it would be hard to teach him another position, which is an assumption based off of one season?
Poorly written article.
One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
I thought we've had this discussion, too. He had the worst RF of any qualifying 3B by a good bit, and his horrible -25 UZR/150 was sunk primarily by his ghastly -10.1 Range Runs Above Average. He made plays on 66.7% of likely chances and did basically nothing on any chances more difficult than that. His range sucks.
If he was new to the position it would be fair to expect an improvement in his range. He's not new to the position. Range almost never improves. Can it? Yeah. It's not something that should be banked on, though.
If he can work on his footwork around the bag and in throwing, maybe he can become below average instead of horrible and maybe the Yankees can live with that. The mature version of Daniel Murphy had s very good bat for 2B but was poor defensively. Not horrible. Poor. He was/is a good player.
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One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
And his biggest problem was still the fact that he was throwing balls away and a big part of that was due to his footwork being awful.
Jeter didn’t have the greatest range but had a cannon of an arm that made up for it. Why do you think he was going in the hole so damn much to make that “Jeterian throw?” Andujar has a cannon of an arm as well. There is also no way to quantify range, it’s a judgement call at best.
They’re working on his footwork and throwing. If it can even get to an average level, he’ll be a very valuable player. Robinson Cano became a pretty damn good defender after a historically bad rookie year at 2B, winning multiple gold gloves in his career.
I’m not talking about Andujar becoming a gold glove defender, I’m talking about him becoming average at best. It’s more than possible.
Footwork is probably the easiest thing to fix.
He doesn’t have to be great, he just has to be better than he was. That isn’t asking too much.
Also Jeter’s range to his right wasn’t awful, his range to the left was.
He doesn’t have to be great, he just has to be better than he was. That isn’t asking too much.
Also Jeter’s range to his right wasn’t awful, his range to the left was.
Range is no longer a judgement call. There's now advanced tracking information on the speed a ball was hit, where it was hit, where the player was positioned, how far he had to travel, etc. And as data is compiled through the years it will all get more and more accurate.
I'm well aware of Jeter's defensive limitations, believe me.
But again--you say that his biggest problem was footwork and throwing balls away. There's a reason people don't use errors as the primary evaluation tool when it comes to how good a guy is defensively. That's because it doesn't always make much of a difference overall, and you also routinely see guys making more errors than their counterparts because they're getting to more difficult balls and trying to make more difficult plays. If you're not getting to difficult balls AND you make a lot of errors, then you end up historically bad.
An example of errors not being a huge deal is Marcus Semien. He graded out terrifically last year on defense despite making the third-most errors at SS. His UZR/150 was over 8, all because of the range.
Having great range will save so many more runs over the course of a season than making 15 errors or whatever. Having no range but a good arm doesn't get you very far.
I've conceded that Andujar could absolutely get himself to below-average instead of awful. If you want to insist he can become average, okay, sure, anything can happen I guess.
One Winged Angel
You Can't Escape
If players can learn brand new positions 10 years into their careers, then a player can improve at a position from being awful to average.
Suggesting that it’s a stretch is ridiculous, in my opinion.
The article provides stats showing he had a bad year defensively, gave many examples of good hitting 3rd basemen who were moved to other positions because of their bad defense, but you cherry pick the lone exception (I have no opinion of the article's writing quality). Is your argument that Andujar will improve enough to be adequate at 3rd, or just has a chance to? If you think he just has a chance to improve to an adequate level, what would you say the likelihood is?
Machinehead
GoAwayTrouba
You can't compare Jeter and Andujar.
Jeter was a below average fielder who was punished by the analytics as hard as he was because he played a million games a shortstop, and the whole thing is inflated by the fact that they gave him five Gold Gloves for some reason.
Andujar is an AWFUL fielder.
It's like comparing a guy who's getting slightly outscored and slightly outshot playing hard minutes, and a guy with 40% corsi on the third pair.
Jeter was a below average fielder who was punished by the analytics as hard as he was because he played a million games a shortstop, and the whole thing is inflated by the fact that they gave him five Gold Gloves for some reason.
Andujar is an AWFUL fielder.
It's like comparing a guy who's getting slightly outscored and slightly outshot playing hard minutes, and a guy with 40% corsi on the third pair.
I specifically said earlier that guys that learn new positions late can definitely be expected to improve. At the same time, if you take a guy with no range at third, he's probably not going to be good in left.
My very first words on the matter were "he could improve defensively." My final words in the same post were, "Still though, he could improve. No doubt. It's unlikely, but possible."
I'm going to restate this once more and then walk away. Historical data shows us that guys tend not to show substantial improvement in their defense once they make the Majors. There are fluctuations in players' performances from year to year (although with improved data, this, too, is leveling out) but in general, when you make the Majors, that's about what can be expected of you moving forward defensively until you inevitably regress. Do guys buck this trend? Absolutely! Can Adujar buck this trend? Absolutely! Is it likely? No! Especially because he has terrible range, and that almost never improves. I mean unless you're a fat guy and lose 50 pounds, how are you going to improve it? Range is a combination of quick-twitch muscle reaction, reading the ball off the bat, and speed (more so in the OF, but also SS and 2B). Very, very, very few players are able to make strides in these three areas to the degree that it makes a noticeable change in their range.
He can work on his footwork and his arm, and cut down on the errors and otherwise inaccurate throws. That would be helpful, and would be an improvement. If he does this, but his range does not improve, his defensive metrics will still be really, really bad because range is the thing that drags his numbers down the most. He could maybe get to below average? Last year was one of the worst defensive seasons in decades. To think he can get to average? Maybe he can do it! Who knows! Based on historical precedent, it's not very likely at all.
That's all I have. Good luck to him.
I Eat Crow
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