Boston’s Defense Gets a Boost

While it’s difficult to find many glaring faults with a ball club that tallied 95 victories and outscored the opposition by 136 runs, the 2009 Boston Red Sox featured porous team defense.

Collectively, the Red Sox ranked 18th in the majors in UZR/150. Per 150 defensive games, Boston’s fielders were -2.4 runs below average. Some players turned in great years with the leather: RF J.D. Drew and 2B Dustin Pedroia were exceptional, and Kevin Youkilis really picked it at first base. However, a hip injury turned 3B Mike Lowell into a liability, LF Jason Bay was DH-worthy and Jacoby Ellsbury rated poorly as well.

Enter Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre, two of the most skilled defenders in the game at their respective positions. It’s still unclear whether Cameron will play his customary center field, bumping Ellsbury to left, or if he’ll play left field himself. Either way, swapping in Cameron for Bay is a massive defensive upgrade. Ditto for bringing in Beltre to take over for Lowell at the hot corner.

Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Box Score released 2010 UZR projections in November. Jeff took four years of a player’s UZR totals, weighing them 5/4/3/2 and regressing to 125 games. He then applied a slight aging factor (more details here).

Here’s how the Red Sox project in 2010, with Cameron and Beltre in the fold. For comparison, I put Boston’s 2009 UZR/150 totals for each position in parentheses:

1B: Kevin Youkilis, projected +4 UZR/150 (+8.3 UZR/150 team total in 2009)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, projected +5 UZR/150 (+9.1 UZR/150 in ’09)
SS: Marco Scutaro, projected 0 UZR/150 (+3.1 UZR/150 in ’09)
3B: Adrian Beltre, projected +9 UZR/150 (-10.7 UZR/150 in ’09)
LF: Jacoby Ellsbury, projected +6 UZR/150 (-9.4 UZR/150 in ’09)
CF: Mike Cameron, projected +4 UZR/150 (-19.6 UZR/150 in ’09)
RF: J.D. Drew, projected +5 UZR/150 (+9.1 UZR/150 in ’09)

Youkilis, Pedroia and Drew figure to regress a bit, going from great to merely very good. Scutaro, another free agent import, is roughly average at shortstop. But look at those totals at third base, left field and center field. We’re talking gargantuan upgrades here.

Some might be surprised about Ellsbury’s projected total in left field, given his dreadful rating in CF last year. However, Ellsbury did rate as a well above-average fielder in 2008. Also, the average center fielder is about 10 runs better than the average corner outfielder, based on observations of how players perform at multiple positions.

For those of you wondering, Ellsbury projects as a -9 UZR/150 fielder in CF. Even if we say that Cameron would indeed be a +14 UZR/150 fielder in left (10 runs better than in center field), the Red Sox are better off with an Ellsbury LF/ Cameron CF alignment by about five runs per 150 defensive games.

What does this all mean for fantasy owners? Boston’s vastly improved fielding gives a boost in value to Red Sox pitchers. Plenty of Boston starters underperformed their Expected Fielding Independent ERAs in 2009, due in part to higher than expected batting averages on balls in play:

ERA-xFIP splits for 2009 Boston starters, minimum 50 IP

Lester’s fielders did him no favors in 2009. Beckett didn’t get burned too badly by a high BABIP- the difference between his ERA and xFIP stems from a higher-than-normal home run per fly ball rate (12.8 percent). Granted, those two (along with newcomer John Lackey) are going to be high on draft boards regardless. But it’s nice to know that they’ll be backed by quality glove men.

Penny’s no longer around, though you can see the dichotomy between his ERA and xFIP due to an inflated BABIP. Buchholz’s ERA-xFIP split is due to a sky-high HR/FB rate (15.7%), not a sky-high BABIP. Dice-K’s future is uncertain after a season mostly lost to shoulder problems, but maybe you’ll be more likely to take a flyer with Cameron and Beltre backing him up.

As a whole, Red Sox starting pitchers had a 4.63 ERA in 2009, but a 4.17 xFIP. The 0.46 run gap between Boston’s ERA and xFIP was the third-largest in the major leagues. A big reason for that split was a .324 BABIP for those starters. Some of that was probably poor luck, but a good portion of it was poor fielding. Luckily, Red Sox pitchers should have the benefit of much improved defense in 2010.