Guys lose their careers to walls, Reiser, Bobby V, are just 2 guys who were never the same after they displayed the 'fearless' need to catch the ball.Originally Posted by bucksfan2
I take the fact that he knows where the wall is as proof that he pretty much knows where he is on the field. The ones who catch the walls are usually playing on athletic ability 1st and knowledge 2nd.
First, clearly I think he is above average (as his rating in over 1300 defensive innings suggests).
As for his in season rating thus far, he's had several plays that I think most good center fielders would've made and he's had a few boneheaded oopsies... he's just not having a stellar defensive year.
But again, the underlying skills are there IMHO. He'll consistently rate as a plus defender over large stretches of innings....
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
.And to be clear, it isn't the "wall problem" I'm referring to. But rather diving in general....in any directions. He seems to shy away from contact...wall, ground or teammate. It's not a bad thing, just something I think he'll get better at...knowing WHEN to "go for it"
Agree 100%. Unfortunately, it won't be easy for him to lose that shying away instinct. Outfielders tend to get more conservative with time.
Not hating on Stubbs here -- I'm happy with him as the now and future CF. I just think his style garners him praise for great defense, and those two things are not the same.
He's had a few boneheaded plays, but other than truly special players like Gutierrez, I've never seen guys that don't have those.
My point I'm trying to make, though I didn't express it very clearly, is that I don't think we can truly differentiate our opinions from the numbers by saying 'I think this guy looks like a +10, where this guy only looks this year like a +2.'
If I'm going to attempt to quantify a player's defensive production within a season, I'm not sure any of us can really do that by parsing the difference in 5, 6 or 7 runs over the course of a season. I'm not saying the plays don't amount to that, because I feel they do... but I think it's too gradual an accumulation to really know whether the defensive metrics should have picked up on it or not.
We can watch players and generally label them great, good, average, poor, bad, etc., but I think we're stretching it at this point in time to really parse whether such performances within a season constitute +2, +10, etc.
According to UZR, Stubbs had +6 runs in 368 innings last year. Yet this year, he's +0.8 in 981 innings. That doesn't pass the smell test, honestly.
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The great wall defenders -- Hunter, Eric Davis, Griffey, Gutierrez, Edmonds, etc., could, in their primes, maintain an unerring knowledge of where the wall was while they were running and could scale the wall without slowing or adjusting their stride all that much. Run, leap, catch -- all fluid. The next time you see Stubbs do that it will be the first time. He can go over the wall to get the ball, but only if he's already standing at the wall, or nearly so, and mostly because he's 6'5" -- you can call Stubbs' wall defense "intelligent" or "health-conscious" or whatever, but I see it as tentative, perhaps conservative at its best.I take the fact that he knows where the wall is as proof that he pretty much knows where he is on the field. The ones who catch the walls are usually playing on athletic ability 1st and knowledge 2nd.
Conservative is sometimes better, Griifey broke his wrist crashing into the wall in 95, E.D. had some wall injuries as well.
You want the out, but do we want the player out for months too?
I'm not sure Davis and Griffey are two good examples of this. Davis got hurt a number of times slamming hard into the wall, and didn't Griffey break his wrist at the wall?
I think most of the hard knocks at the wall are on harder hit line drives where a guy is tracking the ball and jumps to catch the ball and then bangs into the wall.
The plays where a guy can "climb the wall" have more to do with a higher trajectory fly ball and the player being fast enough to get back and judge the ball.
Stubbs is plenty fast to get back to any fly ball as fast or faster than any other CF.
Word on Davis. He lost a fearsome collision with the ivy covered bricks in Wrigley at the end of, I want to say, the 1987 season, that, in my mind, started a cycle of injuries that altered his career.
I don't but the diving thing one bit. Do you want him like Ryan Freel where he slows up to dive? Just because you don't see him on Web Gems or all over SportsCenter doesn't mean Stubbs doesn't make those plays. In reality Stubbs with his speed makes a lot of difficult plays look easy. He catches a lot of balls standing up that most CF's have to full out dive for. I just can't buy the diving argument.
First, I always try to use an estimate of true talent as a basis for comparison.
Second, why would the numbers above fail a smell test? It's no different than a guy batting .385 for a month and then batting .256 for another month when he's likely something like a true talent .320 hitter..
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
I'm not saying he has to dive. Not at all. I'm saying he has to learn WHEN to be aggressive. I've seen MANY balls hit that he's pulled up on when he had a legitimate shot at catching. Instead of pushing himself even HARDER to reach it...he's taken the conservative approach and pulled up to eliminate the possibility of the ball scooting past him if he missed it. In some respects that's a good thing, but he's almost never even attempted to catch those "iffy" balls.
I don't remember ever seeing Cesar Geronimo dive, not once.
Agree 100%. The guy gets credit for "making tough plays look easy," when I wuld say he makes mildly challenging plays look easy. There's some style over substance going on here.I'm not saying he has to dive. Not at all. I'm saying he has to learn WHEN to be aggressive. I've seen MANY balls hit that he's pulled up on when he had a legitimate shot at catching. Instead of pushing himself even HARDER to reach it...he's taken the conservative approach and pulled up to eliminate the possibility of the ball scooting past him if he missed it. In some respects that's a good thing, but he's almost never even attempted to catch those "iffy" balls.
Of course, he's the idiot when he dives for a ball and it goes rolling past him to the wall for a triple when he could've held the runner to a single by taking the safe, smart play.
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Which is why I said he has to learn WHEN to "go for it".
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