We’re a little late on this, but the Defensive-Spectrum Beaters is one of our favorite awards, so we wanted to celebrate the 2007 winners before the fun of the 2008 season got started in earnest.

For those of you who didn’t read last year’s post (or simply have other things to save in your available mental memory), the Defensive-Spectrum Beaters are those players who defy Jamesian logic to successfully move rightward along the defensive spectrum. As good sabermetricians will recall, one of the tenets of the Bill James Primer is that rightward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work. That is, once a player has reached the major leagues, he is almost never able to learn a more difficult position than the one he started out playing. Here is James’s version of the spectrum:

Easiest < 1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS-C > Hardest

To qualify for our award, players have to demonstrate equal or better fielding performance at a position that is rightward of the position they played in the preceding year (and at which they didn’t qualify the preceding year). Sounds easy enough, but in reality, it is indeed uncommon; last year, only seven major leaguers turned the trick.

This year, we’ve tweaked the qualifications somewhat. Anytime one uses a fielding metric, one needs to be careful, and so we’ve decided to use David Pinto’s Probabilistic Model of Range, a more reliable industry standard, instead of BPro’s Rate2 (which we used last year). And since Pinto’s PMR lists use a 1000-ball-in-play minimum, we’ll replace our 60-adjusted-games requirement with it. And so, without further ado, the winners are:

Nick Swisher, 26 (1B/LF-RF): With his success in right field last year (107.23 PMR), Swisher actually beat the spectrum coming from two different positions. He improved on his 98.29 PMR at first base and from his 100.05 PMR in left field.

Jayson Werth, 28 (LF-RF): Werth is a curious case, since he missed all of 2006 with injuries. As a result, we used his immediate-prior year of 2005, when he posted an outstanding 109.46 PMR in left field. It took an exceptional 114.32 PMR — the best in baseball among right fielders — to top it and earn a spot on the beaters.

B.J. Upton, 22 (3B-2B): Yes, he’s young, but don’t hold that against him. After playing all 50 of his 2006 games at the hot corner, the heralded Upton almost had a double beater, moving to two more difficult positions in 2007 — center field and second base. He acquitted himself well enough in center (97.07 PMR) but actually bettered his third-base PMR of 98.85 with a 103.04 at second. The guy can also play shortstop, which begs the question: Can Upton someday repeat as a defensive-spectrum beater?

Ichiro Suzuki, 33 (RF-CF): After playing right field for the first six-and-a-half years of his major-league career — where, with a 103.65 PMR in 2006, he wasn’t exactly a slouch — Ichiro moved to center field on Aug. 19, 2006, and played his entire 2007 campaign there (107.48 PMR). He may have won his seventh MLB gold glove last year, tying his Japan mark, but he did something just as impressive in beating the spectrum, which he seems to appreciate: "This [Gold Glove] is a special award for me, because I made the change from right field to center field." We couldn’t agree more, Ichi.

Mark Loretta, 35(2B-SS): We suppose it’s easier to improve when you’re starting out with a 96.59 PMR, but when you’re making the move to the second-most difficult position — shortstop — we’ll cut you some slack, especially when you’re 35. Loretta did just that, achieving a 99.28 PMR at a position he hadn’t played regularly for seven years. Impressive.

Jacque Jones, 32 (RF-CF): Jones broke into the majors with the Twins in 1999 as a center fielder, but quickly turned into a corner outfielder. It wasn’t until 2007, when the Cubs’ plans for Alfonso Soriano and/or Felix Pie (who had a 106.43 PMR) to man center didn’t pan out that Jones got to return to the position. And he made the most of it, improving on his 103.04 PMR in right field from the previous season to 104.14 PMR in 2007, fifth in baseball. And how do the Cubs reward him? By trading him to the Detroit Tigers. But hey, he’ll at least be playing for a winner.

Looking locally, do the Cardinals have any possible spectrum beaters on the horizon? On the infield, it would seem that everyone is as far to the right as he can possibly go, what with Albert Pujols already having shifted several places to the left (and with that elbow, not likely to go anywhere but further leftward), Adam Kennedy stuck at second, and Troy Glaus not moving to second base anytime soon. In the outfield, however, it’s a different story. Chris Duncan may be able to continue his career-long rightward shift (remember, he broke into the minors as a first baseman). Having played left field the last two years, he may actually be better suited for right field, with a surprisingly above-average arm and an 89.90 PMR in 2007 (read: nowhere to go but up!). Similarly, Ryan Ludwick might beat the odds if he moves to center field, since he had only a middling 99.04 PMR in left field last year.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm and is filed under by the numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.