It happens every near-Spring: The Fungoes Defensive-Spectrum Beaters team. For those gentle readers new to the blog, the Defensive-Spectrum Beaters are "those players who defy Jamesian logic to successfully move rightward along the defensive spectrum."

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

Bill James’s defensive spectrum has been more interesting for Cardinal fans lately, given that outfielder Nick Stavinoha will try out as catcher in a few days and outfielder Skip Schumaker is attempting to move to second base this spring. Schumaker’s would-be feat was put in further relief with today’s news that Cardinal fans won’t have Adam Kennedy to kick around anymore. Yes, the stars are aligning for Schumaker to make like Howie Shanks — the only player in history to begin his career with as many games in the outfield as Schumaker and then play as many as 100 games at second. Still, if Shanks isn’t enough to convince you that the deck is stacked against Schu, our elite beaters team will further demonstrate.

To qualify for our award, players have to field equally as well or better than they did 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 six major leaguers turned the trick.

First, let’s gather a group of players who are merely eligible. As we began last year, we’ll use David Pinto’s Probabilistic Model of Range (PMR) data to make the first cut: Players who had at least 1000 balls-in-play at a position in 2008 rightward of their toughest position in 2007, regardless of how they fared:

So only 13 players even attempted a rightward move, and only a couple were pure, meaning that the player never (or almost never) played the position. For example, Inge began his career as a catcher, but hadn’t played there since 2004. Izturis played a handful of games at shortstop every year he’s been in the league (since 2004). Ditto Nick Punto. Outfielders Alex Rios, Matt Kemp, Shane Victorino, Joey Gathright (who actually played 130 games in CF in 2006), Reed Johnson, Geoff Jenkins and Ryan Ludwick had all previously seen time at the more difficult 2008 outfield position than they qualified for in 2007. Rich Aurilia, most will remember, played the majority of his 14-year career on the far right end of the spectrum as a shortstop before filling in at first base for the Giants. Akinori Iwamura and Scott Hairston are the lone exceptions, Iwamura having played second base only once previously in the majors (he played third base and outfield in Japan). Hairston played only four games in centerfield prior to 2008, though he did play 85 games at the more rightward second base back in 2004.

But they all technically qualify, so we’ll proceed to the final round of cuts. Now, using PMR, let’s see who actually held his own with equal or better fielding performance at the rightward position:

Alas, only two made it, Punto and Kemp. So congrats to them for doing the nearly impossible. Shanks would be proud.

One final consideration, especially relevant to Schumaker and Stavinoha as they approach 2009: The defensive spectrum has an offensive-production corellary. That is, the farther right you go, the worse your offense is, generally. Let’s see how the group from 2008 did in their splits batting while playing each position:

Kemp took an offensive hit, but Punto actually improved. To be sure, it’s a small sample, with plenty of noise. But last-year’s group didn’t witness any significant dropoff with the bat; indeed, they were slightly better on average. Again, it’s a small sample, but it illustrates that moving rightward doesn’t necessarily mean downward movement on offense. That’s good news for two outfielders trying to earn more playing time on a Cardinal team left-loaded on the spectrum.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 12:46 am 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.