Baseball Question: Range Factor for First Basemen

Thanks. That's big help. I'll pass it along to my kid.

 

Putouts plus assists divided by innings played = nothing to do with what actually happens in game.
Especially inconsequential for a first baseman whose putouts are based on how many ground balls are hit.
A team with high strikeout or flyball pitchers totally skews "range factor."
Another useless piece of sabermetric shit.

 

spnited, that's a great point, and it's what I was thinking when I made the oven crack. If you're playing behind a staff that has a coupla big strikeout/fly ball pitchers, RF is going to be lower than if you played behind a bunch of ground ball pitchers. Those are factors that are non-factors when factoring the range factor. IMO, Crock.O.Hooey.

JR, tell your son it's a pointless argument. Delgado isn't being paid for his defense, and people don't pay to watch him play defense.

 

In contrast to the other infield positions (SS in particular), fielding percentage is probably the most important defensive measurement for first basemen. Putouts are almost entirely dependent on the abilities of the other infielders as well as the GB/FB ratio of hit balls allowed by the pitching staff. Assists for a first basemen are nice, but often the result of aberrational plays and not always indicative of real defensive ability.

If your 1B makes a diving stop of a ball in the right-side hole and a backhanded toss to the pitcher covering once every three or four games (range factor), that's awesome. But if he drops too many throws to first (fielding percentage), he sucks.

 

That's exactly what I told him.

He's at the age where he'd bloody well decided that in addition to being a great hitter, he's also an elite fielder.

Remember, this is the guy who was originally drafted as a catcher by the Jays. Nope, didn't work. Tried him in rightfield. That might have worked if all the games were played at various company picnics.

I'm a big fan of Delgado's but my kid is drivng me crazy about this. Now I have to get him a Delgado Mets jersey for his birthday (May)

 

Gene Mauch clearly never saw Mike Piazza.

 

I think that will always be Tony Fernandez, in my heart. Then Joe Carter. Then Devon White, George Bell and Jesse Barfield all lumped together. Then the Spitter. And that's just the position players. Stieb, Key, Henke ... Ah, memories of when they actually could make the playoffs.

 

Doug Ault. (RIP)

 

Depends on so many other factors, as has been said here.

Ability of the second baseman. Does the 1B simply let some balls to his right go because the 2B has great range? Is his staff made up of fly-ball, ground-ball or strikeout pitchers? Turf or grass? How does the team cover bunt plays?

One interesting stat might be checking the throwing errors of the SS and 3B. The few throwing errors, one might assume that the 1B does a great job of digging out short hops, etc., and gets maybe 20-25 extra putouts per year (one per eight games, not that unusual) rather than throwing errors.

 

Don't know the context of that quote, but Gene was BSing on that one. Perhaps he was trying to justify having a slug at 1B? I've seen some bad first basemen who have hurt their teams. I've also seen athletic players who couldn't master the footwork necessary for the position.

 

Pointlessness hasn't seemed to matter to any guys I've heard discussing sports.

Driving you crazy??? I'm the one that has to listen to you both argue this ad nauseum over Saturday morning breakfast. :