We all have subjective interpretations of who a player is. The Astros are the team we follow the closest so our opinion of their players are more spot on than the casual baseball fan. Around the game, certain players have developed reputations that, warranted or not, tend to stick with them for the better part of their careers.
Defensively speaking, the Astros probably aren't thought of as being very good. Our roster is the oldest in baseball, and we have Carlos Lee. That's two big reasons why people may preceive the Astros as being sub par in the field. Let's take a look at the widely held perception of our players are, and how they've actually fared defensively in 2009:
Ivan Rodriguez
Thought of as: Old Man on his last legs.
This season: Good. (RF/G is a statistic that measures put outs and assists per game)
Lance Berkman
Thought of as: Fat Elvis is more nimble than his nickname indicates
This season: Average
Kaz Matsui
Thought of as: Injury prone, doesn't hold his own at second base
This season: Above Average
Geoff Blum
Thought of as: Wait...he still plays? Ed Wade is an idiot.
This season: Excellent
Miguel Tejada
Thought of as: Was written about in Moneyball. Used PED's (probably). Another dumb Wade trade.
This season: Struggles
Carlos Lee
Thought of as: Remember that photo Alyson Footer snapped of Carlos with a Mickey D's bag? That sums it up.
This season: Struggles. But not the worst! Thank you, Dave Duncan's son.
Michael Bourn
Thought of as: Quick as a hiccup!
This season: Very Good
Hunter Pence
Thought of as: Young. Runs sorta funny.
0 recs | 5 comments
hate to mention this...
but “reality” is misspelled in the headline.
clack - May 21, 2009
Miguel Tejada
Started off the season well, and seemed to be continuing his shortstop defense from last year. But sometime around the beginning of May, his defensive performance dropped quite a bit. Not sure why. Hopefully it’s just a blip, and he will improve to something like average or just above average.
Surprising to see Adam Everett’s UZR so low too.
clack - May 21, 2009
hahaha
omg i love this:
Hunter Pence
Thought of as: Young. Runs sorta funny.
This season: Like a Boss
i LOLd in my silent office.
i wish we could see how keppinger does defensively but that would require starts….. and cooper seems to hate the dude for some unknown reason.
tideturns - May 21, 2009
not a statistician
but are these numbers really meaningful, only a quarter of the way thru the season?
lnewcomer - May 21, 2009
depends on what you mean by meaningful.
It does reflect what the players have done so far. And most of the starters have enough chances in the field that you don’t get ridiculous results. I’d say this is similar to looking at a starting hitter’s offensive numbers right now. It doesn’t tell you where he will end up at the end of the year (still plenty of time for performance reversal), but you have enough results that you can tell who is getting off to good starts or bad starts or continung what they were doing last year.
clack - May 21, 2009
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