2007 Fan Fielding Survey

tiger337 · #1 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:08 AM

Tom Tango, who has one of the more interesting and informative sabermetric sites on the net, conducts an annual survey on defensive skills. Some of you participated in the 2006 survey. It's now time for the 2007 survey. The results of this survey are a very valuable resource so I'm encouraging all knowledgeable fans who watch a lot of Detroit Tigers games to participate. That means a lot of you guys should be participating.

The survey asks fans to rate the fielding skills of players on their favorite teams just based on observation. You will be asked not to use any stats at all and also not to vote based on what somebody else told you. Just use your own eyes as if you were a scout. The ballot and instructions can be found here. The results were very interesting and informative last year but a large sample size is needed in order for them to be useful again this year. So, I urge all of you to fill out the ballot.

The 2007 results will be available after the season. The results for previous seasons are still on his site now but please take the 2007 survey before looking at previous results. To avoid bias, please do not discuss how you voted for particular players on this thread. General comments on the survey are fine though.

DTroppens · #2 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:11 AM

This is always fun.

TonyJM · #3 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:16 AM

What's the theory here, Lee?

holygoat · #4 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:28 AM

Thanks for posting this again. I really think this has the potential to be the most informative defensive rating around. Of course, it also has the potential to be pretty useless, depending on who chooses to participate.

tiger337 · #5 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyJM

What's the theory here, Lee?

Fielding statistics are getting a lot better but they are still not as reliable as batting stats. Thus, observation is important in getting the complete picture. I think the consensus of a group of very knowledgeable fans is one good way to do that.

How can it be used? Let's say the Tigers acquire Jack Wilson after the season and we get into an argument about his fielding skills. We could look at stats and that will tell us something but we might want something more than that. Most of us probably have not seen Wilson play that much but Pirates fans have seen him play a lot. This survey will give us an idea of what fans who have watched Wilson play a lot think of his skills.

Plus, it will interesting to see how fan observations correlate with fielding statistics. Will there be some Tigers with great fielding stats who the fans don't think are very good? How about those with poor fielding stats?

DTroppens · #6 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 12:30 PM

Holygoat,
It will be useless. I'll be doing it.

jfine · #7 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 12:41 PM

I voted!

TonyJM · #8 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiger337

Fielding statistics are getting a lot better but they are still not as reliable as batting stats. Thus, observation is important in getting the complete picture. I think the consensus of a group of very knowledgeable fans is one good way to do that.

How can it be used? Let's say the Tigers acquire Jack Wilson after the season and we get into an argument about his fielding skills. We could look at stats and that will tell us something but we might want something more than that. Most of us probably have not seen Wilson play that much but Pirates fans have seen him play a lot. This survey will give us an idea of what fans who have watched Wilson play a lot think of his skills.

Plus, it will interesting to see how fan observations correlate with fielding statistics. Will there be some Tigers with great fielding stats who the fans don't think are very good? How about those with poor fielding stats?

Thanks, Lee...I was hoping it wasn't going to be used in an overly self-confident stat guy paper written to expose ignorant fans by comparing it to some of the existing models. I would have voted anyway, just because the data is interesting on it's own.

-Tony

tiger337 · #9 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyJM

Thanks, Lee...I was hoping it wasn't going to be used in an overly self-confident stat guy paper written to expose ignorant fans by comparing it to some of the existing models. I would have voted anyway, just because the data is interesting on it's own.

-Tony

The data is going to be available for anybody to use it as they want. I'm sure some overly self confident stat guy will use it too but that is not the purpose. Personally, I will be looking at this data along with the statistics this winter to try to determine how the Tigers fielders rank among other players in the majors.

tiger337 · #10 (**permalink**) 08-24-2007, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by holygoat

Thanks for posting this again. I really think this has the potential to be the most informative defensive rating around. Of course, it also has the potential to be pretty useless, depending on who chooses to participate.

I agree it could go either way. I do have a pretty good idea of which Tigers fans are voting though and it's a good group. One of the interesting stats Tom calculates is reliability or how much agreement there is between voters for each player. There will be a high level of agreement on certain players. That is, pretty much everyone agrees that a player is a good fielder (or bad fielder). There will be less agreement on others.