Posted 10:17 AM by bob
CENTERFIELD RANKINGS. Here is something I have been working on recently: looking at centerfield range numbers.
Every team should allow roughly the same percentage of fly balls to the centerfielder - so, if you know the number of fly balls a team allows and the number of putouts their centerfielders make, that percentage should tell you what the range of the centerfielder is. So I did this - only I subtracted homeruns from the fly ball totals (since virtually all homeruns are fly balls). Here is the ranking I got:

Team          FB   HR  CFPO CF%

Seattle       1385 137 403  32.29%

Atlanta       1127 116 317  31.36%

Kansas City   1290 152 350  30.76%

San Diego     1194 150 319  30.56%

Anaheim       1381 143 378  30.53%

Texas         1280 168 332  29.86%

St. Louis     1338 164 348  29.64%

Toronto       1195 146 310  29.55%

Baltimore     1280 142 336  29.53%

Detroit       1345 142 355  29.51%

Boston        1198 128 314  29.35%

NY Mets       1331 139 348  29.19%

Chicago Cubs   985 118 250  28.84%

Los Angeles    959  97 246  28.54%

Pittsburgh    1279 139 325  28.51%

Montreal      1235 152 308  28.44%

Arizona       1043 110 263  28.19%

Cleveland     1272 131 320  28.05%

Minnesota     1452 150 363  27.88%

Milwaukee     1322 174 319  27.79%

Tampa Bay     1424 150 353  27.71%

NY Yankees    1287 113 325  27.68%

Florida       1220  96 310  27.58%

Cincinnati    1317 166 314  27.28%

Colorado      1217 150 288  26.99%

San Francisco 1273 105 314  26.88%

Philadelphia  1147 109 277  26.69%

Chicago Sox   1241 126 294  26.37%

Houston       1231 122 278  25.07%

Oakland       1201 117 248  22.88%

FB is team fly balls, HR is team home runs allowed, CFPO is team centerfield putouts, and CF% is the percentage of fly balls that the teams' centerfielders converted to outs.

The rankings seem about right, I suppose. The league-average is 28.46% Notice that Atlanta is ranked a close second to Seattle - this is contrary to what I have heard from most fans: that Andruw Jones is too big and slow and isn't that good anymore. Also note how awful Oakland is - imagine how good their pitchers would be if they played in front of Mike Cameron, Darin Erstad, or Andruw Jones. Scary. If I am Billy Beane, I am saving pennies now to sign Mike Cameron after this season. That move could win the division for them in 2004.

Posted 9:59 AM by bob
WILLIE BLOOMQUIST UPDATE: Since July 11th, when he began getting regular work, Bloomquist is hitting .284/.347/.386 in approximately 100 plate appearances.