Welcome to the third installment of Advanced Metrics and How to Use Them. Having already looked into batting and pitching, we’re going to tackle our biggest challenge yet: fielding and defense. Let’s get into it!
Fielding
Figuring out how well fielders do their job is far and away the most challenging aspect of determining value. While we’ve gotten pretty good at calculating the value that pitchers and batters provide, we’re still learning how best to measure defense. Hopefully, Statcast and the data that it provides will revolutionize how we handle these things, but that’s at least a few years out.