Defense rests

It was pretty nice to read how fired up the fans were in Detroit for Opening Day. Even the players have been impressed with the love being shown. Sure, things didn't go the way we'd hoped yesterday, but overall it was a good day. Now, it's time to move on and focus on this year.

I liked Charlie Manuel batting Victorino in the 2 spot with Howard 3 and Utley 4. I'd think that's certainly the way to go against right-handers. Of course, Victorino has got to produce to make it worthwhile.

Stanley mentioned defense in his post today. Last Friday, I bought the Baseball Prospectus in the hopes of understanding this sabermetric stuff. Anyway, I started looking at their defensive ratings and noticed some interesting things.

First, the Tigers, not surprisingly, rated well. Sean Casey was a -2 in 46 games at 1B (-2 means he allowed 2 more runs than the "average" 1B over 46 full games, which was what Casey played for Detroit after arrriving via trade). Placido Polanco was +7 in 106 games at 2B (which means he saved 7 runs over the "average" 2B), Carlos Guillen was -11 in 138 games at SS, and Brandon Inge was +22 in 156 games at 3B.

Craig Monroe was -1 in 104 games in LF, Curtis Granderson was +19 in CF over 147 games, and Magglio Ordonez was -4 in 142 games in RF. Pudge was +16 in 118 games behind the plate.

So, up the middle the Tigers were +16 with Pudge, +7 with Polly, -11 with Guillen and +19 with Granderson. Other than Guillen's number (and he was +2 in 2005 and +15 in 2004), those are some very good figures. And no one at any position was terribly below average.

Then, I looked at the Phillies. First, I like the comment on Burrell that "no matter how close he seems to be to catching the ball, he's still only halfway there." Burrell, though, only rated -2 in 109 games in LF. Here are the interesting numbers: Chris Coste -8 in 49 games at catcher, Ryan Howard -15 in 157 games at 1B, Chase Utley -11 in 152 games at 2B, Aaron Rowand at zero in 101 games in CF.

I'm not sure what these numbers really means, but maybe the blame heaped on the pitching staff is somewhat misdirected. Jimmy Rollins' +9 in 154 games at SS and Abraham Nunez's +5 in 70 games at 3B don't do too much to offset the damage done elsewhere.

Checking on the Orioles, Ramon Hernandez was +2 in 125 games at catcher, Kevin Millar was +6 in 91 games at 1B, Brian Roberts was -2 in 133 games at 2B, Miguel Tejada was +6 in 148 games at SS, Melvin Mora was -18 in 151 games at 3B, Brandon Fahey was -1 in 43 games in LF, Corey Patterson was +3 in 123 games in CF, Nick Markakis was +6 in 105 games in RF and +2 in 23 games in LF, and Jay Gibbons was +2 in 40 games in RF.