[picappgallerysingle id=”3228312″ align=”right”]After Troy’s article on Ellsbury’s impending shift to left field, some feedback from our readers had some questions about some of the reasons for Ellsbury’s decline in defense this year.  Peter Gammons brought up a small story about how Rickey Henderson felt his basestealing affected his performance in centerfield.. yet no where else.

Since it’s the holiday season, I figured why not answer one of our commentor’s question: Is their any data showing that excellent base stealers predictably decline defensively?

Now, collecting this data is not the easiest study I’ve tried.  Defensive statistics and qualification per position can sometimes be tough to obtain.  Outfielders tend to shift positions more frequently, even over a small sample of years.  Defense analysis is something I intend to look into more this year, but to start, here’s a simple look at the past two years of “primary” centerfielders.

2009 Centerfielders

Name Team G AB SB CS AVG UZR/150
Jacoby Ellsbury Red Sox 153 624 70 12 0.301 -18.3
Michael Bourn Astros 157 606 61 12 0.285 8.7
Nyjer Morgan – – – 120 469 42 17 0.307 40.5
B.J. Upton Rays 144 560 42 14 0.241 11.8
Matt Kemp Dodgers 159 606 34 8 0.297 3.1
Scott Podsednik White Sox 132 537 30 13 0.304 1.7
Dexter Fowler Rockies 135 433 27 10 0.266 -20.3
Shane Victorino Phillies 156 620 25 8 0.292 -4.2
Alex Rios – – – 149 582 24 5 0.247 -3.7
Denard Span Twins 145 578 23 10 0.311 -7.4
Curtis Granderson Tigers 160 631 20 6 0.249 1.6
Nate McLouth – – – 129 507 19 6 0.256 8.2
Torii Hunter Angels 119 451 18 4 0.299 -2.1
Vernon Wells Blue Jays 158 630 17 4 0.26 -18.7
Franklin Gutierrez Mariners 153 565 16 5 0.283 27.1
Grady Sizemore Indians 106 436 13 8 0.248 -4
Adam Jones Orioles 119 473 10 4 0.277 -4.1
Melky Cabrera Yankees 154 485 10 2 0.274 2.3
Marlon Byrd Rangers 146 547 8 4 0.283 -9.5
Mike Cameron Brewers 149 544 7 3 0.25 10.3
Kosuke Fukudome Cubs 146 499 6 10 0.259 -18.1
Aaron Rowand Giants 144 499 4 1 0.261 1.5
Colby Rasmus Cardinals 147 474 3 1 0.251 3.4

The first thing I wanted to do is see if there’s any correlation between the amount of steals a player racks up and his UZR/150.  There’s effectively none in this 2009 sample. A 0.01 factor shows that the amount of steals by a player has no real connection to the player’s defense.

Now, in my opinion, a speedster should always have an edge in outfield defense.  It would make sense that a fast player has a huge advantage in his effective range over a player that runs like Kevin Millar.

Well, that’s only one year.  So I pulled up the 2008 Centerfielders and saw if anything else was present there.

Name Team G AB SB CS AVG UZR/150
Willy Taveras Rockies 133 479 68 7 0.251 -3
Jacoby Ellsbury Red Sox 145 554 50 11 0.28 6.9
B.J. Upton Rays 145 531 44 16 0.273 11.1
Ichiro Suzuki Mariners 162 686 43 4 0.31 14.6
Michael Bourn Astros 138 467 41 10 0.229 2
Grady Sizemore Indians 157 634 38 5 0.268 0.9
Shane Victorino Phillies 146 570 36 11 0.293 7.8
Matt Kemp Dodgers 155 606 35 11 0.29 2
Carlos Gomez Twins 153 577 33 11 0.258 16.1
Alex Rios Blue Jays 155 635 32 8 0.291 23.8
Carlos Beltran Mets 161 606 25 3 0.284 8.8
Lastings Milledge Nationals 138 523 24 9 0.268 -20.1
Nate McLouth Pirates 152 597 23 3 0.276 -14.3
Torii Hunter Angels 146 551 19 5 0.278 -13
Mike Cameron Brewers 120 444 17 5 0.243 15.6
Chris Young Diamondbacks 160 625 14 5 0.248 0.6
Curtis Granderson Tigers 141 553 12 4 0.28 -9.4
David DeJesus Royals 135 518 11 8 0.307 -23.5
Adam Jones Orioles 132 477 10 3 0.27 11.5
Josh Hamilton Rangers 156 624 9 1 0.304 -17.7
Skip Schumaker Cardinals 153 540 8 2 0.302 -13.5
Aaron Rowand Giants 152 549 2 4 0.271 -6.1

This season, the correlation of stolen bases versus UZR/150 was much higher, 0.410.  My guess lies in each end of the spectrum.  Five players all with poor steals totals (minus Adam Jones) all with abysmal UZR/150s.  While Milledge and McLouth ruined the positive values in the upper half of the list, we started to see at least some players with very high steal totals turn in above average UZR/150 ratings.

Still, however, it looks as though as a player’s steals increase, his possible UZR/150 rating also increases.  I used the 2009 data again and plotted a trendline over all the data.

2009 Stolen Bases v. UZR/150 for Centerfielders

2009 Stolen Bases v. UZR/150 for Centerfielders

While not highly significant, the trend does have a positive slope.

Now, I don’t think this is anything ground breaking.  Like I said earlier, it’s only natural to assume that given two equal players, the faster player should be able to cover more ground.  I found Gammons’ claim very odd, personally.  We’d have to find some centerfielders more similar to Henderson, and check their steals vs UZR/150 over their entire career and see how things shake out.  Does their defense suffer as their steals increase?

This, however, is a good first step.  The next time I revisit this, we’ll look at a few older centerfielders with long careers, like Torii Hunter, Mike Cameron, and others, and see how their steals totals have affected their defense over the years.

As a quick preview, here’s Carlos Beltran’s steal totals and UZR/150 ratings since 2002 (when UZR/150 was collected) to present:

2002: 35 / 9.2

2003: 41 / 10.6

2004: 42 / 3.6

2005: 17 / -6.9

2006: 18 / 5.7

2007: 23 / 0.9

2008: 25 / 8.8

2009: 11 / -8.5

Beltran’s two negative UZR/150 values were during his first year as a Met, and his injury riddled 2009.

I’m still standing by my claim that these two things are pretty much unrelated, and that players like Rickey and Ellsbury are better defenders outside of centerfield simply because they are easier defensive positions to play.  However, the more layers on this onion I can peel back, the better.  If anything, maybe we can end up finding something else to shed a little more light on how to analyze defense.