USS Mariner, has consistently described Richie Sexson as "a terrible defensive first baseman" and even "the worst defensive everyday first baseman in baseball". While I normally agree with most of what they have to say, and acknowledge that they know a bit more about evaluating defense than I do, on this point I'm going to disagree, partly on the basis of new evidence, and partly because I've always liked the guy, and want to clear his name a bit as everyone celebrates his departure. I'm not here to argue that Richie Sexson was Doug Mientkiewicz with the glove, just that he wasn't quite as bad as a lot of people think.
The first and best information at my disposal is the PMR ratings from the last three years (2005-2007). PMR stands for Probabilistic Model of Range and, while no defensive measure is perfect, supposedly it's the best tool available right now. Unfortunately, the data on the other side of that link is pretty painful to sift through, but fortunately for you, I've already done the sifting. In all three years, Richie Sexson appears almost exactly two thirds of the way down the list. In 2006, he converted 98.84% of the outs PMR expected an average first baseman to make. In 2007 he converted 95.61% (2005 data doesn't include this relatively user-friendly stat). So clearly, Richie Sexson is a below average defensive player. But compared to Jason Giambi's 81.05% in 2006, and observing all the players below Sexson on the list, he's pretty clearly not the worst either. (Just for fun, Albert Pujols is the highest scoring regular in both years, converting 115.21% and 113.01% of expected outs into outs--that dude is amazing.)
And now for the new information. Today USS Mariner linked to this study about throwing errors saved by first basemen per 1000 throws from 2000-2007. It was linked to as evidence of John Olerud's defensive prowess (he finishes 5th with 4.2 errors saved per 1000 throws). Not mentioned, however, was the surprising name at #2, just below Doug Mientkiewicz and his vacuum-equipped glove: 6'8" Portland-native Richie Sexson saved 5.2 errors per 1000 throws. From 2000-2007, Sexson's extraordinary reach saved his infield from throwing errors at a higher rate than anyone in baseball, save Minky. Not only that, but he had the largest sample size of anyone in the top-10, likely making him the error-savingest first baseman of the decade thus far.
That is real value, right there. The difference between an out and a runner on either first or second is huge. The author of the study claims each error saved is worth about .75 runs, but if I understand linear weights correctly, that's the difference between an out and a single. If the runner ends up on second base, that number jumps over 1.
If my napkin calculations are correct, then based on the PMR numbers we figure Sexson to be a -5 to -10 run first baseman with the glove, and then we can give about 3-5 runs back to him for saving Betancourt and Lopez from about 5 errors per year. In the end Sexson comes out as a slightly below average defensive first basemen, not nearly the abomination he's made out to be.
Thanks for the good times, Richie. You'll always have a place in my heart, and at my Three True Outcomes altar for your overswinging ways.
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