Over the last five years, we\u2019ve written often about the outstanding job A.J. Hinch and his staff does in terms of getting the most out of a good, but far from dominant roster. From pinch-hitting, to bullpen usage, to creativity when things go wrong, to details like taking the extra base, the Tigers continue to do a lot of little things right to paper over weaknesses and play to their strengths. Sports Info Solutions gave us another example in an article written by Mark Simon on Monday.<\/p>\n
Sports Info Solutions provides data and analysis to teams in many different sports, and has been a leader in that field over the last decade in particular. They are the creators of the defensive runs saved (DRS) metric used by FanGraphs and many other sites to evaluate team and player defense. And the defensive metrics on the Tigers the past two seasons are fairly eye-opening.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Tigers were a combined negative four defensive runs saved if you add up each players\u201d individual DRS numbers. Yet the team was plus 40 in defensive runs saved in defensive positioning, far outweighing the modest collection of defenders\u2019 actual ability.<\/p>\n
In 2025? The Tigers were a negative 11 runs saved on defense individualy. And yet their positioning saved 47 runs, for a net +36 runs saved. Pretty impressive.<\/p>\n
Defensive runs saved, on a player by player basis, functions much like Statcast\u2019s outs above average. Each play made or not made is judged by where the fielder is on the field at contact, how fast the ball is moving and its trajectory, figuring the most direct intercept point, and judging difficulty of plays by those means. However, DRS also visually grades plays so that unique factors, like a baserunner crossing in front of a defender and blocking their view momentarily, the ball changing direction or off of the pitcher\u2019s mound or the edge of the infield grass, and other factors that the raw data can\u2019t pick up, can be taken into account. Statcast is much more straightforward. The ball was hit to this spot, this hard, and did the fielder take a good route, have the range to get to the spot, and did they make the play cleanly.<\/p>\n
Defensive statistics are never going to be perfect, and their are valid arguments for both DRS and OAA. Still, actual defensive value is tricky to evaluate, particularly when you don\u2019t have several years worth of data. Personally I tend to just rough it out between them, figuring that somewhere between each number is likely closest to the truth.<\/p>\n
The difference here is that Statcast doesn\u2019t issue a positioning metric for teams. Essentially, Sports Info Solutions is adding another layer of defensive analysis by grading how close to where the ball is actually hit a given team\u2019s fielders are over the course of a season. Teams that routinely position their defense best in accordance with each individual hitters\u2019 tendencies, have the advantage of being in a better starting position to make each given play.<\/p>\n