Over the weekend, Bob Klapisch of the Bergen Record compared Yankees second baseman, Robinson Cano, to Boston’s Dustin Pedroia. At one point in the text, Klapisch discusses the two in terms of fielding ability, and concludes that Cano is actually a better second baseman than Pedroia. “In this regard,” he writes, “Pedroia doesn’t come close to Cano – he can’t duplicate his rival’s range to his right and that signature ability to throw to first base while moving in the opposite direction.” However, it seems that Ultimate Zone Rating disagrees with Klapisch.
According to FanGraphs, which Klapisch later uses to discuss offense yet did not use to justify his defensive evaluation (for whatever reason), Robinson Cano’s career UZR is -26.8 and his career UZR per 150 defensive games is -5.4. On the other hand, Dustin Pedroia’s career UZR is +21.7 and his career UZR per 150 defensive games is 7.4. With regards to defense, there is a fairly large gulf, run-wise, between the two, with Pedroia reigning supreme. While I do think that UZR actually underrates Cano – a product, perhaps, of the way in which his “smooth” style of play is perceived, i.e., as not trying hard enough – to say that Pedroia “doesn’t come close to Cano” with a glove is quite a reach. Based on what I have seen, Cano has a better arm and range to his right, but Pedroia, with his speed and instincts, seems to react better and, as a result, can often cover more ground, overall (he was 7.5 range runs above average in 2009, and Cano was 2.5 runs below average). Would most fans agree with that assessment? I think so.
Cano has the potential to improve significantly, and become a better second baseman, but, as of right now, if I were building a defense-first team and were forced to choose between he and Pedroia, I would probably take the latter.
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24 Responses to Who's the better fielder, Cano or Pedroia?
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Yeah, Mighty Midget is clearly the better defender. It’s not just the optics (Cano’s seemingly nonchalant gliding vs. Pedroia’s diving at everything). To the extent that UZR underrates Cano, I don’t think it’s due to his “smooth” play. UZR doesn’t care if a player is smooth, as far as I understand. Cano looks particularly bad if you use his career UZR, because he was flat-out terrible when he first came up and that skews things.
Pedroia > Cano. That’s not ripping on Cano. He’s a really good player. But Pedroia’s better (superior defense and OBP, plus Cano’s career-long struggles w/RISP). Both are well-suited to their home parks, so they’re right where they belong.
The difference in their hitting is that Cano actually *gains* four points of OPS on the road whereas Pedroia loses *240* points on the road.
To add to this, from what I know, UZR doesn’t care if you crawl to the ball, as long as you get it. If UZR had “eyes”, so to speak, and wasn’t as empirical as it is, it’s possible that UZR would *overrate* Cano because of that smoothness.
As Tangotiger has stated, there are objective aspects of UZR and subjective aspects of UZR (data for it is collected by human beings, after all). For this reason, there are some instances where biases in ratings are present. Therefore, while I’m not 100% sure if this can happen, perhaps a player’s reputation can impact such ratings. The notion that Cano does not give it his all while on the field might affect the way in which a reader might view the trajectory of a batted ball, the speed, etc. Not sure how often this may occur, if at all, but I think it could be an issue, at least for Cano.
As Matt mentions, look at the home road splits. Pedroia is amazingly overrated as a hitter and is barely average away from Fenway. Good defender, mediocre hitter.
It’s odd to see how far apart they are in UZR when TotalZone has Cano at 9.5 and the midget at 9.8 last year. I don’t think for a minute that Pedroia is a superior hitter though, his numbers are clearly Boston-inflated where Cano is good both at home and on the road.
From watchnig Cano and not his stats, I’d say Cano has gotten better every season.He turns the double and doesn’t need to go to his left as much because Tex gets so many balls to his right.Cano goes in the hole as good as any second baseman and has a powerful accurate arm.
Pedroia out thinks him though and is less prone to the no concentration error or stupid play.He also has better overall range.
I’m cautiously optimistic Cano smartens up this season with his partner in stupidity gone.
Yeah ’cause Cano’s sure sucked for the last five seasons. It’s not like he’s had four seasons of at least a 105 OPS+. 2008 was bad (but the second half was good), but aside from that, he’s been fine. He’s a top three second baseman in baseball; having Melky around hasn’t hurt him. At all.
Yeah, for anyone who wants to bitch about Robbie I’d suggest they take a look at all the other 2B. Outside of Chase Utley, he’s as good as anyone out there, if not better.
I’m not surprised that a Yankee blogger would pick Pedroia over Cano. I”ll take Cano and his offense and defense anyday!
I’ll take Cano for the simple reason that he’s very comparable statistically, and has a much better body type. Many feel that Pedroia will break down faster than most players, because he so small and puts a lot of torque on his body, trying to hit for power.
I guess that’s why many wanted to get rid of Cano through the first half and Pedroia wins MVP’S.
Cano is a dope with huge talent.
Pedroia a stud with little talent.A winner, not a dope.
I honestly have no idea why you think Cano is a dope. There is nothing to support that notion. Also, the idea that Pedroia has little talent is preposterous. Just because he is short? Silly.
Why is Cano a dope?
Pedroia has little talent? Really? Dude was a second round pick in ’04 and, if I recall correctly, is regarded as one of the best players in Arizona State History. A guy with a career .845 OPS in the minors and an .825 OPS in the Majors is not a guy with “little talent.”
Also, Cano and Pedroia have the same amount of WS titles: one. Why is the latter a winner but the former a dope?
And how is it not dopey when Pedroia flops all over the damn place, diving at balls he has no shot at fielding?
Exactly, those balls Pedroia flops for, Cano gets to easily, but one is call gritty and the other is called lazy, amazing.
talent wise Cano can be better, but he makes too many mental mistakes that Pedroia has the better (or at least a lot more consistent) result aso far.
I think UZR is still far too subjective. It’s still somebody judging how hard a ball was hit and how far from the fielder in question it was, all with observation. There’s no way preconceived notions don’t enter into that equation. After watching Cano these past several years, I find it hard to imagine anyone putting much credence in a system that says he costing the Yankees defensive runs.
I don’t think we can look at the cases where UZR might be off and discount it entirely because of those outliers. As I see it, UZR is right more often than it is wrong. For instance, it rates guys like Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre, Franklin Gutierrez, Jack Wilson, and others well, and those guys, most people would agree, are great fielders. The same can be said for the ratings earned by the likes of Jermaine Dye, Adam Dunn, Brad Hawpe, etc. Those guys get poor marks and that is inline with common perceptions. I think UZR has its flaws – you stated them well – but, when one examines enough data, it is generally more accurate than it is inaccurate.
From what I know of UZR (which really isn’t enough) it doesn’t care how hard a ball is hit, where the fielder was positioned, the trajectory of the ball.. anything like that. It just cares about the result. It divides the field into a couple dozen defensive zones, and compares the percentage of balls one fielder gets to in that zone to the league average. It creates a run value from that which is uniform for all players in that zone. There really isn’t much subjectivity here. If Cano doesn’t get to as many baseballs as Dustin Pedroia, he’s not as good of a fielder, because converting balls in play into outs is the defenses only job. Of course UZR also considers error runs, double play runs, and arm runs, but none of those are really subjective.
It’s like ERA. ERA doesn’t care what pitch is thrown, how fast it was thrown, who was at the plate, or who was in the field. It just measures how many runs a pitcher gives up per 9 innings. Over a large sample size, it’s a useful performance indicator, although it’s often misleading over a single season. The thing here is that, over a relatively large sample size, Cano is far behind Pedroia.
It’s also worth considering that UZR, being a performance stat, basically tells us what Cano’s value is defensively, not how skilled he is. I think the guy clearly has the ability to develop into a very good defender, but the numbers indicate just as strongly that he isn’t there yet.
I’m pretty sure this is not true. UZR considers batted ball type, location, velocity, batter hand, pitcher hand, base/out state, and pitcher groundball/flyball tendencies.
Not to sound mean to Alex or anyone else, but Mo is right, it’s not true at all. I think it’s clear from this post that many may not know just how comprehensive UZR really is, as it does take into account everything Mo just listed.
And I left out ballpark factors. There are a ton of adjustments that go into it. I’m not a huge fan of the way some people use UZR (in too small samples), but the stat is fairly detailed and advanced. When people use it responsibly, like Chris did in this post, it adds a lot of value to the discussion.
HaaHaaa
Kinda a stupid arguement NOW, ain’t it?