Quote:
Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager
For all the saber advances of the last decade and the explosion of computing power in coming up with new methods to evaluaute players, defense is still largely a unexplored frontier in terms of coming up for a formula for determining just how good or bad a player is at defense
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"unexplored" is the wrong word for it. The discussion on defense in the saber community dtes back to before your birth. It's been constantly explored in that period, and frankly has some a long way from the days of "range factor" and the defensive component fo Linear Weights being an advance over Fielding Percentage and "observation".
"Not Yet Perfected" would be the way I'd put it.
And by "perfected" I don't mean having the 100% be all, end all formula. The older versions of Runs Created and Batter Runs and even the more recent additions of XR aren't "perfect". But the concepts of what makes up run scoring were long ago hit upon - getting people on and advancing them relative to outs made.
Defensive methods have advanced close to that, especially in looking at contextual/environmental influences on defensive stats.
It's been explored, and continues to be explored. It simply continues to be a work in progress.
John