Was moving Craig Biggio to center field a mistake?
This is an interesting question, especially when you look at it from two perspectives. Win Shares shows Biggio as the 2nd most valuable defensive outfielder in baseball last year. Per defensive inning, he was 7th among OFs with more than 300 innings. Unfortunately, when you turn to the play-by-play data (Michael Lichtman’s Ultimate Zone Rating), the results are the opposite (search for “Biggio” and look for the entry preceded by the 8 — don’t worry, you’ll see when you go there…). Biggio cost the Astros 21 runs with his glove in 2003. When rating centerfielders over the last 4 years combined (on a per game basis), this is the sixth-worst figure. Diamond Mind, who I believe is as strong as anyone in after-the-fact fielding analysis, gave Biggio a poor rating (they use a system that is largely based on Ultimate Zone Rating as well). This is not a rating they give lightly — I would guess 80-85% of all players are in the “fair” to “very good” class. There are very few “poor” or “excell
