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Assessing the Value of Up-the-Middle Positions

Baseball performance analysis has come a long way in terms of understanding positional value. Remember, back in the day, when lumbering first basemen like Ryan Howard and Justin Morneau would win MVP awards over their nimble and athletic competitors, like Joe Mauer, Derek Jeter, or Carlos Beltran? Remember when David Ortiz was widely regarded as his league’s best player, even though his concrete appendages locked him into the DH role, and consequently, Manny Ramirez into a defensive position other than the bench? Those were the good old days, a veritable age of blissful ignorance, when nobody worried about the effect that a player’s defensive value had on the rest of the team. I will keep a place open in my heart for those days, way back in… this year.

Factually, up-the-middle position players can have a lot more value than their corner counterparts for a few reasons, largely relating to versatility for the individual and for the team. Nonetheless, sportswriters and common fans seem to miss the boat on positional value, seeing 40 homeruns as 40 homeruns, for instance, rather than putting it in the context of what that player does across the board. Looking at the most successful teams in the Major Leagues, it is no surprise that the best up-the-middle players populate the rosters of the teams in the postseason. Still, players like Carlos Lee, whose lack of versatility leaves him with nowhere to go but down over the life of his six year deal, receive abundant accolades. Non-fans often point out that baseball players do not deserve consideration as elite athletes, because they can show up to work fat and lazy. Up-the-middle players shatter this aesthetic stereotype, and it is no coincidence that they are baseball’s cream of the crop across the board, piling up wins and aging well.

Obviously, different positions on the field are more difficult than others, but talent at any position other than catcher draws from the same basic set of skills. Bill James’s well-known defensive spectrum ranks each position from hardest to easiest, from SS-2B-CF-3B-RF-LF-1B. If one includes catcher, it goes at the very beginning of the spectrum, because it is more difficult, while requiring different talents than other positions. In almost every case, a player will have more success moving down the defensive spectrum in a position shift than moving up it. Minor leaguers routinely start out as middle infielders, especially since they played premium positions in high school or college when the positions were less demanding, then shift as they approach the majors to a position where their bats will still play and their gloves can survive at the Major League level. Similarly, as players age, they often move down the spectrum as their skills slowly erode, like Craig Biggio moving off of 2B and into the OF. Occasionally, a player like Alfonso Soriano will switch positions in his prime due to a team’s positional need- Jose Vidro blocked Soriano at second when he joined the Nationals- and can change again later, as Soriano may move back up the spectrum to CF this year in Chicago. The justification for the defensive spectrum comes from a general sense of athleticism and coordination. Successful defense starts with sound fundamentals, and those skills play at any position. Furthermore, great athleticism allows players to make up for or expand upon fundamentals at any position, so there is no magic in understanding what makes a player strong defensively

As such, playing an up-the-middle position gives the team more versatility with its roster. One of Craig Biggio’s great virtues is that he has been able to fit into Houston’s roster holes throughout his career. After the 1991 season, it was abundantly clear that Casey Candele was not a championship-caliber second baseman and was not about to become one. At the same time, Eddie Taubensee, a 23-year old catcher at the time, appeared ready to contribute at the major league level. Biggio’s versatility allowed the team to upgrade at second base without having a great second base prospect in the system. In a positive sense, an individual player’s versatility means that prospects or bargain acquisitions will never face the obstacle of positional crowding because the manager can find some way to put its best roster on the field.

Bill Hall of the Milwaukee Brewers is another prime example of the benefits of roster flexibility. Entering last year as a backup, Hall was good right-handed bat who had enough of a glove to play any position besides catcher. Accounting for the requisite backup catcher and lefty fourth outfielder, the Brewers had their bases covered with an 11-man offensive roster. If the team chose to carry 12 pitchers, they would be left with 2 roster spots for specialization, such as an extreme lefty masher to pinch hit a couple of times per week, a submarining LOOGY who has limited applicability, but is very good at his job, a burner who can pinch run late in games, or a handful of other luxuries that most other teams cannot afford to carry. As it worked out, Hall spent most of the season filling in for injured SS J.J. Hardy and hitting enough that the front office thinks that his bat will survive in LF this year, replacing the departed Carlos Lee and saving the team a ton of money. With lots of mediocre options on the OF corners, Hall can also back up the infielders, creating a sort of pseudo-platoon that maximizes his value, frees up other roster spots, and allows the team to get its best match-ups on the field every day. A natural right-fielder does not provide the team that luxury of flexibility, making versatile, up-the-middle types that much more valuable.

Additionally, the defensive value of these positions is paramount. More balls are hit to players in these positions, they have to cover more ground to make these plays, and good defenders up the middle can compensate for shortcomings elsewhere on the field. The Baseball Prospectus fielding metrics do not use play-by-play data, so they may be unreliable for individual players, but they give a fair representation of the difference between average and replacement level for the entire league. For instance, Derek Jeter was seven runs better than the average Major League SS last year, but thirty runs better than the replacement level SS. In other words, the difference between putting the average SS on the field and a readily available quad-A non-SS would be 23 runs, or more than two full wins at the single position. Here’s a breakdown of the difference between average and replacement level at each position, showing how much more valuable an up-the-middle player is than a corner defender with an identical bat:

Position	Average Runs Above Replacement
C	22
SS	23
2B	15
CF	16
3B	15
RF	12
LF	9
1B	9

Although these numbers are more aggregate approximations than scientific fact, they give a good outline of how much more valuable the same player can be if he can be an average shortstop or centerfielder than an average first baseman or left fielder. One and a half wins out of one player is pretty substantial, but the difference grows when you consider that there are four such positions. There is a good reason for why punting defense does not work- just getting a set of average defenders can make a difference of five or six wins pretty quickly, with escalators for above average gloves across the diamond.

So even though many sportswriters seem to miss the boat on the value of up-the-middle players, it should not be hard to see the advantages that these players have over their corner counterparts. In addition to the versatility that they provide for the team- improving options for match-ups- and for themselves- staying in the lineup as is necessary for the team-, they also provide more wins by simply playing average defense with the same bat. Acquiring talented players up the middle is not an absolute panacea for roster management, but it makes the rest of the package much easier to compile. So maybe it is time we stopped living in 2006, and turned over a new page to see the difference between Carlos Beltran and Ryan Howard.