as far as strengths and weaknesses. From the starting 9 that are analyzed, anyway.

I registered some of my complaints over at BtB. I get tired of people who don’t understand the team making blanket statements based on advanced stats. But I understand you can’t follow every team, and the O’s don’t have any real representation in stat land. I’d love to setup a retrosheet based SQL db, but I just don’t have time .

Our baserunning sucked last year, but according to eqbrr, averaged over 9 starters, we’re just below average. Removing Pie and Pigginton did wonders apparently.

A few reasons:

1. I’m under the impression that they just used single-season UZR for that rating. It’s likely that he had a down year, but it doesn’t reflect his true defensive skill (he’s a slightly above-average defensive 2B over his career to date).

2. His range was unusually bad this year. I can’t see it being that bad again next year, though it may stay negative in UZR terms. His RngR (runs above average re: range) was -7.5 last year, which is the worst rating he’s had since 2004, when it was -3.4. For 2005-2008, his RngR was at least zero, and an average of 2.5. So I think it’s reasonable to hope that his range will be back around league-average in 2010, or at worst, slightly below, if age is indeed starting to slow him down.

3. His below-average defense for 2007-2008, which before this season is what people usually pointed at when they said he’s a below-average defender, is entirely due to a negative DPR (runs above average re: turning double plays). Those years are also the only ones in which he had a particularly poor DPR. I don’t know how it’s calculated, but I would have to think that the crappy shortstops on the team in those years didn’t help his rating there. (Tejada’s really not very good defensively according to UZR, and the others were just bad all around.) With Cesar Izturis at SS, Roberts had an average DPR (0.0).

So, if Roberts is about average in DPR again next year since Cesar will still be at SS, has a bit of a bounceback in RngR, and doesn’t suddenly make a ton of errors, he could easily be an average or better defender next year. It’s also worth noting that he was battling colds for much of the year, which can’t have helped his range.