Saber Bomb: Mike Cameron Will Help the Brewers in 2008

Saber Bombs are MLB FanHouse's introduction to sabermetrics, those new and sometimes unwieldy metrics that are changing the way we think about baseball. Each post highlights a specific stat, player, team or media member either embodying that understanding, or missing the boat completely.

For the better part of the last week, my fellow 'Housers Matt Watson and Mullet have been wondering just what the Brewers were thinking when they forked out $7 million to Mike Cameron for him to cover center field in Miller Park next year. Their concerns are certainly valid. Cameron is old and his bat has been slipping for a couple of years. He certainly doesn't play center field like he used to and he's definitely suspended until almost May for using stimulants. Still, I think the people are missing the point on Cameron. I think his signing vastly improves the Brewers from a defensive standpoint, and I don't just mean his defense.

Signing Cameron and putting him in center sets off a nice little chain reaction for the Brewers' defense. It moves Bill Hall from center, (where he was very bad last year) to third base and that moves sends Ryan Braun from third (where he was historically bad) to left field. Defense is notoriously hard to quantify, but I'm going to look at a few of the newer school metrics to try and illustrate how this move helps the Brewers. Follow along after the jump for all of the stat-laden goodness.

To set up a quick outline here, I'm going to use three stats to look at these guys. I'm going to use Baseball Prospectus's Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) -their measure of how many runs a fielder prevents or allows relative to a league average fielder at their position. There's also David Pinto's Probabilistic Model of Range, his measurement of how many outs a fielder records relative to how many outs they were expected to record. Finally, I'm going to use Bill James's +/- rating, in which he awards a "+" to a fielder for making a play at least one other fielder failed to make and a "-" for failing to make a play at least one other player made. The result is a stat in which 0 is exactly average.

Let's start with Braun. Fielding percentage is a tragically flawed stat, but Braun's .895 at third base last year was the first sub-.900 FP in almost 30 years. In terms of BP's FRAA, Braun clocked in at a whopping 25 runs below average in the field last year. If you're unsure how to quantify that stat but think that 25 runs below average seems like a lot, you're right. When it comes to PMR, Braun clocked in at second worst in either league at third base last year, leading only Garret Atkins (who is also a renowned butcher at third base). When we got to James's +/- rating; Braun tallied a -41 at third base, worse than Miguel Cabrera's three year +/- rating at third. Any way you cut it, Braun is almost beyond awful with the glove at third base. Left field is a full two spots up on the defensive spectrum and is the easiest position to field other than first base, so moving him there can only do him and the team good.

Next up, we can compare Hall and Cameron in center. Neither qualifies for James's +/- ratings (in his book he only rates the top and bottom few players in the league), but we can still use PMR and FRAA. By BP's stat, Cameron was one run below average in center last year and by Pinto's measurement, he was slightly above average. Hall, on the other hand, was rated by BP as 13 runs below average in center and rated by Pinto as the worst regular center fielder in baseball. There's not much data on him as a third baseman, but he rated out as about average in BP's system the only year that he got any considerable playing time there (2005). Even if Cameron drops a little this year defensively, he's an upgrade in center over Hall and Hall is an upgrade at third over Braun. None of these stat are perfect, but this seems like a pretty significant defensive upgrade all around for the Brewers.

There's one other point to make in Cameron's favor. He played at Pecto Park last year, a pitcher's haven, and that certainly contributed to his lackluster .759 OPS. Indeed, he hit .254/.341/.449 on the road last year compared to only .222/.298/.402 line at home. There's reason to think his offensive stats may take a tick upwards with a more hitter-friendly home.

Cameron isn't the type of player the Brewers wanted, there's no doubting that. But in the face of relatively few other options, the Brewers managed to seriously upgrade themselves at two defensive positions that they were terrible at in 2007 without making much of a commitment to Cameron (the deal's only for one year and $7.5 million isn't breaking their bank). It's not a perfect fit, but I do think it's one that will make the Brewers a better team in '08.