I feel that Yuli has improved greatly at first as the season has progressed. No idea if the statistics back that up, just an eyeball opinion.
Yuli, and anyone if LF not named Marisnick/Maybin/Reddick. For anyone to say Reddick is below average in RF makes one question the stats they're looking at. Bregman is inconsistent, but far from bad. The bolded is the "bingo", especially regarding the IF.
He has stretches where he looks like he has it figured out, but then he'll have a game where he forgets which foot to have on the bag, then he'll try to reach into the baseline to field a ball instead of in front of it. 1B is easy to play, but incredibly difficult to master.
Glad you asked I am no expert, but what I see, as far as the Astros in general is this. I think we are above average in spectacular plays made. That is to say, plays you didn't expect a player to make and does. Unfortunately, highlight reels, media glamour, and homerism make these plays seem a greater proportion of all plays made than they probably are. Lets face it, we are an aggressive team. It shows in our base running, defensive shifts and nearly every area you look. At times, we are hyper aggressive which leads to some spectacular plays, but also to unforced errors and more mistakes in general.
I've always seen a guy that covers RCF well from RF, but doesn't make as many plays near the line as other RFs. A lot of this is the Astros alignment as Astros typically play a slight reverse shift in the OF (though seems to be becoming less slight each year). Basically he's in the tier of defensive RFs below the elite defenders. Regarding the stats for his play if RF this year, it is a small sample size and likely influenced a lot by just a handful of plays. Regarding eyeball test for RF this year, it is too small sample size and likely influenced a lot by just a handful of plays. That said, he seems to play there as well as in the past and any stat change from previous years is likely due to randomness in a small sample size.
Pretty much every 3B we play has bad defensive metrics. It's been that way for a while now, to the point that I ignore them at that position. Bregman is not a bad defensive 3B. Correa and Altuve both have sub-par range, and Yuli is a pretty bad 1B, so I agree our overall infield defense isn't good.
Were Chris Johnson, Wiggington, Dominguez, and Valbuena good defenders? Did other teams pay those guys like they were average or better defenders? Bregman is rated better than those guys and still doesn't look like a natural out there (I don't think he is getting many quick twitch plays relative to 3B on other teams, though he does better when play requires a few steps). Astros record is pretty close to what is expected from their WAR and usually is such that I expect the overal team defensive runs saved calculation is likely close to correct even if a position here or there is over or under rated. If Astros 3B are under-rated defensively based on a systematic bias, I'd guess it would be the result of either 2B or SS being over-rated by a systemaitc bias. If I had to guess, I think Bregman is likely slightly undervalued by stats defensively and Altuve/Correa are slightly overvalued by stats defensively. Though, I don't think it is large enough to make Bregman look like a great defensive 3B statistically.
Matt Dominguez & Luis Valbuena had good defensive reps. CJ & Ty sucked defensively (though I'm not sure why Wigginton is mentioned, since that was forever ago).
I guess it's a good thing Springer doesn't play RF. Holy sh@t, I had totally forgotten about Tyler Whiteington. I liked Aubrey Huff, I've never seen a guy hit into more ridiculous outs than that guy did his first month with the Stros.
You guys keep going back and we are going to get to Enos Cabell. Wigginton is so long ago that he platooned with Geoff Blum.
It was a comprehensive list of all 3B with a decent sample size for about a 15 year period that put up below average to horrible numbers. Valbuena's numbers were about the same as he was immediately before and after Houston. He got his representation for defense right after switching from SS to 3B. Guys tend to get worse on defense the longer they are in the league as they add on "muscle". Valbuena had added some "muscle" by the time he got to the Astros and no longer had the same physique as he did at SS or at 3B right after the position change. His 2 year 15 million dollar contract does not suggest the Angels or anyone else thought too much of his defense. With his bat and a MLB team thinking he can play good defense, he would have been offered a lot more than that. Other than Bregman, Dominguez is the only one I see that reputation and stats really differed that we don't have good contract data to infer what the market thought of his defense (i.e. he was too bad offensively to warrant a good contract or even a contract figure as low as Valbuena's). I don't see this huge discrepancy with stats and eyeball/reputation that Seal does. Bregman looks like he has the skills to be a good defensive 3B and it would not surprise me if the stats for him are better next year. I still see too many almost great plays from him that guys like Chapman make.
My thing with defensive stats (vs the useful offensive and pitching ones) is: what do they tell you outside of what you would glean from just watching them repeatedly?
Eyeball test is usually fine for distinguishing absolutely horrible from magnificent defensive players. While it takes a long time for defensive stats to become reliable, I think the same applies to eyeballs. Very difficult to watch every player for every game. Also, defensive stats let me know who to watch closely defensively that I haven't seen before. Lots of eyeballs are affected by things like diving plays that don't require a dive and aesthetics. Guys that run great routes, with less than elite speed, and don't dive for balls above their waist (i.e. staying on feet is faster) get under estimated by the eye ball test. Guys that can make plays through athleticism, but are inconsistent tend to get dogged more than they should. In other words, they sometimes are merely bad than the dumpster fire they are made out to be (though for periods of time they will be dumpster fire while other times they'll be average). Guys that are consistent, with less range tend to be overrated (e.g. Jeter).
Again, how does that help scouts and people with an infinite amount of video? That's what I'm getting at. This is just me: I watch a guy play a few games, he either looks like he has the footwork and the hands to be good, or great, or he doesn't. Some of those things can be learned though (I still have hope for White). There's no stat (I'm going to put a huge caveat here: *available to us*) that can measure a first step, and then his next 486 first steps. Or hands adjusting to a hop. Or the pitch that misses it's spot and he's all hell out of position, or the defensive positioning in general, which is one of the biggest problem with trying to quantify it all. And nobody cares about quick twitch diving plays, they are the easiest ones on the field: no thought, just instant reaction. Mike Lamb was the poster child for that at 3B. Great to the line, just don't hit him anything that bounces twice. Talking about that brings up memories of the greatest defensive play I ever made, but I won't bore you.
This is insane: OPS .970 José Altuve .942 Carlos Correa .909 Marwin González .900 Tyler White .898 George Springer .847 Josh Reddick .824 Alex Bregman .815 Jake Marisnick .813 Yuli Gurriel 7 players on the playoff roster are sporting a .800+ OPS. 8 players if you count Tyler White.
