Errors and fielding %: grading the wrong thing
Why does the best defender in baseball sometimes make the most errors?
An error is charged when a fielder flubs a play the scorer thinks he should have made. Sounds reasonable — until you notice what it can't see: the plays a fielder never reaches.
The range paradox
A shortstop with elite range gets to 50 balls a statue never touches. Some of those become errors — hard plays, on the run. The statue 'cleanly' watches them roll into left field for singles. Result: the statue has the better fielding percentage while being a much worse defender. The stat punishes ambition.
Stolen bases have a subtler version of the problem: SB totals ignore the caught-stealings. Getting caught is roughly twice as costly as a steal is valuable, so a 20 SB / 12 CS season is a net negative that looks like a positive. The fix for all of this is Statcast measuring range and speed directly — Outs Above Average and sprint speed, in Level 4.
How this stat lies to you
- Fielding % rewards never attempting hard plays.
- Errors are a scorer's opinion, applied inconsistently across parks.
- SB totals without CS hide net-negative base thieves.
Check yourself
1. Shortstop A: 10 errors, reaches everything. Shortstop B: 2 errors, no range. Who likely saved more runs?
2. A player steals 20 bases and is caught 12 times. Net effect?