Minor league TotalZone numbers have just been compiled from the incomparable Sean Smith at minorleaguesplits.com. We’ve been waiting some time to do this, so we’ll look at each level of the organization and highlight some of the defensive numbers through each level in the coming days.

Here's a quick explanation of how these numbers work:

TotalZone invented and calculated by Sean Smith of Baseballprojection.com. "Runs" is relative to league average. The meaning of specific numbers varies from position to position, but in general, +10 is a very good fielder, +15 or more is outstanding. Below -10 is not very good at all. Runs/150 estimates runs saved per 150 games, and is shown for players with at least 1/3 that playing time at a position. This article describes preliminary work in translating across levels.

The article describing the translation is a must read for fully understanding what these numbers represent, but in short, infield numbers are slightly more reliable than outfield ones and sample size issues are in play with any infielders with less than 350 chances and outfielders less than 1000 (2 full seasons roughly). Also these performances are relative to their league, so a AA third baseman would be slightly worse than a AAA third baseman. Reading the whole article is definitely recommended.

Gulf Coast League Yankees

Infield

Outfield

Since we’re only mentioning players who had more than a few chances, Slade Heathcott was off the list as he only had 8 chances in CF in his extremely limited time there this year. If you’re curious about anyone not listed, feel free to look them up on minorleaguesplits.com.

The biggest eye popper on the list is clearly Kevin Mahoney. I’ve never seen +37 in the runs/150 category for any minor leaguer however my search is obviously mostly biased towards Yankee prospects. As mentioned above, sample size issues are in play here with Mahoney getting only 150 chances in the shortened GCL. If you don’t know much about Mahoney, don’t feel bad, most likely do not. I wrote about him a little bit last week, check it out for some more background. Needless to say the defensive hype certainly matched results as far as 2009 is concerned.

Kelvin DeLeon has been trying to improve defensively as this is an oft cited gap in his game. With no zone rating numbers prior to this year it’s hard to see what improvements he’s made in terms of results. He’ll obviously have to improve further.

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