There’s a discussion in the DPR from last night comments about Jarrett Hoffpauir’s defense. (First off, let’s set aside the notion that Hoff is comaparable to Aaron Miles offensively — he’s not.) I want to bring this to it’s own post because there isn’t alot of defensive data available for minor leaguers.
“While Hoff does bear a striking resemblance to miles on defense”
Is he that bad Hammond? I don’t get to see Hoff but a handful of times but Miles is a terrible fielder. Jeff Sackman has a version of Zone Rating (and I have no idea how accurate it is or it’s inner workings) at Minor League Splits which rates Hoffpauir as an average fielder.
(After writing the above, I went and looked at the UZR data for Miles. He’s been terrible this year but previously was average for a 2B in 2005-2006. Revised Zone Rating at THT, hasn’t liked him since Colorado. Intuitively, I’d say that Miles was a below average fielder due to his lack of range - meaning I’d lean toward RZR - but that could just be personal hatred against his offense carrying over to his defense.)
The question I want to pose is given the following categories, for those of you that regularly see Hoffpauir, how would you rate him:
1 - well below average
2 - below average
3 - marginally below average
4 - average
5 - marginally above average
6 - above average
7 - well above average
Leave a comment with your rating, an estimate on how often you see Hoff and why you’d rate him that way. I’m really curious about this.
Filed under: Uncategorized
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
I don’t want to try to sound like an expert here, because I’m not. JH has a really solid glove, the balls he gets to a routinely converted into outs. Not in the Derrick Jeter way in which every routine play looks spectacular, but he gets the job done. What really hurts him is he has a very lethargic first step especially to his right. He’s not your prototypical “quick” middle infielder, which might make him appear to have less range than he actually does. Every time I watch him I debate with myself whether or not he is big league caliber with the glove. My conclusion is, he doesn’t look like he is, but he gets the job done with such regularity that he might be. Is his glove better than Miles, probably, is his range better, maybe not. The best comparison to me is Belliard without the range, steady but unspectacular.
Hoff sounds more to me like Marcus Giles, then Aaron Miles (that rhymes). But i’ve never seen him play.
I only saw him a couple of times, but I’d rate him a 4 or a 5. He made one of the best plays I’ve ever seen a second baseman make, and was solid on all of his other chances. I would agree that he doesn’t have the quickest first step, but seems to have good enough hands to make up for it a little bit.
Maybe the Aaron Miles comparisions come from his body type, very similar.
I’ll give him a 4
I’ve seen him play quite a bit as well, and he might be better than he looks. much like Juan Encarnacion looks terrible when fielding, he’s not really that bad. Hoffpauir looks sluggish, and at times lackluster with his fielding, but does turn quite a few balls into outs. I haven’t seen Miles play all that much this year, but he looked comparable from what I remember last year.
I’m a JH fan on paper too but I pulled Miles’ stats from the minors and the power numbers and average exceed JH’s.
I don’t know that we have the next Marcus Giles on our hands after seeing the similarities in body type and numbers. It would be nice to see what he can do though.
Snim — look again. Hoffpauir’s season this year is far and away better than anything Miles did in AA or AAA (esp. the OBP). The question is whether it’s sustainable.
JH just singled in first AB. Not a bad swing…i was not immediately reminded of AM.
This is where the Memphis Website is really a let down. They only provide archived full game video for homegames. I don’t for a second believe they couldn’t get an intern from the University of Memphis to run a daily highlights section on the website.