AAA Errors Leaders

First off, congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies for winning the 2008 World Series. As always it was a long trip with ups and downs for every team, but the 2008 season that started half a world away, half a year ago, is finally over. Since my last two posts have highlighted how inept Phillies teams were historically, I'm glad Philadelphia fans have a championship to celebrate.

I was going to continue my award winners posts by talking about which pitchers saved the highest percentage of their team's wins, but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. There's another idea of two that I was given a few weeks ago I have squirreled away as well. Busy, lazy, unfocused, whatever. I'll be posting on those topics soon.

I do have something else to talk about today though. Have you ever casually followed a minor leaguer, seen he's committed a fair number of errors, and wondered how he stacks up against the rest of his league? It's pretty difficult to find defensive leaderboards for minor league teams. Sure, individual batting stats for each minor league team on milb.com have a column for errors, but there's no way to compare players around the league short of looking at every team.

Using the data available in the minor leagues section of Baseball-Reference.com, it's possible to put together league leaderboards. I've only put together the numbers for AAA players so far, but once I get all the leagues done, I'll start posting by position. For now, though, I've got a listing of the most total errors committed by one player in AAA this past season. I've used the common scoring number to indicate positions played (6 = shortstop, etc.) and multiple positions are listed in order of innings played there.

Most Total Errors in AAA in 2008

Rank	Name	Org(s)	Pos	G	Inn	TC	E	DP	FP
1	Matt Tuiasosopo	SEA	5	108	919.3	281	27	16	.904
2	Mark Saccomanno	HOU	5-3	132	1104.3	645	24	61	.963
3	Joaquin Arias	TEX	4-6	86	739.3	414	23	54	.944
	Andres Blanco	CHC	6-5-4	97	725.0	389	23	49	.941
	Matt Macri	MIN	6-4-5-3	87	721.0	411	23	64	.944
	Jesus Merchan	ARI	6-4-5-7	113	954.3	512	23	83	.955
	Sergio Santos	TOR MIN	6-5-3	106	911.0	411	23	50	.944
8	Michael Costanzo	BAL	5-3-2	112	957.7	518	22	36	.958
	Aaron Herr	CLE CIN	5-4	77	637.3	223	22	15	.901
10	Jamie D'Antona	ARI	5-3-2	96	764.7	307	21	25	.932
11	Ryan Roberts	TEX	4-5-6-7	126	1063.3	481	20	54	.958
	Mike Rouse	CHW PHI	6	112	955.7	457	20	69	.956
	Danny Sandoval	CLE TOR	6-4-5	119	971.3	518	20	77	.961
	Freddy Sandoval	LAA	5-3-4-7	122	1041.7	508	20	57	.961
	Brandon Wood	LAA	6-5	104	898.7	410	20	62	.951

I think that's one category Matt Tuiasosopo didn't want to lead the league in. These lucky fifteen were the only players who managed to reach twenty errors this season.

If you looked at the fielding percentage of Tuiasosopo and Aaron Herr and thought they must be near the bottom of the league, you are correct. Among all players who spent more than 400 innings in the field, only one guy had a lower fielding percentage than those two.

Worst Fielding Percentage in AAA in 2008 (minimum 400 innings on defense)

1. Morgan Ensberg (CLE), .891
2. Aaron Herr (CLE/CIN), .901
3. Matt Tuiasosopo (SEA), .904
4. Ian Stewart (COL), .914
5. Brendan Katin (MIL), .926
6. Jamie D'Antona (ARI), .932
7. Anderson Machado (NYM), .933
8. Josh Fields (CHW), .933
9. Luis Terrero (BAL), .937
10. Brandon Fahey (BAL), .938
11. Jeff Baisley (OAK), .938
12. Enrique Cruz (ATL), .938

These were the only players to finish under .940 on the season. If you're familiar with the minor leagues you might notice the two outfielders on this list: Brendan Katin and Luis Terrero. Terrero in fact led all AAA outfielders with thirteen errors last season. Katin was hot on his trail with ten.

I think a suitable way to end this post about defensive struggles is to check out some truly bad fielding percentages. Here are the worst AAA fielding percentages for players with ten or more total chances in the field at a given position.

Name	Position	Org.	Total Chances	Errors	FP
Casey Daigle	P	MIN	17	6	.647
Brian Slocum	P	CLE	17	6	.647
John Parrish	P	TOR	22	7	.682
Brandon Fahey	3B	BAL	13	4	.692
Mike Gosling	P	TOR	14	4	.714
Jeff Kennard	P	LAA	11	3	.727
Marcus Gwyn	P	FLA	12	3	.750
Chip Cannon	3B	TOR	25	6	.760
Brandon Villafuerte	P	FLA	27	4	.765
Giancarlo Alvarado	P	LAA	13	3	.769

Pitcher's fielding practice, people, come on! I guess the Brandon Fahey and Chip Cannon at third base experiments didn't turn out so well. It's interesting to see how a couple organizations have multiple players but I doubt it says anything: a lot of the pitchers here are veteran guys who have spent time in more than one organization.