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The Texas Rangers are playing good defense

The Rangers are one of the best teams in baseball so far this year in both DRS and UZR

By Adam J. Morris
Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

One of the hallmarks of the World Series Texas Rangers teams was their defense -- the Rangers took a big step forward defensively between 2008 and 2009 and from 2009-12 were consistently a very good defensive team.  For a variety of reasons, however, the defense hasn't been quite so good the last couple of years, and that's been a problem.

So far this year, however, we've seen significant improvement, both with the eye test and with the stats...Mark Simon of ESPN notes:

The DRS numbers at Fangraphs are, I believe updated either weekly or bi-weekly, so their data is likely lagging behind Simon's numbers, but it something similar...Texas is first among MLB teams in DRS, at +19, as well as being first in UZR, at +16.9.  That helps explain why Ranger starting pitchers have such sparkling ERAs, despite their peripherals being mediocre.

On an individual level, DRS and UZR both agree that a lot of the credit for the team's sterling defensive performance goes to Adrian Beltre, Nomar Mazara and Ian Desmond.  DRS has Beltre at +6 at third base, while UZR has him at +3.8.  Mazara, meanwhile, is at +3/+5.7, while Desmond is at +3/+3.3.  The only individual that has a negative DRS for the Rangers is Shin-Soo Choo, at -1 (-0.6 UZR), while Elvis Andrus (+1 on DRS) is the only other player with a materially negative UZR (-2.2).  Even Delino DeShields, who many (including myself) have criticized as a poor defensive outfielder, is at even on DRS and +2.5 in UZR.

We do have the normal caveats that it is early, and advanced defensive statistics need more time than most stats to stabilize and normalize...however, this is, at a minimum, a very encouraging sign, a little more than a month into the season.  The fact that the Rangers, as a team, appear to be playing defense at a higher level, both based on the eye test and with the statistical information that we have available, is a lot better than the alternative.