Burrell's arm a big asset to Phillies

Jul/24/08 05:59 PM Filed in: Pat Burrell
PatBurrell
NEW YORK -- While manager Charlie Manuel acknowledges Pat Burrell's fielding shortcomings in left field, he appreciates one aspect of his defense: his arm.

"His arm is accurate and strong, but I think they definitely try to run on him," Manuel said. "They try to put pressure on him."

Burrell is the first to acknowledge that his lack of footspeed hurts him, especially in the larger outfields, but the former third baseman's arm is an asset. Burrell is part of an outfield that leads the NL with 24 assists, and is second in baseball to Minnesota's 26. Burrell is tied for second with nine assists.

"We've cut down a lot of runners," Burrell said.

There's more.
In the book entitled The Fielding Bible, John Dewan devised a way to evaluate outfielders' arms. He looked at two elements: "Runner Advance Percentage" -- how often runners succeed at taking an extra base on a single or double -- and "Baserunner Kills" -- how often an outfielder directly throws out a runner without a relay.

Burrell has four kills, and has only allowed just less than 30 percent of runners to advance. Based on his better advance percentage, Dewan selected Burrell as the "left fielder with the best throwing arm in baseball so far this year."

"He's one of the most consistent arms there is," third-base coach Steve Smith said. "If the ball is at him, he's good at getting the ball under control."

Burrell showed off that arm on Tuesday night, when he dug out a double by David Wright and fired to Jimmy Rollins, who relayed home to cut down the speedy Endy Chavez. Later in the game, right fielder Jayson Werth charged a ball and also nailed Chavez trying to score.
"It's the most exciting part of my job," Werth said. "I used to catch and you're in on everything. As an outfielder, you're not in on anything. Any time you get a chance to throw a guy out ..."

Geoff Jenkins and Shane Victorino have five assists apiece, Werth has four and T.J. Bohn has one. Burrell's nine is also a product of runners taking more chances, giving Burrell more opportunities.

"He has a great arm," Victorino said. "When you talk arms, people don't put him up there, but he makes strong throws that are pretty accurate. When guys say he's a poor defensive player, it frustrates me. He might not get to every ball, but makes accurate throws and throws guys out."

(mlb.com)