The beginning of the topic:
Team Defense in Football and Baseball Betting #1
Role of Team Defense in Baseball and Football Betting #2

I also critically consider the individual components of the “Fielding percentage” formula. Such indices as Assists and Putouts of “Fielding percentage” are affected by so many other factors that the “pure” consideration of them may mislead. Let’s exam, for instance, Assist. Now, for example, Miguel Tejada, who plays in Orioles, is the leader of short-stop MLB among Assists.

Does it mean that Tajada is the best short-stop in baseball?

Or does he appear to be the leader of shot-stop MLB because of other reasons, may be: he plays more innings than his mates shot-stops, he plays behind the pitchers, who throw more ground balls than others; he just has more possibilities because of his position when he play? We just superficially considered here this problem, also there are many other hypothetical examples. And Putouts include the same defects.

Of course when we only complain about this problem and do not offer any decisions, then such an approach only makes us similar to the people, who grumble and worry too much about their problems. While we can’t offer a great panacea to evaluate the defense, at least we can offer some less known indices that, in my opinion, are more useful. These two indices, which we are going to consider, are Zone Rating (ZR), and Defense Efficiency Record (DER).

Don’t be annoyed if you suppose these betting statistical data to be a gibberish.

These are the efficient data, which you can find on the main sport websites. There are other kinds of the team defense, which can be understood only by experts, for example, Win Shares that was developed by Bill Jameson, the baseball historian. But while this system is adapted by the people, it is not very useful for handicappers, as they can’t find its daily information before the games.