Cause I’m not following.

Is hogging the ball bad or good, or neither and just a reflection of the workload split in the outfield.

A “ball hog” has the connotation of an outfielder who calls other players off all the time. But what is it that is really being measured? All of the defensive metrics are based on the number of balls a player catches, with more generally meaning “better.” So there really is no effort here to distinguish “ball hogging” from a player who catches a lot of ball because he is legitimately a good fielder with a lot of range. Bourn has made more out of zone plays than any NL player at any position this year. Pence has made the 4th most out of zone plays in the NL. Link. The Hardball Times separates out of zone plays from RZR because out of zone plays usually have more value (in terms of runs saved) than plays made within a zone. Often times these are catches which prevent a damaging extra base hit. Players who have led the league in OOZ have generally been the best, or one of the best, defensive players in the league (for example, Adam Everett led the NL in OOZ when he was at his defensive peak). My point is this: the article should be pointing out that the Astros had two excellent defenders in the outfield based on the number of balls they caught. The fact that they played next to each other should dispell the ball hog notion. It is possible, though not certain, that the stat reflects the fact taht Pence’s range allowed Bourn to position himself closer to Carlos Lee’s territory. If so, that’s not ball hogging but rather good positioning. (It’s not like Bourn was always standing next to Lee and calling him off…generally Lee was trailing Bourn by many steps in L-CF.)

seemed sort of pointless. Maybe the author just needed to write something today, and this is what he came up with.