I'm surprised by Molina---he had no question his worst defensive year... lowest % caught stealing, by far.... tons of PB/pitches to the backstop on balls you'd hope your catcher could block... just seemed a lot more lackadaisical behind the plate in 2008... the one asset he has is his gun, but he does a poor job of supporting it with the rest of his defensive game, and even the gun seemed to be off...

Jimmy Rollins!

Weird, the Fielding Bible seems to treat Rollins like the Gold Gloves often treat players: finally catching up, and maybe overrating him after underrating him for so long.

He has been a GG caliber defensive shortstop for years, but I don't think this was his best year defensively.

Fielding Bible seems to treat Rollins like the Gold Gloves often treat players: finally catching up, and maybe overrating him after underrating him for so long

Graig Nettles says hi...

he was so obviously the best 3B in the AL from 1971-74, but no one was gonna displace Brooksie

SS Jimmy Rollins (Phillies)

There must be some mistake. I was told repeatedly that Bartlett's defense was the reason the Rays were in the WS.

From what I recall hearing during the season, Bartlett's D wasn't as good as it was in 2007. But that's kind of irrelevant, as Bartlett was such a vast improvement even by being average to just above that his defense was incredibly valuable. Reason they were in the WS? No, since he botched several plays in the playoffs. But possibly the reason the Rays won the East compared to the WC.

Bartlett's defense was excellent in the regular season from what I saw.

Forgot to add that it annoys me when they don't list the positions in proper order.

Utley's +/- was 47. Phillips' was 17. So why did Phillips win?

I guess Phillips' defense makes him more valuable than Keppinger after all.

Utley's +/- was 47. Phillips' was 17. So why did Phillips win?

Doesn't the Fielding Bible do a set of awards with voters? The winners aren't straight +/- leaders, but they are taken into account (IIRC James, Dewan, and the BIS video scouts get votes, and there are like 6 other voters and 2 alternates, or something like that).

I know it's a vote, but how did so many of those guys ignore Utley's 30 more plays made?

Baseball needs to do more to see that white guys, who are currently underrepresented among good fielders, are encouraged to take up fielding.

Here's the vote tally:
http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbible/complete-votetally.asp

Mike Murphy really went to town. Almost everyone had Adrian Beltre #1 at third base. Murphy had him 10th. He had Utley rated 9th at second base. Did anyone show him the stats? Or read them to him?

If this is going to be just another award where a bunch of a-holes go with their gut and ignore evidence, why should we care?

To be fair, the voters in Tom Tango's fan poll had Utley even lower than the Murph.

But Beltre... we don't even know who he picked for tops at 3rd, because whoever it was didn't crack the top ten.

But Beltre... we don't even know who he picked for tops at 3rd, because whoever it was didn't crack the top ten.

I think we do, because only one person in the "others receiving votes" category had 10 points or more. So it would appear that Troy Glaus got Mike Murphy's first-place vote.

We then awarded points in the same way as Major League Baseball’s MVP voting: ten points for a first place vote, nine for second, etc., down to one point for tenth place.

A first place vote in the MVP is worth 14 points.

-- MWE

I'm rather suprised that Matsuzaka didn't get a single vote. I don't think ever seen him flub a play and he gets to pretty much every slow grounder or chopper hit back to him.

Mike Murphy really went to town. Almost everyone had Adrian Beltre #1 at third base. Murphy had him 10th. He had Utley rated 9th at second base. Did anyone show him the stats? Or read them to him?

Same thing with shortstops. I'm guessing his went to Michael Young?