Third Base – Ryan Zimmerman, Washington
Third base is a very strong, deep defensive poistion in baseball right now. I would be comfortable with any of the top nine guys in our voting winning The Fielding Bible Award—or the Gold Glove award, for that matter—this year. Ryan Zimmerman has broken out of the pack in my estimation, however, by becoming the Defensive Runs Saved leader at third base over the last three years. His first Fielding Bible Award is well deserved. The rest of the best: Adrian Beltre, Chone Figgins, Evan Longoria, Scott Rolen, Brandon Inge, Pedro Feliz, Jack Hannahan and Joe Crede.
Shortstop – Jack Wilson, Pittsburgh and Seattle
Wilson won’t win a Gold Glove this year. Just like Mark Teixeira didn’t win one last year. He split time between leagues, and the Gold Glove voters don’t know which league to put him in. Not so with The Fielding Bible Awards. Jack Wilson was the best shortstop in baseball last year. Period. We don’t care which league he played in. He led all shortstops in Run Saved by a wide margin (27 runs saved to Brendan Ryan’s 19) and has taken over the MLB lead for most Runs Saved over the last three years (51). Mr. Wilson is the Fielding Bible Award winner at shortstop for 2009.
Center Field – Franklin Gutierrez, Seattle
What a story. Gutierrez excelled defensively for two years playing right field for Cleveland. He led all right-fielders in plus/minus in each of 2007 and 2008, despite playing less than 100 games each year. Seattle put a huge emphasis on defense in 2009, and Franklin came through for them with another Fielding Bible Award, this time in center field. His 31 runs saved tied him with Chone Figgins for the most in baseball last year. For outfielders, Carl Crawford’s 23 runs saved was second best to Gutierrez. The Seattle Mariners finished the 2009 season as the best defensive team in baseball, with 109 runs saved as a team.
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1. Esoteric Posted: November 02, 2009 at 03:39 PM (#3374464)(Sadly, I cannot post a link to the detailed voting breakdown. You have to go to the site and look for Complete Vote Tally under The Voting.
15 stolen bases against
5 caught stealing (by catcher)
14 traditional pickoffs (runner out trying to get back to first)
16 throw to first, runner broke for second, runner thrown out
So... 15 extra bases, and 35 extra outs (30 of which didn't involve the catcher).
That is all.
But agreed: He is awesome.
The thing that's fun about a really good defensive 3B is that owing to the reaction times and the standard camera angles, half of their great plays are of the "what the hell was that?" type, and the other half are "ho-hum, that looked routine."
It isn't til they switch to another angle on the replay, that you realize what the hell they've just done.
But, Lopez was just okay at 2b. Endy Chavez was injured before Wilson showed up, so it was hard to keep 3 CFs out there at once. (Wilson's predecessor weren't great). Griffey/Sweeney was the first DH tandem to actually hurt their team on defense. (And the team refused to play Saunders in LF!)
And the defense was the only asset on a team that was supposed to win 100 games.
By the standards of expectations, the M's defense sucked.
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