2007 Fielding Bible Awards

[HoustonGM]

http://actasports.com/sow.php?id=148

There's the winners.

I wonder how many of them will even get a Gold Glove.

[Coach Owens]

Why in the heck did Aaron Hill win it for 2nd base? Jose Lopez was a much better fielder. So is Ichiro over the CF winner Andruw Jones.

[HoustonGM]

Why in the heck did Aaron Hill win it for 2nd base? Jose Lopez was a much better fielder. So is Ichiro over the CF winner Andruw Jones.

Jose Lopez was tenth in the majors in Revised Zone Rating. Aaron Hill was third. They're Range Factors were identical (okay, 5.14 for Lopez to 5.13 for Hill, but that might as wel be identical). In regular Zone Rating, Hill was third and Lopez was fifth. Hill had 60 more assists than any other second basemen. Hill was 5 Fielding Runs above average, Lopez was 2 below average. The only fielding stats where Lopez beat Hill by a signifcant amount were fielding percentage - .990 to .983 and putouts - 280 to 244.

For Ichiro and Jones...Jones was tied with Curtis Granderson for the major league lead in Revised Zone Rating. Ichiro was 10th. Jones commited one extra error to Ichiro, for a .003 difference in fieldign percentage. Ichiro was tied for 5th in Range Factor, while Jones was 10th. They both did poorly in regular Zone Rating, Ichiro at .867 and Jones at .863, good for 15th and 16th in the majors, respectively (out of 18 qualifiers). Ichiro beat Jones by 5 in Assists. Jones was 8 fielding runs above average. Ichiro was 14 above average.

Personally, I would've given center field to either Curtis Granderson or Coco Crisp.

[Coach Owens]

Well, Crisp has a horrible arm.

[HoustonGM]

Does he? He did have 7 assists, 1 behind Ichiro.

Of course, assists are a bad judge of the arm because players can get high assist totals because they have weak arms and are constantly challenged, and will successfully face those challenges, while strong-armed players are rarely ran on, possibly resulting in lower assist numbers. I know there's been more work done on arms, like baserunner kills, number of attmepts, etc. but I don't know where to find the information, of if it's even freely available online.

[Coach Owens]

Exactly. For example: Randy Winn started in CF for the 2004 Mariners. Now anyone who's a fan of the Mariners, D-Rays or Giants know that he has an incredibly weak arm. Somehow in 2004, he got 5 assists. Last season he had 8 total. 6 in RF and 2 in LF.

[HoustonGM]

Weak arm or not, which I don't know for sure, Coco Crisp is one heck of a defender in center field.

[Coach Owens]

I wonder why Mike Cameron didn't get considered. I haven't seen his defensive stats but I know he's always been a great defender.

[HoustonGM]

I'm sure he got considered.

[michaelg123789]

Yeah I'm sure he was considered.

[gosensgo101]

Jose Lopez was tenth in the majors in Revised Zone Rating. Aaron Hill was third. They're Range Factors were identical (okay, 5.14 for Lopez to 5.13 for Hill, but that might as wel be identical). In regular Zone Rating, Hill was third and Lopez was fifth. Hill had 60 more assists than any other second basemen. Hill was 5 Fielding Runs above average, Lopez was 2 below average. The only fielding stats where Lopez beat Hill by a signifcant amount were fielding percentage - .990 to .983 and putouts - 280 to 244.

The lower fielding % by Hill is likely because he got to more balls, and commited errors on them instead of them just going right through the infield. I remember that atleast 2 or 3 of the errors have been ones that he just barely got to and he bobbled them. As for putouts. The Jays have Halladay and Litsch, both great ground ball pitchers. Less pop ups and fly balls=less putouts.