Still a fantastic shortstop, in his 7-year career, Swanson has a. 981, which is impressive for a shortstop.ĭansby Swanson is definitely the worst of the 3. Defensively, Correa has never had a season of more than 15 errors, and a career fielding percentage of. If the Cubs want to stay young, then Correa is the best option. Between Carlos Correa, Xander Bogaerts, and Dansby Swanson, who is the best option for the Chicago Cubs?īogaerts is the oldest of the three, at 30 years old, and both Correa and Swanson are 28.
#Shortstop meaning free#
Yes, Ramirez played 73 more innings in the field than Jeter, but if we prorate The Captain’s performance over A-Ram’s innings, he still falls short by a whopping 180 plays.Trea Turner has officially signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, meaning there are just 3-star shortstops left in free agency. Does anyone want to argue that the good Ramirez did in stopping those 201 balls from falling for hits was outweighed by the 14 times he failed to do his duty?ĭon’t try to rationalize that by saying Jeter had fewer opportunities to make plays-regardless of the pitching staffs, these things tend to even out over 162 games. For every throw he missed, he reached 14 balls that Jeter couldn’t have gotten to. That’s an extra play-to-extra error ratio of over 14:1.įor every extra ball Ramirez booted, he successfully scooped up 14 additional grounders. In the real world, Ramirez made 14 more errors than Jeter, but he also accumulated 67 more putouts and 134 more assists-201 in total. In our hypothetical example, Player B made two extra plays for each ball he flubbed. 989 fielding percentage and six errors-best among AL shortstops-and Alexei Ramirez, who led that same group in Ultimate Zone Rating despite his 20 errors thanks to his phenomenal range. That established, let us turn now to some real-life players: Derek Jeter, who won the AL Gold Glove (supposedly) because of his. It’s not about fulfilling the literal duties of one’s position, it’s about stopping the batter from reaching base safely to the best of one’s ability.
Therefore, the Gold Glove award shouldn’t go to the guy who’s the best at routine plays or makes the fewest errors. It’s a safe bet that Player B helped his team more in the field because he made two more plays than Player A. In fact, if Player B managed to stay on his feet while chasing down the ball at second base, observers remembering Player A’s dive would praise him for his fruitless athleticism.īut common sense tells us that the guy who made more plays was the more valuable defender. The image of Player B bobbling the ball would be far more powerful and enduring than the memory of Player A not getting to the out-of-range plays. So Player A is clearly better, right?Ī fan or a coach watching the game would probably come away with the same impression. Who is the better fielder? Player A has a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage, while Player B’s error sinks his FLD percent to an amateurish. However, due to his superior athleticism or speed or instincts or what have you, he saves three hits by getting to the balls that Player A couldn’t reach. Meanwhile, Player B makes four of the five routine plays but boots the last one and is charged with an error. Maybe he’ll get close enough to dive for one of them, but he doesn’t have the ability to get to it in time.
Player A cleanly fields all five of the balls hit to him-pick, throw, yerrrrrr out! But he doesn’t get to any of the hits that are out of the shortstop’s basic range.
Over the course of the nine-inning game, each team’s hits go to roughly the same places on the diamond-five grounders are hit at or near the shortstop while three hard-hit balls are sent bouncing up the middle. Just imagine a hypothetical game in which one team’s shortstop is “Player A” and the other is “Player B.” So forget the players, forget the teams, forget the statistics.
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