List the 15 best players in MLB since the beginning of the 2010 season, before you look at the list.
The list is based upon WAR (wins over replacement) which is a very telling stat, assuming that it is accurate.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/brett-gardner-elite-player/
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Albert Pujols
ReplyDeletePaul Konerko
Ryan Braun
Mark Texieria
Carl Crawford
Ichiro Suzuki
Ryan Zimmerman
Jose Bautista
Troy Tulo
Robinson Cano
Miguel Cabrera
Josh Hamilton
Joey Votto
Brett Gardner
9 out of 15. Dang it. Several of them I was going to add too...pretty cool article on Gardner though.
ReplyDelete1 Pujols
ReplyDelete2 Bautista
3 Votto
4 Tulowitzki
5 Miguel Cabrera
6 Josh Hamilton
7 Cano
8 Ichiro
9 Braun
10 Carlos Gonzalez
11 Teixara
12 Zimmerman
13 Youkilus
14 Longoria
15 Konerko
16 Griffey JR.
Pretty close 11 of 15. Jeremy, how did you guess Gardner? Never would have guessed in 100 years. Great article for sure. Love reading this stuff. Another fact. Watching the Yankees game the announcer said their is a stat to measure Outfielders and is measures runs allowed in your field of play. Like runs scored on balls hit to left or something. With that stat, Gardner is the 2nd best OF in baseball. WOW!
Bummer. Just left this page to check a stat and foolishly didn't save...frick.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I'll try again.
A Yankee fan posted this, his name is in the link address and you sent me that info about his fielding prior to reading. I read between the lines and guessed.
Having said that here's my take on Gardner:
He's not elite. He's good but I'd not put him in anything but "solid and great hustle."
Defense is amazing. Not even going to touch defense.
Offensively though, he's so far below so many guys that his defense cannot possibly overcome his shortcomings here. They tout his "high" walks of 79 last year. Really? Yeah, that's great coming from your #9 guy in the lineup but for a real elite outfielder you need to be doing more than that. Ricky averaged 115 for a 162 game season. 115. Gardner did have a nice .383 OBP which is very nice, stellar for a #9 guy but his whopping 6 homeruns, and 20 doubles is so far below the offensive putout expected for an outfielder he automatically is removed from any list. Above Ryan Braun and Carlos Gonzalez on this list? Is his defense really that valuable that you'd take Brett Gardner over either of those two guys? Not ONE GM or Scout would ever do that.
You might say, he's really fast and his 47 steals last year put him into a higher category because he's progressing the game with his speed. Possibly. 47 stolen bases, in this era, is great and I'm a firm believer on all things related to game changing stolen bases and NL baseball. BUT this year, he has stolen 14 bases. He's been caught 10 times. Last year he was caught 9 total times. He's 14-24 this year. So he's cost his team 3 1/3 innings of outs because he's either been picked off, or thrown out stealing. Not sure that is all that productive in the grand schemed of things. Everyone is going to get caught but not 42% of the time. Jacoby Ellsbury has 24 steals and 10 caught stealing. Even that is terrible.
My point is, Gardner is a great ballplayer but he is not an elite outfielder and does not deserve to be on that list.
His value is in runs produced and runs prevented, added to the rest.
ReplyDelete