Still I don’t think he is the worst and agree with what Matt said, some of those balls on the ground are supposed to get though and when they do just outside of his reach we complain.

But like Greg said, you’ll never see him dive for a ball.

But in truth I think Polanco is overrated defensively and should not win the GG. I’ve seen a lot of balls get by him that anyone with good speed would have gotten to.

Thats why we should put Inge at SS – best range in AL and on our team. Also has a gun.

Poly with above-average should be at 3rd. Then go out and get a 2nd baseman. Castillo

Or leave Poly where he is, move Inge to SS and go out and get ….. MIKE LOWELL (assuming he doesn’t resign with the Red Sux)

Or go get Omar Vizquel as a short-term option, but I think the other 2 are better options.

Also we should go after a few relievers one being Francisco Cordero (former tiger, thanks Juan GONE) and Kerry Wood.

Hanley, I’ve seen small doses of him, so I can’t really say much empirically, but he didn’t look too hot when I’ve seen him. And I’ve heard accounts of how bad he is.

But Guillen, to me, is painful to watch, at short. Surprisingly, he mystically transforms into an adequate defender at 1st.

I understand your logic and thought process about ‘bias’, but in this case it really doesn’t apply. There’s no bias in seeing Guillen just letting the ball roll DIRECTLY under his glove, maybe 4 dozen times this year? I’ve seen Inge do that once, and I haven’t seen a single other Tiger do that a single time that I can think of. Not Polanco, not Casey, none of the OF’s trying to cutoff a ball. I’ll occassionally see someone else do it, occassionally. But I’ve seen well over a dozen Mariner games, maybe 20, I’ve seen him in previous years as well, and in those I’ve seen Betancourt look like the spittin’ image of Ozzie Smith at SS. He didn’t make any wild throws, he was spectacular. Then some metric comes along and says he’s below average?…..rubbish

I think what happens is, people forget that stats are tools, but when you start to believe that your tools are smarter than you are, well, you run into problems, you get led astray, and sometimes, common sense gets thrown out.

I’d think another reason we can’t fairly compare Guillen with opponents is we’re Tiger fans. When a hit goes up the middle or between short and third, we might burn the image of Guillen’s outstretched glove into our brain. Yet, when the same happens to say, Jeter, we’re probably thinking, “Polanco got a single. Nice.” In other words, we’re Tiger-centric and I think that probably taints our ability to evaluate defense in a disinterested way.

In the second half, we all saw Guillen not get to balls he would have gotten to in the past. His range was ok in the first half when he was healthier and if I remember correctly the stats showed that. Most of us did not see Jeter, Peralta, Ramirez, etc play nearly as much as we saw Guillen so I don’t think you can make a fair range comparison just based on observation.

Perralta’s pretty bad, but at least he’s willing to fully bend over, and even go to the dirt occassionally, to stop a ground ball right below his glove as he’s moving to his right or to his left.

Put it this way, if….Alex Sanchez rated first in a certain defensive metric, and well above Curtis Granderson, would you put much stock in the metric? If numerous metrics put Alex Sanchez at the top, would that change your mind any about the reliability of said metrics?

“Zone rating, or revised zone rating, are both far superior to fielding percentage.”

I know some people believe that, but, if the zone rating is coming up with this type of data, they’re not going to convince me. Actually, they’re both(fielding %) on shaky ground in terms of ‘credibility’ in my opinion. Some of the scoring decisions this year…..so many routine plays being ruled hits instead of errors(Carlos being one of the beneficieries).

I just watch the games. I can tell who has good range and who doesn’t, and which plays should be made.

They’ve got to move Carlos to first, IMHO.

Zone rating, or revised zone rating, are both far superior to fielding percentage.

Having Betancourt so low further shatters ZR credibility. Looks like Ozzie Smith the games I’ve seen him.

Is it a shocker that the only two Tigers that should get a GG according to his rankings are Inge and Grandy.

Really depends what you want in a SS, but we already might have the answer.

IMO Inge would be an A++ at SS. We could go out and get Luis Castillo – give us some more speed which IMO we need and either stick him at 2nd or 3rd w/o Polanco wanted.

If you want to leave Inge at 3rd and Poly at 2nd fine.

The best Defensive SS on the market by far is Vizquel, has just under a .900 ZR – the best at SS in Major League Baseball. Is normally in the top 3 from what I saw.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlbh.....asonType=2

Of course if Arod opts out… and is willing to take a pay cut, double doubt it, maybe big I can add more seats to the park bring in the fences alittle – add some seats in CF to pay for Arod. In any event, I’d like to see them add 10,000 seats.

I don’t think your twins are going to win anything in the next few years. I see a little storm over the baseball horizons of the twin cites. The twins have some good pitching and probably would have competed for the Central this year on that alone, but the offense was almost non-existent. And now it is going to get weaker with the departure of Tory Hunter. The only significant RBI producer left is Morneau, with almost no protection around him. With that, there is no reason to pitch to him anything over the plate.

The Twins are a smart organization, and that is why I think they are going to go into a quick rebuilding mode. Rumor has it that they are shoping Santana’s last contractual year to clubs such as the Doggers. No doubt, that they would get something much better than a single season of an outstanding pitcher on a team going nowhere in ’08.