Gold Glove Predictions & Matsuzaka's Folly?
By Mike SanClemente - Managing Editor
11/01/2006
Bill James is set to come out with his Fielding Bible again this year, and asked a group of 10 experts to rate the best player in the bigs at each position. A perfect score is 100. This should be far more accurate that the oft-travesty that is sometimes the Gold Glove awards (remember Palmeiro winning it at 1B with less than 60 games played in the field a few years ago?).
Here are the results, so expect these guys to at least flirt with a “1” rating. However, I wonder how much Harold Richman will look at these results. As you may know, his team looks at fielding statistics as well as scouting reports:
First Base Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (87 points)
Second Base Orlando Hudson, Arizona Diamondbacks (90)
Third Base Adrian Beltre, Seattle Mariners (78)
Shortstop Adam Everett, Houston Astros (98)
Left Field Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (87)
Center Field Carlos Beltran, New York Mets (90)
Right Field Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners (95)
Catcher Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit Tigers (96)
Pitcher Greg Maddux, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers (78)
The baseball world is abuzz at the near-certainty of Daisuke Matsuzaka playing in America next year. He’s Japan’s resident ace who throws in the mid-90s with regularity and whose services will be given to the highest bidder.
For those of you in leagues where you could draft Matsuzaka, he should be a very high first round pick. However, the Wear & Tear Police are blaring their sirens at the following information taken from a wire services article:
Matsuzaka first burst onto the scene at the 1998 national high school baseball tournament.
After throwing 250 pitches in Yokohama High School's 17-inning quarterfinal victory, he came in the next day to get the save in the semis before tossing a no-hitter the following day as his team won the championship.
Ouch.
It’s one thing to abuse a 35-year old’s arm, but quite another to do it to a young pitcher (just ask Jesus Sanchez how he feels about Jim Leyland’s handling of him in the late 1990’s with Florida, or Kerry Wood regarding his handling around the same time). I’m sure Matsuzaka will be at least fairly effective, and in fact in his first couple seasons he could be simply dominant, not unlike Hideo Nomo who had great stuff as well as some quirks that were difficult to figure out the first few times you saw him. However, from a longevity perspective, at some point (unless you are Randy Johnson) you have to pay the piper, so be careful.
And remember, watch out for the hype: while he says he can throw the mysterious gyroball (acts like a screwball but with much greater movement), he rarely uses it in a game because it is difficult to control.