As a
follow-up to my book,
The Fielding Bible, Bill James had a suggestion: Why not
assemble a “panel of experts” to vote on the best defensive players at
each position prior to the announcement of the Gold Glove awards?
Done.
Here are the winners of the
inaugural 2006 Fielding Bible Awards:
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 numbers in the
parentheses show the final point tally each player accumulated to win
their position. A first place vote received 10 points, second place 9
points, third place 8 points, etc. A perfect score is 100 because we
used a panel of ten experts. They examined the 2006 seasons of every
defensive player in Major League Baseball.
There are several important
distinctions that differentiate the Fielding Bible Awards from most
other baseball awards, such as the Gold Gloves:
-
We have only one winner
at each position, instead of separate winners for each league.
-
We vote for nine distinct
defensive positions—in other words we vote for the three different
outfield positions. Now we can see who is the best in left field,
center field, and right field.
-
This system recognizes
the runners-up for each position, instead of just focusing on the
winners. We show every player who received a vote.
Complete details of the
voting, results, and the panel of experts are in
The Bill James Handbook 2007, available now.
