Baseball Examiner

In my book The Fielding Bible, I developed the Plus/Minus System to evaluate defense for individual players and teams. Texas first baseman Mark Teixeira came in at the top of the first base list with a +17 for 2005 meaning that he fielded 17 more plays than would be expected from an average first baseman. However, a key component of a first baseman's defense that isn't counted in the plus/minus system is the ability to save outs on bad throws made by fellow infielders.

In the offseason, Baseball Info Solutions undertook a project to re-review video on every play from every game of the 2005 season. One of the things counted were "Bad Throw Saves" made by first basemen. Here's the list of first basemen with over 1000 innings and their total number of Bad Throw Saves in 2005:

Albert Pujols	42
Derrek Lee	23
Doug Mientkiewicz	20 (only 675 innings)
Darin Erstad	19
Paul Konerko	19
Mark Teixeira	19
Lyle Overbay	19
Todd Helton	18
Justin Morneau	18
Sean Casey	17
Carlos Delgado	17
Adam LaRoche	17
Nick Johnson	17
Richie Sexson	14
Ben Broussard	12

As you can see, most first basemen came up pretty much equal in the 17-19 saves range for the season. Surprisingly, Albert Pujols was head and shoulders above everyone else. In The Fielding Bible, Pujols was awarded with the Gold Glove That Should Have Been over the actual Gold Glove winner, Derrek Lee. While Lee certainly did a nice job with his #2 ranking in Bad Throw Saves, Pujols excelled. The revised award in the book was given out before this new information on Bad Throw Saves was compiled. This new information strengthens the case for Pujols as a Gold Glove caliber defensive first baseman.