Why don't people bring that "D-Fence" sign to baseball games?

I love baseball defense. I always have, even when I was a kid. This is why my all-time baseball hero was Duane Kuiper. People always think I’m joking when I say that; I guess they think Kuiper couldn’t POSSIBLY be my hero just because he couldn’t hit (lifetime OPS+ was 82), or run (he was caught stealing 71 out of 126 times) and he famously hit just one home run in his career (windblown shot off of Steve Stone, from South Euclid, Ohio, my hometown).

Well, there are two reasons why Kuiper was my hero and remains so to this day. One, I grew up in Cleveland, and I played second base, and so I really did not have any other options. In those days (the 1970s) you were not allowed to go off the board and pick your favorite player off of somebody ELSE’S team. You might respect Joe Morgan or Bobby Grich or Frank White. But you couldn’t love them. Love was for the hometown guy.

Second, Kuiper could really field. At least that’s the way it looked to a 9-year-old Cleveland kid in need of a second-base hero. Kuiper was constantly making diving plays. Constantly. I think he still holds the record for appearances on This Week In Baseball’s plays of the week. He made it so often that when TWIB did a retrospective show (I have it on video), Kuiper introduced the Plays of the Week segment.

Yes, Kuiper dove, and he got dirty, and he also was really good at scooping the ball with his glove and flipping it to first in one motion. I thought that was about the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and I practiced it non-stop for months and months. I even did it in a game once, causing my coach – an old Cleveland cop – to bench me for something like nine years. Kuiper never did win a Gold Glove for his defensive brilliance, and I suspect he did not deserve one. But the radio and television guys always said he played great defense (why else would he be out there?), and I believed them. I wanted to be just like him. I still do.

(Years later, I told a couple of old Cleveland Indians about my hero worship of Kuiper. They said independently that no player in baseball history dove for more ground balls hit right at him than Duane Kuiper. This actually increased my respect for Kuip. Hey, whatever it takes to get on TWIB).

Anyway, I continue to think a lot about baseball defense. I’m not going to say defense is “underrated” because everybody says that, and I’m not sure if that’s true. It might be true. It might be that defense is actually overrated. I can’t tell. But I love baseball defense, always have, and I spend an awful lot of time thinking about it.

A few months ago, I had the great good fortune to be part of the panel for the first “Fielding Bible Awards.” The panel was made up of 10 people, nine of them much smarter than me (well, actually, one of the “people” in the poll represented results of the Tom Tango fan poll, and another "person" was actually multiple Baseball Info Solutions scouts, folks who study every single play on video. So to be accurate, there were actually countless people on the panel who were smarter than me). The idea of the Fielding Bible Awards is to offer an alternative to the Gold Glove, which is currently the gold standard for fielding awards despite the fact that Derek Jeter has won three of them.

(Note: I am not one who loses sleep because Derek Jeter keeps winning Gold Gloves. Truth is, there really isn’t a standout defensive shortstop in the American League – with the possible exception of Alex Gonzalez – and Jeter makes that one snazzy play where he jump throws from deep in the hole. And he's a popular guy. I can see why he keeps winning. Of course, it’s also true that every study of Jeter’s defense I’ve ever seen – whether it’s statistical, video-driven or simply intensive watching – has shown without question that he’s a below average defensive shortstop. He certainly shouldn’t be winning Gold Gloves. I’m just not losing sleep over it).

The Fielding Bible Awards – the brainchild of Bill James and John Dewan – were created to offer a different kind of fielding award, an award that considers statistics and video analysis in addition to eye-witness study. This year’s complete results are in The Bill James Handbook, which you should already own, but what the heck? I will show who won the award at each position along with my personal vote and reasoning.

(Incidentally: Others on the panel included ESPN columnist Rob Neyer, Player Acquisition Consultant to the Mariners Mat Olkin, Chicago radio talk host Mike Murphy, and one of my personal heroes, Strat-o-Matic inventor Hal Richman. Hal is truly one of the leading authorities on baseball defense. He was, in fact, one of the first notable people to realize that Bernie Williams was an awful center fielder. He noticed it while Williams was winning Gold Gloves).

1B: Albert Pujols
My vote: Pujols. Did you know that Albert Pujols was not a Kansas City Star first-team All-Metro player when he was in high school? We kid our high school guy about this – I won’t mention his name because he’s a good reporter and guy, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass him – and he always offers the same defense: “Well, Pujols could hit, but he couldn’t play defense.”

2B: Orlando Hudson.
My vote: Hudson. We seem to be in something of a down-time when it comes to great defensive second basemen. Hudson’s good, but I'm not sure he's in the class of Alomar, White, Maz, etc. And it seems there aren’t many after him. Duane Kuiper, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

SS: Adam Everett.
My vote: Everett. I think he’s the best defensive player in the game, any position. He may not be able to hit a lick, but if I were a GM I’d grab him, bat him ninth, and put him at short every single game. I don't know what that would do. But after watching Angel Berroa and Jhonny Peralta, I realize that I could not own a team with a bad defensive shortstop. I’d go mad.

3B: Adrian Beltre.
My vote: Brandon Inge. My first disagreement with the group. I saw Inge play a lot last year, and I thought he was pretty sensational. He also led all third basemen in John Dewan’s “Plus/Minus” statistic with a +27 – this estimates that Inge made 27 more plays than the average third baseman.

LF: Carl Crawford
My vote: Crawford. He’s one of my favorite players in the game.

CF: Carlos Beltran.
My vote: Andruw Jones. I’ll admit going against my instincts on this one. I’m one of the five biggest Carlos Beltran fans on earth, having watched him grow up in Kansas City. Still, I put Beltran second and went with the old standby Jones. I keep hearing that Jones lost a step, but the numbers showed him to be just about as good as ever in 2006.

RF: Ichiro Suzuki.
My vote: Suzuki. One thing I love about the Fielding Bible Awards is they split up the three outfield positions. It’s ridiculous the way the Gold Gloves gives three outfield awards, regardless of where they play. It would not be quite as ridiculous as giving an “infield” award … but close enough. Could a left fielder ever be one of the best outfielders in the game? Generally speaking, if the left fielder was a REALLY good fielder, he’d be in center.

C: Ivan Rodriguez
My vote: Brad Ausmus. Looking back, here’s my one true blunder – nobody else in the group had Ausmus higher than fourth. I guess my feeling was that Ausmus HAD to be an unbelievable defensive player. Otherwise how could he get 439 at-bats with a .285 slugging percentage?

P: Greg Maddux
My vote: Maddux. My favorite pitcher of all time. I actually pondered writing my next book on Maddux – I’m fascinated by him. What keeps him going? What’s left to prove? How long will he go? How good can he be at 41? What is he thinking about out there now? The main reason I’m not writing this book, well, there are two. One, I live nowhere near San Diego. Two, I don’t know him, and he doesn't know me. That seems like a handicap.

You know, this blogging thing is great. I started this entry with the full intention of writing about the Rawlings All-Time Gold Glove team that fans are voting on now. I have some thoughts on that. But now this entry is so long ... I’ll just have to get to that on another day.