Left field: Carl Crawford

Editor's note: We are reporting live from Kauffman Stadium, where Mark Teahen just hit hit first homer in 250 at-bats. We have David Foster Wallace-inspired footnotes again on the bottom of this entry.

Imagine for a moment that they gave out infield Gold Gloves. You may not believe it, but this was actually a verse in the original version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” No, really, I saw it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.*

Point is imagine that they did not break out infielders by position – first base, second base, shortstop, third base (you know, just in case you forgot the names of infield positions) – and instead just gave out four Gold Gloves to the four best defensive infielders in each league.

That’s stupid, of course. I’m sure you’ve already picked up the point, but I need to keep going through this charade. What would happen if they gave out four “infield” Gold Gloves? Well, I imagine that no first baseman would ever again win a Gold Glove. Keith Hernandez may have won 11 Gold Gloves and he may be considered by many as the best defensive first baseman ever. But I say he wins zippo if they’re just giving out infield Gold Gloves. You really think he would win over the second-best defensive shortstop in the NL (say, Dave Concepcion)? Not a chance.

No, I think that if they had an “infield” gold glove, they would probably go to two or three shortstops every year. A third baseman or two might win. A few second basemen would sneak in there now and again. And because first basemen would never win a Gold Glove, that defensive position would be viewed with less and less respect until everybody believed that you could win, more or less, with a rock playing first base (or, if a rock is not available, Travis Hafner).

Of course, you being a brilliant reader, you’ve already made the leap to the outfield where they DON’T separate outfielders by position but instead give out the Gold Gloves to what the voters perceive to be the three best outfielders. Because of this:

1. Last year, five of the six outfield Gold Gloves were given to center fielders, and the other one was given to Ichiro Suzuki, who now plays center field.

2. Since 2000, only four non-center fielders have won Gold Gloves. You know Ichiro was one. Well our AFLAC Trivia question (AFLAC, ask about it at work) is: Can you name the other three?***

3. No left fielder has won a Gold Glove since Darren Erstad in 2000, and no one in the NL since Barry Bonds in 1998 (according to our own brilliant reader Paul White).

Partly because of this, I believe left field defense has become vastly underrated in baseball today. I mean, from a logical standpoint: Is left field defense really THAT much less important than the other two positions? Sure, center fielders have to cover more ground, and right fielders have to make the long throw to third. Still, it isn’t like the ball never goes out to left. And it seems to me that left fielders have their own unique challenges. The ball slices away from them, each park has a different area of foul ground, the walls are of various heights and distances; I remember thinking this last year when Royals center fielder David DeJesus (an above average defensive center fielder in my opinion, even if he isn’t particularly fast) moved to left. He really, really struggled. He didn’t like the spin, he had trouble with the wall, he never looked comfortable.

So it seems to me that left-field defense is much more important than most people believe. BUT because most people believe left field defense is not that important, there are not many good defensive left fielders out there. Managers do need a place where they can put their clunky sluggers. The formula seems to go like this:

-- Clunky sluggers who are immobile but are into the game play first.
-- Clunky sluggers who are slightly faster than immobile and have minds that drift play left.

There are exceptions, and the first is obviously Carl Crawford. He’s so good defensively in left, you wonder why the heck he plays left. This is the only kind of left fielder who can win a Gold Glove – a guy who makes you wonder why he’s in left field.

Before I give the rest of the rankings, I want to introduce a concept called I’ve called RASS – the “Rainman Airplane Scouting System.” I believe is one of the most prominent scouting system used in America today. To explain it, I will use one of my favorites, Emil Brown. It is unanimously assumed in Kansas City – and anywhere else where people might care – that Emil is a brutal left fielder. He has always felt that this a bad rap, and I might even agree, but we have very different reasons.

Emil feels like he’s an athletic guy, he has a strong arm, and he says that people judge him poorly because he tends to go for the spectacular (“I’m a playmaker,” he has said, one of those quotes that can be hard to live down).

I think he might be getting a bad rap too, because of RASS. You might recall that in Rainman’s mind, once an airline crashes, that airline is forever unsafe. It doesn’t matter if the airline lands a billion planes in a row safely after that … the crash trumps all, forever.

So it goes with Emil Brown. Four or five times a year, Brown will make an unforgettably bad play. He will kick a ball. He will drop a pop-up. He will do a tango with a ball bouncing around in the in the corner. And it’s quite impossible to get these humorous plays out of your mind. So it really doesn’t matter if Emil Brown is actually an average fielder (John Dewan’s plus/minus system – which I believe is the most exhaustive defensive system out there – ranks him as the fourth best left-fielder in baseball and says he he makes more players out of his zone than anyone else). You can’t help but view him as horrendous because of those few plays.

The RASS system is especially true of actors (Kevin Costner could win four Oscars in the next four years, and I will never be able to get that hideous accent he had in “Thirteen Days” out of my mind****), football players (one bad interception or missed kick at the wrong time will ruin a player’s reputation forever) and presidential candidates.

The best defensive left fielders so far:
1. Carl Crawford
2. Shannon Stewart*****
3. Geoff Jenkins
4. Eric Byrnes
5. Alfonso Soriano

The worst defensive left fielders so far:
1. Josh Willingham
2. Adam Dunn
3. Manny Ramirez******
4. Pat Burrell
5. Jason Bay

Footnotes:

*They also have a cover of Tolstoy’s “War: What Is It Good For?**”

** I’ve been thinking a lot about books lately – well, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want my next book to be. I have lots of ideas, all of them entirely unmarketable (The Duane Kuiper Story; Chess With Priest; What Bob Barker Meant To Me, etc). So I’ve spent even more time than usual wandering through book stores looking to see what sells, and it has made me realize that pretty much every single sports book that has come out in the last 10 years (maybe even the last 100 years) has promised to be some sort of life-altering thing. This is the year that changed baseball, the homer the changed America, the touchdown that changed our economy, the golf chip that cured cancer, the quarterback who changed the alignment of stars … either that or these books are the last something. The Last Innocent Year. The Last Dynasty. The Last Coach. The Last Hero. The Last Batter to Run out a Ground Ball. Damn, we’re staring at a bleak sports future. All the good stuff is over.

Some of these, incidentally, are outstanding books … I’m really not making fun. I know a little something about how you get pushed toward evocative book titles (The Soul of Baseball, after all, wasn’t my choice). Still it does make me wonder if every last, best, life-altering sports book has already been written. I might be stuck.

*** The other three are Erstad (we gave you that one), Larry Walker and Jermaine Dye. AFLAC. Ask about it at work.
(This is incorrect. As one brilliant reader already pointed out ... Bobby Abreu won a gold glove in 2005 playing right field. So add him in too. I may have missed others too).

**** There is no way Kevin Costner will win those four Oscars. None. I had a huge argument once on a bus at the Olympics in Salt Lake City about which actor was worse, Tom Cruise or Kevin Costner. I had Cruise, but I think it’s one of those Clemente vs. Kaline, Wilt vs. Russell, “If a tree falls in a forest …” philosophical questions that can never be answered. You throw Costner’s inanity in “Robin Hood” out there, and I’ll counter with Tom Cruise’s hideous Irish accent 'n “Far and Away.” Give me Costner’s self-righteous performance in “Dances with Wolves” and I’ve got Cruise’s torturous “Give me an Oscar” work in “Born on the Fourth of July.” In recent years, though, I’ve kind of grown to like the crazy Tom Cruise act, plus I thought he was surprisingly good in Minority Report. I’ve never thought Costner was “surprisingly good.” So I may have had a change of heart.

***** A reader suggests that I may have lost my mind by putting Shannon Stewart so high. I respect the sentiment -- I've never particularly liked Stewart defensively. But his numbers are really good. According to my statistical formula, which accounts for several defensive stats, he's the best left fielder in baseball this year. Scouting reports are generally good except for his arm. So I have him second. But I could be wrong.

****** A reader -- well more than one over time -- would like to have a brief explanation why Manny Ramirez ranks so low defensively. Well, I judge these thing by three things: 1. Statistics; 2. Scouting reports from people I know; 3. My own observations. I tend to put my own observations lower than the other two. So ...

-- Statistics. The John Dewan plus-minus system ranks Manny as slighly below abysmal. At last check, he was -14, which means that he is 14 plays worse than the average Major League left fielder. That is very, very bad. His zone rating of .698 is not only the worst among left fielders -- it is the worst among any everyday player at any position. Now, I'm sure the wall plays a role in all of this, but his statistics spell putrid.

-- Scouting reports. I've actually gotten mixed reports, but only because one of my friends just keeps insisting that Manny is underrated defensively. I trust him a lot, actually, but I have other friends who say Manny is every bit as bad as his reputation or worse.

-- My own observation is that when Manny's interested he can make some really nice defensive plays. But he isn't interested much. I don't see him every day, obviously. But I've seen him make too many bad plays out there to believe it's a fluke. That's why I have him as the third-worst in the game.