the results are in!
so i was sitting there hating the void, and all of a sudden it hit me. the season is finished! we now have the data. this is almost as exciting as the season actually going on!

we finally have decent defensive sample sizes for 2003, and i hadn't even looked at them. sadly, clay davenport's ratings aren't up yet. on the way i noticed that the gold glove awards are out, but didn't stop to look.

luckily, baseballgraphs.com has defensive win shares.

i can't believe i haven't read win shares yet. i'm about to. anyway looking at the numbers, i gotta say it looks real good. there two important fielding categories: total win shares, and win shares per 1000 innings. eyeballing those two columns, here are my picks for the gold glove:

al catcher:
1. ben molina
2. brent mayne
3. ramon hernandez

there will be a lot of a's on these lists.

nl catcher:
1. brian schneider
2. paul lo duca
3. brad ausmus

schneider was superinsane.

al first base:
1. jon olerud
2. doug mientkiewicz
3. travis lee

the two-headed yankee monster was first in both categories.

nl first base:
1. derek lee
2. todd helton
3. richie sexson

big guys can field.

al second base:
1. orlando hudson
2. mark ellis
3. brett boone

clear stratification through the top 5.

nl second base:
1. alex cora
2. luis castillo
3. ray durham

toughest call. castillo and marcus giles have so many more innings than durham. i split the difference.

al third base:
1. eric chavez
2. corey koskie
3. robin ventura

ventura was too insane to leave out, despite the innings (666.666 . . . the fielder of the beast?) notice how yankees infielders benefited from the black hole at shortstop.

maybe that should cause us to replace ventura with tony batista. fuck it.

in other news, eric chavez is one of the best ever.

nl third base:
1. adrian beltre
2. mike lowell
3. scott rolen

i feel like rolen's the best. maybe he was unlucky this year.

al shortstop:
1. jose valentin
2. christian guzman
3. miguel tejada

i was berating hawk and dj for these picks during a late season broadcast, but the joke's on me.

nl shortstop:
1. cesar izturis
2. alex s gonzalez
3. alex gonzalez

that alex gonzalez guy is pretty good.

al left field:
1. randy winn
2. garrett anderson
3. raul ibanez

i don't like lumping all the outfielders in one category.

nl left field:
1. luis gonzalez
2. brad wilkerson
3. lance berkman

barry almost made it.

al center field:
1. mike cameron
2. carlos beltran
3. torii hunter

it's a mariners sweep. (see right field)

nl center field:
1. andruw jones
2. craig biggio
3. steve finley

craig biggio, represent!

al right field:
1. ichiro suzuki
2. chris singleton
3. magglio ordonez

the a's are underrepresented. with their mix-and-match outfield defense, no one got the innings to rank highly. they were motherfuckers, though.

nl right field:
1. richard hidalgo
2. jose cruz
3. vladimir guerrero

closest race for first. great year for hidalgo.

the biggest difference i see between win shares and davenport is at first base. clay, why is that? i talked to clay for three hours at a dc pizza feed but he won't answer my email. the cool thing about clay is that everything he says is correct. bill, feel free to chime in, too.
- posted by julien @ 6:31 PM