June 07, 2002
Best in the NL?
David Schoenfield does his usual good job of breaking down Glavine vs. Schilling. One criticism, however:
It can be argued that since Schilling has relied so much on the strikeout, he hasn't had to rely on his defense as much as Glavine. Glavine has allowed five unearned runs (making his run per game average just over 2.00) and also has a below-average defense behind him, with the exception of the outstanding Andruw Jones in center field (corner outfielders Chipper Jones and Gary Sheffield have poor range, corner infielders Vinny Castilla and Julio Franco are old and middle infielders Rafael Furcal and Marcus Giles are hardly Gold Glove candidates). Glavine has been outstanding despite his defense, not because of it.
Actually, as
I've pointed out before, the DBacks defense isn't that good. Per 1000 balls put in play against the defense (non-HR), the Braves turn 15 more into outs than does the DBacks defense. So part of Glavine's success is that he has a good defense behind him. Schilling has to strikeout a lot of batters because of his defense.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:20 AM
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