National league third basemen dominate. Could that have something to with sacrifice bunts?

Now where do we think ARod would fall (versus his peers) on the SS list if he was still a SS? On the one hand, he's got more experience at that position. On the other hand, SS is filled with better fielders than 3B. I was always under the impression that ARod was the best fielding SS in the game even just a couple years agp///

As I remember, Figgins had great PMR numbers at third last season as well. I rarely see defensive numbers so coordinated:

Of all AL 3b with at least 50 games last season, he led the league in defensive win shares, PMR, fielding pct, and was #2 in ZR.

Are UZR numbers out yet?

Excellent stuff, as always.

I know he didn't have many opportunities, but I wonder if you could report Andy Marte's PMR.

I'm having trouble explaining to myself why Figgins' range is, comparatively speaking, so much better at third than second. Is it just a matter of the competition? Or is the skill set that different, e.g., immediate reaction versus quickness necessary to take a half-dozen steps before a grounder reaches the back of the infield dirt?

It's a good question, Joel. It could be that Figgins just doesn't have the ability to cover a lot of ground. I suppose it might also have something to do with the ball coming off at a different angle than at third base.

I haven't seen any PMR numbers for Figgins at 2B. Has he not sufficient chances?

Makes me think the Sox should put Youkilis @ 3B and move Lowell to 1B.

I'd love to see an aggregation of all the major defensive stats: PMR, Rate2, ZR, Win Shares, UZR, etc. If we did, we could then rate the players with respect to how they place in each stat (kind of like Neyer's Beane Count). Anyone interested?

Figgins tends to play better at a position when he gets to play there often. He only played second base for a short time last season, so I don't know how much stock I'd put in his numbers there (he looked okay but not spectacular). In center field he has great range but poor instincts, leading him to jump for balls in places where the balls don't happen to be.

He's become very comfortable at third, and looks good there. But I think that if you went to him and said "you are now a full-time 2B" or "you are now a full-time CF", he would eventually put up good numbers at those positions. Bouncing between third and center every other day can't be easy.

does this mean cantu should be nothing more than a DH?

What interested me the most about the third basemen was that almost all of them made more plays than expected. I wonder why this is the case. Was it just a fluke year or is third base defense getting better? I've had a feeling for quite some time that baseball has been underrating the value of defense at third and considering it to be a "power position". This of course is very different from the early days of baseball where 3B was considered the most important defensive position on the field. Is baseball now putting more emphasis on third base defense? Let's see what happens this year.

So once again Joe Crede isn't nearly as good as Hawk Harrelson and other Sox fans claim. Not surprising.