Mike Emeigh took me up on my offer to watch the best and worst plays of a second baseman. I sent Mike the highest probability plays Dan Uggla didn't make, and the lowest probability plays Uggla did turn into outs. Here's his report:

Of Uggla's eight low-probability plays made, four of them were plays on which the Marlins had an infield shift on - three by Ryan Howard, one by Carlos Delgado - and in each case the ball was hit directly to where Uggla was playing; it's very likely that any 2B would have made those plays in that position, and I don't know thow much credit you want to give Uggla for being there. Two more plays - the 8/15 play against Alfonso Soriano and the 7/10 play against James Loney - also appear to be primarily due to positioning. On the former, Uggla was playing Soriano fairly far up the middle and had a good angle on his popup; on the latter, Uggla was pulled over fairly close to 1B. The other two plays were good, far-ranging plays - Uggla going far to his left to throw out Brian Schneider on 5/26, and ranging well to the left side of 2B in shallow center to grab a Mark Reynolds flare on 5/20 - although on the latter positioning also played a role, as Uggla was playing Reynolds up the middle and the CF was playing fairly deep. It was a good play, but one that a good CF or SS might have been able to make, also.

The six high-probability plays that Uggla should have made but didn't:

• 6/17: routing GB by Ichiro, just booted it
• 8/6: hard-hit "at 'em" GB by Jimmy Rollins, basically one of those you either catch or don't catch
• 5/30: GB by Pedro Feliz that took a bad hop as it got to Uggla; he barehanded it across his body, which threw off his timing
• 4/18: GB by Ryan Zimmerman toward the middle; Uggla made the play but didn't get enough on the throw, which Mike Jacobs should have scooped anyway
• 9/21: With Jamie Moyer on 1B, Jimmy Rollins hit a slow grounder to the right side. Uggla stopped to avoid a collision with Moyer, which made him have to hurry the play when he did get to the ball. Had he kept coming Moyer would likely have collided with him, which would have been interference on Moyer
• 7/28: Endy Chavez hit a GB which took a funky hop as it got to Uggla, who booted it

Mike brings up something I've discussed before. Range is probably a poor word for what we're studying here. Range isn't just the ability to move a long distance to field a ball. It also includes the ability to position yourself (or have someone position you) so you don't need to move very far. Uggla (and Utley) put themselves into position to field low probability balls without having too many high probability outs sneak through their vacated normal positions. Someday, we'll measure range directly.