Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Doing Work at the Bottom of the Ballot


The announcement of the always-enjoyable Fielding Bible awards is an exciting one. As I explained at The Score (read Getting Blanked y'all!), the list of winners is pretty much foolproof. Other than a few minor quibbles, the list produced by Rob Neyer, Bill James, the Nerd Herd et al is as close to a comprehensive list of the best fielders by position as you're ever going to find.

While no Blue Jays topped their positions, quite a few picked up some stray votes here and there. We bother with the down ballot stuff here because we're down ballot people and, frankly, the bottom of the ballots are the only place the Toronto Blue Jays are getting much love these days.

The Jays infield is well represented with Lyle Overbay ranking 7th among first basemen. The Albino Warlord even garnered a first place vote from Baseball Info Solutions Scout Todd Radcliffe. Overbay's superlative arm and nose for the ball are tough to lose, the Jays pitching staff will come to learn.

Though Lyle is moving on to greener pastures1, the middle of the diamond looks good with both Aaron Hill and Yunel Escobar ranking decently on their respective lists. Esco sits a distant fourth behind Toronto heartbreaker Troy Tulowitki but manages to appear on all but two ballots. Aaron Hill sits in 8th place though Joe Posnanski found it in his infinite wisdom to rank Hill third. Good enough for Joe Poz's bronze is good enough for me.

The most curious yet exciting stray votes were cast for none other than Travis Snider. Having written about Snider's potential in the field, this excites me a great deal. The big man is figuring it out! Smart people around the league can see Snider's skill for what it is...wait, what does that say?

Does that say Pat Burrell picked up three points as well? Is Travis Snider really thought of, by this collection of esteemed baseball minds, to be Pat Burrell's equal in the field? Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

1 - Specifically, Green Monstered pastures. Take that to the lake, tis written in the stars.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Asmythe

8 comments:

  1. Drew, come on! You just ruined my day with that Overbay prediction. Right when I was going to give you credit for my Brian Wilson related happiness.

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  2. He's perfect for that ballpark in a solid platoon.

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  3. Despite Hill's memorable errors, he still had a strong year and I'm glad the Fielding Gods agree. We know about Lyle's textbook exploits and Romero. Marcum should be right up there with Ricky.

    Didn't even notice Snider's votes until you mentioned it. Only one less vote than Michael "white people can be called 'gazzelles' too" Saunders--schwing! Then again, Pat Burrell got 3 votes...

    "We bother with the down ballot stuff here because we're down ballot people"

    It's sad because it's true

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  4. Wots all this then? And "actual human friends?"

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  5. I like overbay and all, but he will be unacceptable (to the fans) in the Sox line up at 1B.

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  6. As part of a platoon? Do you not recall the Doug Mientkiewicz and/or Sean Casey eras?

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