Today, we proudly present the NL Stone Glove Award winners.

C Brian McCann
It’s a sad day when perennial Stone Glove pick Mike Piazza doesn’t catch (and we use that term loosely) enough games to qualify for the awards. Fortunately, however, we appear to have a worthy successor to Piazza’s long run of backstop ineptitude in Brian McCann. With McCann finishing no better than third-worst in every defensive metric we used, we’re pretty sure that McCann’s most-heard pickup line this year was “You’re not with me, leather.”

1B Ryan Howard
We’re sure we’re going to hear it from the East-Coast crowd, but as great as Ryan Howard is with the bat, he’s at the opposite end of the spectrum with the glove. He’s living proof of Elaine’s claim that teams put their worst fielder at first base. Well, NL teams, at least — Howard is a Big Papi in the making.

2B Jose Castillo
Players don’t usually make as resounding a case for a Stone Glove as Jose Castillo did in 2006. No other second baseman could claim to have cost his team as many as 20 runs per 150 games, after all. Considering that he only created 53.7 runs on offense, the Pirates would’ve done nearly as well not having a second baseman in their lineup this past year. Castillo may singlehandedly redefine RC27 to mean Runs Cost per 27 outs…

3B Edwin Encarnacion
You’ve heard the expression that a poor fielder “couldn’t throw out the trash“? That’s not entirely fair for Edwin — he’d just throw the trash over the garbage man’s head. Encarnacion would be a Gold Glover if he only played during months that begin with J — he committed 23 of his major-league leading 25 errors before and after June and July. It helped, of course, that he missed nearly all of June with an injury.

SS Felipe Lopez
Question: When do you trade a shortstop who creates 5.19 runs/27 for a middle reliever? Answer: When he has more errors than he has doubles. When the Reds sent Lopez to the Nats back in July, Cincy fans might’ve feared that the team was trying to improve their defense. Happily, though, they didn’t gain much when they lost Lopez, since second-runner-up Royce Clayton filled in nearly as badly.

LF Josh Willingham
On a Marlin team flush with rookies, Willingham did his best to make the veterans look good; his zone rating was bad enough to make Miguel Cabrera look like Mike Schmidt. Bill James has shown that rightward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work. Unfortunately for Willingham, who broke in last year as a catcher, leftward shifts don’t appear to be working very well, either.

LF Adam Dunn
Dunn, the third Cincinnati representative on the Stone Glove team, is best-known for his offense, and boy was his glovework offensive again in 2006. Last or second-to-last in Fielding Pct., Zone Rating and Rate2, Dunn wasn’t going to be denied — and neither were opposing batters when they hit it to left field against the Reds.

RF Shawn Green
Green’s a difficult but deserving pick for a Stone Glove: Difficult because he seems so earnest in his fielding — a bizarro Manny — but deserving because the results are similarly feckless. This sincere incompetence was on display for all the world to see in the NLCS, in which he prevented a home run by leaping at the wall and shutting his glove to unwittingly deflect the ball back into the field of play. In the next game, he made a running dive toward the right-field line and narrowly avoided being hit in the face with the bouncing ball. It was plays like these that demonstrate the true spirit of the Stone Gloves: So close, yet so far away.

P Andy Pettitte
The big Astro lefty appeared to be slowing down a bit in 2006, if not with his pitches then with his mound maneuvering. Despite relatively few chances in the field (it’s hard to field balls that are flying out of the park at a career-high rate), Pettitte found a way to make his non-presence felt. Small-ball opponents seized on Pettitte’s Stone Glovery, stealing 10 bases despite his handedness and Gold Glove catcher. And bunting became a successful strategy against Pettitte, as he yielded a career-high 14 sacrifices.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 4:33 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.