Baseball fans might consider this heresy, but Jayson Stark thinks Andruw Jones is not quite the centerfielder he’s been built up to be. His argument — a good one that will cause me to reconsider some of watch Jones more closely — is that he is getting to fewer balls and has sacrificed much of not only his hitting but his fielding to hit homeruns.
Andruw is a man who has built his reputation around his Gold Glove parade, his exceptional ability to glide around center field and suck sure-thing doubles out of the sky without overheating a single sweat gland. But while most of us weren’t paying attention, Andruw was slowly, apparently imperceptibly, losing the part of that gift that made him special.
Hmmm. His numbers have been declining defensively, Stark writes, but few have really noticed — though the scouts appear to be onto it.
“I first noticed it two or three years ago,” he said. “Just from sitting there, scouting, watching balls dropping in that should have been caught. I’m not talking about balls that needed to be dived for. I’m talking about balls that should be caught.”
I surveyed other scouts. They’d begun to see the same things. Not getting the same jumps. Not reacting. Not putting in the defensive effort he used to. His body getting thicker. A sudden obsession with home-run hitting over everything else.
“He was a great defender,” said one scout. “He’s slipped. People used to compare him to Mays and Mantle. I wouldn’t put Andruw anywhere near those guys. Now he’s become an offensive player, and his defense has suffered ever since.”
So, who is the best defensive centerfielder? That’s a subjective thing and one that is difficult to gauge unless you can see the players play, in person, everyday. For isntance, I’ve always thought that Jim Edmonds, as good as he used to be, was overrated, a bit of a hotdog.
Carlos Beltran is outstanding, but he plays too deep and can be tentative on some balls — though I think he may have the best and most accurate arm.
Ichiro Suzuki, former corner outfielder who is in center for the Mariners this year, maybe the best. Statistically, he tops the charts, getting to more balls than anyone else without making an error. Coco Crisp also is having an outstanding season, showing a lot of range. (Torii Hunter, on the other hand, has an absurdly low put-out total for a guy who plays everyday — maybe he’s a bit overrated a, as well?)
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Hank Kalet 