What to Watch in 2012: Valencia's Defense

In his second season as a big-leaguer, Valencia was struck by the infamous sophomore slump, with his OPS sinking by 122 points after an outstanding rookie campaign. That drop-off, however, was largely attributable to a 70-point dive in BABIP, which suggests that with steady peripheral rates and neutral luck his numbers at the plate will creep back upward in 2012.

Yet, judging by Ron Gardenhire's comments during the course of last season, Valencia's offense was not deemed by the club to be his most worrisome deficiency. If the young third baseman's starting job becomes endangered at some point this year, it seems likely that his glove will be the cause rather than his bat.

Late in August, Gardenhire expressed his frustration with Valencia's passive approach at the hot corner. On occasion, the manager intimated through media outlets that the team's future at third base had fallen into question.

You could hardly blame Gardy. After looking surprisingly sharp in the field during his big-league debut, Valencia showed severe regression in Year No. 2. Not only was he far more sloppy, committing 18 errors, but his range was visibly deteriorated. I'm reluctant to apply the UZR metric in single-season samples, but the difference there was stark: after putting up a 10.2 UZR/150 in 2010, Valencia finished at -6.1 in 154 games last season. In other words, UZR showed a 16-run defensive swing from one season to the next.

Whether you buy into that statistic or not, it seems clear that Valencia took a sizable step backward in the field last year, and that if he's unable to reverse that trend, his grip on the starting job will continue to loosen. As we've seen time and time again in the past, Gardenhire and the Twins are far more tolerant of substandard production at the plate than a failure to consistently get the job done defensively.

Mangled in the Outfield

The Twins outfield did not have a good night defensively in Toronto on Wednesday. With Kevin Slowey on the mound surrendering several drives to the outfield, the Twins' fielders were plagued by miscues and misplays. Delmon Young let one ball bounce right out of his glove and failed to reach others that seemed catchable. And then there was of course the inside-the-park home run that fell between Young and Denard Span, which essentially decided the outcome of the game.

When the Twins traded Carlos Gomez during the offseason and committed to a regular outfield alignment of Young, Span and Michael Cuddyer, many groaned about the potential defensive repercussions for a team that features several fly ball pitchers. Slowey possesses the most extreme fly ball tendencies of any pitcher in the major leagues (a full 51.4 percent of balls put in play against him have been hit in the air this year) and last night's game was one of those nightmarish occasions where balls were flying all over the outfield and the Twins' lack of range out there was fully exposed.

Young, Kubel and Cuddyer all rank toward the bottom of the team in UZR, and while Span has improved his mark this year he's still not much above average and continues to miss a number of balls that we're used to seeing Gomez catch. The flip side is that each of these outfielders has been at least competent offensively (and in some cases very good) so the Twins don't have to deal with Gomez creating another hole in the lineup.

Last night, unfortunately, the offense couldn't quite do enough to make up for the defensive lapses in the outfield. For the most part, though, I'll take the boost in the lineup and stomach an adventurous night in the field from time to time.

With that said, I'm hoping Scott Baker gets a little more help tonight.

The Defense Rests

In diagnosing the issues with the 2009 Twins, many people often point to the pitching staff. That's reasonable; the Twins ranked fourth-to-last in the American League with a 4.50 team ERA -- that includes an ugly 4.84 ERA for the starters. Given how promising the team's young rotation looked a year ago, this nearly across-the-board regression is obviously a rather large disappointment that shrouds this group's future in doubt. But, it is important to note that Twins' pitchers are not totally to blame for the drop-off in run prevention. These guys were not generally getting a lot of help from their defense.

The Twins ranked third-to-last in the majors in team UZR during the 2009 season -- only the abysmal Royals and Mets rated worse. The defensive metric -- widely considered to be one of the most accurate -- suggests that the Twins' defense cost them more than 36 runs over the course of the season. The Twins had been below-average defensively in 2008 as well, but that negative figure is more than double the mark from the previous season. The reasons for the plummet? There are plenty of culprits. Carlos Gomez played in center field less; Denard Span played there more. Jason Kubel started playing the outfield more often. Orlando Cabrera was a regular at shortstop for two months. Joe Crede couldn't stay in the lineup consistently. Alexi Casilla had a terrible year defensively.

The Twins have a long-standing reputation as being a strong defensive club, mainly because they don't commit many errors. But they haven't always lived up to that reputation, and they certainly didn't this year. If he wants to get better results from his pitching staff next year, Bill Smith would be wise to keep team defense in mind as he reconfigures his roster. Fortunately, strong defenders tend to be undervalued assets in free agency as well as in trades.

When the Mariners traded away J.J. Putz and a pair of other players in a blockbuster three-way deal last winter, few people viewed Franklin Gutierrez as the gaudy centerpiece of a hefty return package that also included Aaron Heilman, Mike Carp, Endy Chavez, Jason Vargas, Maikel Cleto and Ezequiel Carrera. However, Gutierrez was quietly one of the league's most valuable overall players this season, playing absolutely stellar defense in center field (20.9 UZR) while posting a solid 764 OPS with 18 homers, 75 RBI and 16 stolen bases. Gutierrez was no small part of the reason the Mariners led the majors in UZR, which itself was no small part of the reason they led the AL in team ERA.

It's tough to find players like Gutierrez who can be quality contributors on both sides, but certainly those are the guys Smith should be focused on getting into his lineup. At the very least, though, he should make sure the defense that lines up on Opening Day next season is one that the Twins' starters can count on to make plays behind them.

Defenseless

I had already completed and posted yesterday's entry by the time Monday night's game came to its stunning and absurd conclusion, so nothing about that game was featured on this page yesterday. Yet, since that 14-13 loss is likely to go down as one of -- if not the -- most memorable of the season, and since last night's game was rather unremarkable, I figured I'd take the opportunity to vent a bit about the epic meltdown for today.

Clearly, there were numerous reasons the Twins managed to cough up their 10-run lead and lose a game they seemingly had wrapped up in the second inning, and they stretch well beyond the terrible call at home plate that led to the contest's final out. Nick Blackburn and the ragtag bunch of Triple-A relievers the Twins sent out to the mound all pitched terribly, which is particularly inexcusable considering the fact that they were facing a terrible offense in an extremely pitcher-friendly park. And while it's tough to blame the offense much in a game where they put 13 runs across, Twins hitters did fail to come through in some key late scoring opportunities.

But the weakness that stood out most to me in this abomination of a ballgame was the Twins defense. They sent out an incredibly weak fielding unit that did not feature arguably the team's three best defenders (Carlos Gomez, Joe Mauer and Joe Crede) and did feature a bunch of liabilities including Brendan Harris at third, Alexi Casilla at second, Delmon Young in left and Mike Redmond at catcher. They paid for it. The number of bloop hits, infield singles, missed catches and skipped throws to first base in this game was mind-blowing.

Justin Morneau had one of the finest offensive games of his career, but was a calamity on the field on Monday night. He missed an easy catch in foul territory and uncharacteristically failed to scoop up several short-hopped throws. Harris let more than one playable grounder skip past him at third. And Nick Punto had a hugely disappointing game at shortstop.

I know I just ranted about Punto last week so I hate to get on his case again, but I've grown increasingly disenchanted with his defensive ability at shortstop. I still think he's a heck of a defensive second baseman, but after having watched him man shortstop regularly over the past few weeks I've come to conclude that he simply doesn't have the arm to play the position. His range is good, particularly to his left, and he flashed that on a dazzling diving play he made behind second base in the game. But the number of popgun throws he made in that ballgame was maddening. His throws routinely bounced in front of Morneau at first, even on plays where Punto had time to set his feet. It was no isolated incident -- this is something I've picked up on several times this season. Say what you will about Harris' sub par range and poor defensive reputation, but the guy at least has the arm to make strong throws from the hole and to beat runners on weakly hit balls. I'm not seeing that from Punto, and as a result he has become a bit of a liability when playing at short.

There are a lot of factors that played into the Twins' collapse on Monday night, but many of those were fluke-ish in nature. Blackburn's method of cosntantly pitching to contact caught up with him in a big hurry. Bobby Keppel picked the wrong time to give up just his second home run in 70 innings this season. Jose Mijares, similarly, picked the wrong time to get solved by left-handed hitters for the first time this season. And the home plate umpire -- a Triple-A fill-in -- managed to put himself in the exact wrong position to view the final play at home plate. For the most part, these things just can't be helped; so goes the game of baseball.

But, the Ron Gardenhire set his team and his pitching staff up for trouble by sending out a roundly underwhelming defensive alignment. Prior to the season, I figured that one of the Twins' greatest strengths would be an improved defense led by the likes of Gomez, Crede, Mauer, Punto and Denard Span. But when all those guys are either not playing or being used at positions for which they are ill-suited, the Twins are in position for trouble. That's just what happened on Monday night.

The Defense Rests

Since yesterday's game wasn't televised and took place during the workday, my guess is that most fans didn't get a chance to see the action and ended up piecing together information about the 6-5 victory through the box score. A cursory look at the stat sheet indicates that Scott Baker once again hit a wall after pitching several strong innings; this time, Baker held the Tigers scoreless while facing the minimum over the first five innings before getting tagged for five runs in the sixth. Yet, a deeper glance at what actually took place gives us another lesson in the importance of defense.

With two outs in the sixth inning, Baker was facing Ramon Santiago with two runners on. Santiago hit a seemingly catchable line drive toward left field; Jason Kubel gave chase but watched the ball bounce over the wall for an RBI ground-rule double. The Tigers proceeded to rally for four more runs in the inning, and Baker's once-promising outing ended after six innings. The Twins' ostensible No. 1 starter failed to put a dent in his inflated ERA.

Had Carlos Gomez been starting in center, Denard Span would have been in left and would have almost certainly caught Santiago's line drive. The inning would have been over, the game still would have been tied 0-0, and Baker would have still been pitching in the seventh, keeping pressure off a beleaguered bullpen.

While Baker certainly deserves his fair share of blame for surrendering a deep ball to the gap off the bat of Santiago, the fact of the matter is that he -- like many other members of this pitching staff -- is a fly ball pitcher. Pitchers like Baker, Kevin Slowey and Glen Perkins are routinely going to give up a number of fly balls and line drives into the outfield gaps, even when they're going good. Having a pair of fantastic defensive outfielders like Gomez and Span to play behind pitchers like these is a blessing, but one that the Twins continually waste by benching Gomez and playing Span in center field, where he is not nearly as valuable.

That the Twins were able to come back and win yesterday thanks to a second straight impressive effort from what is proving to be an extremely resurgent offense does not change the fact that substandard fielding cost the Twins five runs and nearly a ballgame. When Aaron Gleeman suggested earlier this week that the outfield alignment of Span and Gomez would save as many as 80 runs over the Young/Span duo according to Ultimate Zone Rating, many scoffed at the sheer ridiculousness of the figure. And maybe it is an exaggeration. Yet, seeing an extra five runs score in one game because of an avoidable misplay in the outfield makes the number seem a little less absurd. Take into account the extra strain that the non-catch put on Baker, the bullpen and the team at large, and you'll have some idea as to why I feel so adamant about the importance of fielding a strong defensive alignment in the outfield.

I realize I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but to me, Gardenhire's handling of the outfield situation is the preeminent issue with this club right now. Between that (assuming it Gardy's decision, and not Bill Smith's), his unwillingness to play Brendan Harris on a regular basis and his stringent adherence to using Joe Nathan only in the ninth inning, Gardenhire is doing an awful lot to hurt this team right now. The Twins finally lifted themselves above the .500 mark with yesterday's win, but they can't count on miracle comebacks forever. Unless Gardenhire starts making some smarter choices, this team will have an extremely tough time maintaining their spot atop the AL Central.

Tuesday Notes

Lately it seems I've been spending all my time breaking down prospect performances, marveling at Joe Mauer's greatness and complaining about Alexi Casilla, so today I'll get caught up on a wide range of Twins-related topics with a bunch of notes...

* For those who wonder why I put so much value into Carlos Gomez's center field defense, Sunday's game provides a good example.

In the seventh inning, with the Twins leading 5-3, Luis Ayala came in to relieve Scott Baker with two on and nobody out. Ayala promptly surrendered a line drive to deep left center field, and the ball sailed past the outstretched glove of a diving Denard Span. Two runs scored, tying the game. In the next inning, Jose Guillen hit a liner to deep center; Span again chased the ball but had it bounce of his glove and off the wall for an RBI double. Now, this is just my opinion, but I believe that both of these balls would have been caught were Gomez in center field. That's not a dig against Span, who made a hell of an effort on both plays, but Gomez's range is unparalleled among players on this team and I've seen him run down balls hit to those areas on numerous occasions.

So, that's three runs that may have been prevented from scoring if Gomez were in the game, and perhaps the difference between a win and a loss. Now, given that neither of these plays occurred with two outs in the inning, it's entirely possible that all those runs would have scored anyway. All of these hypotheticals and probabilities are part of what makes defense so difficult to measure and value.

* Of course, we wouldn't be talking about who could hypothetically catch these monstrous 400-foot line drives if Ayala and R.A. Dickey weren't allowing them in the first place. The Twins bullpen has been rather disastrous so far, and these two are clearly looking like the weakest links. It's early yet, but Ayala has thus far proven to be a horrible signing and there's not much reason to hope he'll improve a whole lot. In spite of his misguided "sinkerballer" label, Ayala has induced ground balls at a mediocre 41.9 percent rate while opponents have slugged .556 against him.

Dickey, meanwhile, has remarkably allowed 10 of 12 inherited runners to score while posting a 2.19 WHIP and 10-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 13 2/3 innings. His vaunted rubber arm hasn't even been particularly useful, as he's appeared just four times in the Twins past 14 games and totaled just five innings during that span. It's awfully tough to see what value Dickey has for this team, which is why I was somewhat frustrated when the Twins demoted and risked losing Philip Humber to waivers a couple weeks ago in order to preserve Dickey's spot on the big-league roster.

* Gomez was held out of the Twins' starting lineup for the sixth time in the past seven games last night, while Alexi Casilla once again started and batted second. Baffling.

Gomez has gotten off to a rough start offensively this year, but Casilla's been considerably worse. It's inexplicable that Ron Gardenhire is showing so much confidence in one while burying the other. It can't be that Casilla is doing "the little things," as he cost the Twins a game on Saturday night with a careless error in the field, and last night hit into an infuriurating double play because he failed to run to first base on a popped-up bunt attempt.

Casilla was only moderately more productive at the plate than Gomez last season, and Gomez brings much more defensive value when he's in the lineup. There's no reason Casilla should getting such preferential treatment.

* While Baker worked through six innings of hitless ball to start Sunday afternoon's game, I observed multiple fans complaining about Dick Bremer repeatedly making mention of the no-hit bid on the television broadcast. I find it somewhat amusing that rational, adult baseball fans -- even the statistically oriented ones who I'd hardly describe as traditionalists -- can get so worked up over a silly superstition.

I can buy into the idea that some superstitions may yield actual benefits. If a player wears the same "lucky socks" for every night game, perhaps on some deep mental level it gives them an extra measure of comfort or confidence while they're playing. But the notion that a pitcher's bid for a no-hitter can be sabotaged by a random announcer in the press box or a random fan in the stands mentioning the fact that he hasn't allowed a hit yet is downright ridiculous. Bremer is a commentator and his job is to talk about what's happening in the game, not ignore the biggest storyline in observance of an arbitrary superstition.

* Seth Stohs has been on a roll lately when it comes to recruiting podcast guests. Last Thursday, he had Glen Perkins sit in as co-host for the MN Gamenight show. Last night, for his own SethSpeaks.net weekly podcast, Seth was able to recruit Pat Neshek, Democrat and Chronicle scribe Jim Mandelaro (an authority on the Twins' Triple-A affiliate), and -- most impressively -- me.

OK, obviously I'm the least impressive name on that outstanding list of guests, but both shows are definitely worth listening to for Seth and the other guys. Check them out.

The Biggest Disappointment

One can make the argument that each offseason acquisition currently playing for the Twins has been a disappointment to some degree. Carlos Gomez has looked raw and over-matched. Brendan Harris has failed to meet his hitting line from last year. Mike Lamb has had a miserable season at the plate. Delmon Young's rumored power potential has not materialized in any form. Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe, of course, were recently released as a result of their ineffectiveness (and Hernandez has gotten his career as a Rockie off to a great start!).

Yet, to me, no acquisition has been a greater disappointment than Adam Everett.

I was not a fan of the Everett signing to begin with. The Twins were one of the worst offensive clubs in the league last year, and they entered the offseason with a need to add players who could help them score more runs. As such, I found little logic in signing one of the worst-hitting regular players of the past several years to fill a position of need. Many made the argument that Everett's reputedly spectacular fielding ability at one of the most important defensive positions on the field was enough to offset his offensive shortcomings and make him a decently valuable player. There's certainly some truth to that, and I made sure to acknowledge Everett's track record as an outstanding defender, but added that "I'm not really sure the Twins are a team that can afford the luxury of a superb defensive shortstop who can't hit worth a lick."

Here we are on August 10, and Everett has fallen far short of even my meager expectations. His hitting has been atrocious, as expected; even after poking a pair of RBI singles in yesterday's game, he is batting .209/.275/.319, which is quite awful even for him. But what has truly been frustrating is his defense. Everett has not been a spectacular defensive presence at shortstop. Frankly, he hasn't even been adequate. His arm is absolutely horrendous. While he has often shown the solid range and slick glove that he was known for in Houston, Everett's total lack of arm strength has prevented him from making more than a handful of impressive plays at shortstop this season, and has frequently caused him to fail to convert on routine plays.

This disappointment was on display over the weekend in Kansas City, in series where Everett started all three games. On Friday night, he committed an error while fielding a ground ball. In Saturday night's game, a wide throw from Everett pulled Justin Morneau off first base, allowing a runner who should have been out to reach. Yesterday, in the most egregious example of the weekend, Everett essentially cost the Twins a sweep-clinching victory when he allowed the tying run to score from third with two outs in the eighth inning because he threw high to first base after fielding a routine grounder that should have gotten the Twins to the ninth inning with a lead.

In fairness, Everett's poor defense has not necessarily been his fault. From the very beginning of the year he has been affected by shoulder problems, and he's spent much of the year on the disabled list as a result of these issues. Yet, as his performance during the past few days has shown, these issues continue to deter his performance and are still preventing him from getting the job done at shortstop. And since he cannot hit nor field adequately, Everett really has no use to this club. The Twins were on the verge of designating him for assignment a couple weeks ago before Alexi Casilla's injury, and that was the right decision. There are other players who can more effectively fill Everett's role.

Say what you will about Hernandez and Monroe, they did serve a purpose for this team. Hernandez ate a lot of innings and gave the team several Quality Starts, while Monroe delivered some huge home runs. When it became clear that the players had worn out their usefulness (well, maybe a little while after that became clear), the team parted ways with both and replaced them with more deserving replacements. The time is now to do the same with Everett.

Guest Post: Everett vs. Tolbert

Nick's Note: Good game last night, but I just don't have time write about it, so I'm going to present you with this guest post submitted by frequent reader and occasional contributor Corey Ettinger. I will note that I'm a little skeptical of the numbers he presents, because I think that a) Everett is not nearly the defender he was in Houston anymore, which may be because of age or because of a shoulder ailment; and b) I think Ettinger is probably underrating Tolbert by putting him on Brendan Harris' level defensively. Nevertheless, it's a well-written article, so I'll leave you to formulate your own opinions based on the evidence provided. Thanks Corey!

***

Matt Tolbert is playing out of his mind right now, and if you're the Twins, this is clearly a good thing. His play is even causing a groundswell among the fan base to make him the starter at shortstop and I think this is something that needs to be addressed. In one camp, you have people who like the fact that Tolbert should be a better offensive player over the course of the season. The other camp believes that Adam Everett can save as many or more runs with his glove. Let's break it down:

Name	Lifetime AVG	Lifetime OBP	Lifetime SLG	AVG H	AVG BB	AVG TB	AVG 2B	AVG 3B	AVG HR	Runs Created
Everett	.246	.298	.355	135	30.41	195	25.80	3.54	8.86	55.14
Tolbert	.280	.345	.404	154	46.44	222	29.57	7.70	7.70	74.49

So over the course of a season, Tolbert is good for an additional 19.35 runs. That's pretty significant. If you consider that the Twins averaged 4.43 runs per game last year, that's an additional 4.37 wins that Tolbert bring to the team. Of course, that also presumes that Tolbert can translate those minor-league numbers into major-league numbers. While it is far from impossible for him to do so, I think many would say the odds are against that given the traditional growth rates of players transition from the minor leagues to the major leagues.

Now is where things get a bit tricky and I'm prepared to admit that defensive statistics are not my forte, but using some pretty simple logic-based calculations, I think we can fairly easily translate Everett's effectiveness into a sort of reverse runs created. Let's say, runs prevented. Also, as a caveat to anyone who is interested in really understanding defensive metrics, PLEASE look into buying a copy of The Fielding Bible; its written by some of the greatest minds in sabermetrics and is a MUST for anyone who is interested in understanding precisely how defense impacts a game. Furthermore, even if you aren't going to buy the book, I strongly recommend reading the excerpts posted on their website.

The system they use is called +/-, and essentially, after charting every single ball put in play, they determine based on ball speed, location, vectoring, etc... how many more (or less) balls a player converts into an out than the average. Players who get to balls below the average receive negative ratings. Adam Everett led all shortstops in the major leagues from 2005-2007 with a +92 rating (Jason Bartlett was second with a +45.) While I'd love to use these stats, it's not possible since Matt Tolbert's numbers aren't available. So we need to find another way of doing this. Getting back to setting up our own system...

First, I'll be using The Hardball Times fielding stats. A basic fielding stats primer: ZR= Zone Rating BIZ= Balls in zone. Plays = # of balls in a players zone fielded (Plays/BIZ=UZR) OOZ= Outs made on balls out of a fielders zone. Since shortstops don't really have any effect on triple and homeruns, and only have a very small degree of effect doubles, I'm going to presume that every out that a fielder doesn't make, counts for a single. In order to ensure the closest approximations possible I'm going to use the data available from Everett's past 5 seasons. In Tolbert's case, I only have a sample size of nineteen innings. Clearly this presents a major statistical dilemma, but I can only work with the information available to me.

As a precursor, I'll be using an average total balls in zone for the shortstop position over a 162 game season of 420. That will effect a players AVG Plays as well as thier AVG OOZ plays. Obviously the last shortstop to play 162 games in a season was Miguel Tejada (and before him Cal Ripken Jr) but guys who do are rare. And neither Everett nor Tolbert will do so. But it gives us an important baseline to work from.

Name	AVG BIZ	AVG Plays (420*ZR)	AVG OOZ	Total
Everett	420	369.60 (.880)	77.90	447.50 (448)
Tolbert	420	326.76 (.778)	¹37.00	363.76 (364)

¹: Brendan Harris' 2007, a player I think Tolbert compares well to. I had to make an arbitrary decision since Tolbert has yet to record an out from outside of his zone. Harris created one out of zone out per 20.29 innings last year. Tolbert having played 19 innings and not yet made an OOZ play was the nearest comparison given Tolbert HAVING made an OOZ play.

This shows us that Everett creates 84 more outs over the course of a season than Tolbert. Given that there are 27 outs per game you COULD say that means Everett's glove wins 3.11 more games per year than Tolbert's.

But now we need to plug this into 2007 hitting data. Last year the average major-league hitter batted .268/.336/.422. Over a 550 at-bat season that comes to 147 hits, 185 times on base (H+BB). Therefore, the average batter would've had ~38 BB. A .422 SLG works out to 232 total bases. If Everett prevents 84 more outs per season, that means he prevents 84/9 (9.33) outs (# of additional out/batters = Individual batters share of additional outs created) per batter.

Plugged into the same basic RC formula we used above, this "standard" hitter who had been averaging a RC of 72.99 would now be averaging an RC of 66.75. Now, since Everett's defense is in play over 9 batter over the course of a season, that negative variation of 6.24 becomes multiplied by 9 to equate to 56.16.

Everett has a 56.16 Runs Prevented rating over Matt Tolbert. That would equate to 12.54 wins given the Twins average allowed runs of 4.48 per game.

Of course so much of this is speculative. We don't know if Tolbert can duplicate his minor league numbers and my study of the fielding stats is wildly simplistic. But I think the study is fairly accurate, and I'd be happy to discuss it with anyone who might be interested. The final results show that Tolbert's 4.37 additional wins due to his bat (over Everett's) do not make up for Everett's additional 6.24 wins from his glove over Tolbert's.

Golden Geese

The American League Gold Glove winners were announced yesterday, and Twins fans will notice one very familiar name along with a welcome new one.

Torii Hunter brought home the award for a seventh consecutive time, while Johan Santana won his first Gold Glove at the pitcher position. Is Hunter really still one of the top three defensive outfielders in AL? I'm skeptical. But I have little doubt that Santana is the league's top defensive pitcher -- his ability to fly off the mound and use his athleticism to make plays is unmatched by any pitcher I watched this year. I'm glad to see him recognized by these oft-misguided voters.