Making a difference with the glove

Often when discussion of defense come up in baseball, people key on certain positions as the most important to have a strong fielder. Its important to have a catcher with a good arm and can call a good game. A first basemen with soft hands can save dozens of errors on an infield. A right fielder with a great arm keep players going first to third. And of course a shortstop, who many often claim is the most important defensive position. In my mind, this is short sighted and wrong. A gold glove center fielder changes the game defensively more than any other position. Its one thing to have a centerfielder who can go back and rob home runs, or get a good jump on the ball and dive head first on those soft liners that would be a single. Its another thing to have a centerfielder who can throw like a right fielder, and catches balls in the gap like its an offense to him for a hitter to even think they can get an extra base hit.

A great shortstop can turn double plays, take away hits up the middle and in the hole and let a groundball pitcher go to his "happy place". A great centerfielder lets a team hide poor defensive players in the outfield, and takes away not only base hits, but extra base hits in the gap, and of course can even rob a home run. So many teams stash mediocre fielders in left and right field because they have a center fielder that can greatly reduce the amount of fielding the lesser defensive players have to do. A Look at some of the best defensive center fielders is always impressive, and normally the best teams have a gold glove caliber defender on their team in center. Lets take a look at some of top defensive centerfielders in each league:

Johnny Damon
Cocoa Crisp
Vernon Wells
Grady Sizemore
Torii Hunter
Gary Matthews Jr.
Chone Figgins
Andruw Jones
Carlos Beltran
Jim Edmonds
Ken Griffey Jr.
Mike Cameron


Most if not all of these players are on division leaders, or teams fighting for a playoff spot. The argument has been made plenty of times that a great centerfielder is key, heck even Tim McCarver likes to say "It's important to be strong up the middle". But I think that you need to really separate it even further. Managers always want a guy out there who can just flat go get the ball, and that's cause they know more runs and hits are saved by a good centerfielder than any other position.

Just ask Willie Mays. Or the reincarnation of him, Andruw Jones.