As a follow-up to my book, The Fielding Bible, Bill James had a suggestion: Why not assemble a “panel of experts” to vote on the best defensive players at each position prior to the announcement of the Gold Glove awards?
Done.
Here are the winners of the inaugural 2006 Fielding Bible Awards:
First Base – Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (87 points)
Second Base – Orlando Hudson, Arizona Diamondbacks (90)
Third Base – Adrian Beltre, Seattle Mariners (78)
Shortstop – Adam Everett, Houston Astros (98)
Left Field – Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (87)
Center Field – Carlos Beltran, New York Mets (90)
Right Field – Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners (95)
Catcher – Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit Tigers (96)
Pitcher – Greg Maddux, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers (78)
The numbers in the parentheses show the final point tally each player accumulated to win their position. A first place vote received 10 points, second place 9 points, third place 8 points, etc. A perfect score is 100 because we used a panel of ten experts. They examined the 2006 seasons of every defensive player in Major League Baseball.
There are several important distinctions that differentiate the Fielding Bible Awards from most other baseball awards, such as the Gold Gloves:
- We have only one winner at each position, instead of separate winners for each league.
- We vote for nine distinct defensive positions—in other words we vote for the three different outfield positions. Now we can see who is the best in left field, center field, and right field.
- This system recognizes the runners-up for each position, instead of just focusing on the winners. We show every player who received a vote.
Complete details of the voting, results, and the panel of experts are in The Bill James Handbook 2007, available now.