Speed Burners in CF
=== What'd Ichiro Say Bout Switchn', Again?, Dept. ===
We highly recommend skipping this post until the end of your SSI wave-surf. In the mornin's posts other than this one --- > is everything you wanted to know, and were afraid to ax, about speed in baseball.
After you read that, and come back here to this post, you'll extend your SABR and Safeco erudition to a more systemic question: how do major league GM's deploy speed, once they get it?
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To an absolutely amazing degree, the highest SPD scores in baseball are all collected at one position. The seven fastest players in baseball for 2011, per SPD, are six center fielders plus Ichiro:
- Peter Bourjos, CF - 173
- Michael Bourn, CF - 171
- Austin Jackson, CF - 160
- Dexter Fowler, CF - 152
- Cameron Maybin, CF - 152
- Brett Gardner, CF/LF - 151
- Ichiro, RF - 148
In fact, 12 of the 14 fastest major leaguers are center fielders, if you count Scott Podsednik.
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=== Top 30-40 Burners ===
Pro sports -- MLB, NFL, the NBA -- become more and more the grasslands and prairies for --- > freaks.
In my day, the same three linebackers played 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down. The first time they started using "thumpers" like Matt Millen on first down, and subbing him out for a cover LB on long yardage, we thought that was weird...
Turned out to be just a leeeeeeetle more effective than we thought it would be.
Nowadays, it's an imperative. Sports in the 21st century requires freaks.
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In the top 40 indexed by HQ's new Statistically Scouted Speed table, there are a few SS's mixed in with the hordes of center fielders ... Drew, Escobar, Aybar. ... There are also a few corner OF's, those being Justin Upton, Juan Pierre, Carl Crawford. Guys who could play center, y'know?
In CF, completely aside from the elites above, there are Granderson, Ellsbury, Denard Span ... these are guys who are slower than the CF elites.
There are also Borbon, Stubbs, Morgan, Torres, Pagan, Coco Crisp.... and you guys is always tellin' me that Franklin Gutierrez covers more ground than all those guys do.
There are fully 18-20 guys playing CF who are true speed burners, and Guti is nowhere near the leaderboard. Those are soooooommmmmme angles he takes ..... :- )
Angles are fine, but it's silly to talk about them as making up the difference between a 10.2 100m and an 11.2 100m ... especially when the 10.2 guy is also a polished ML outfielder.
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I thought for sure there would be a fairly equal distribution of SS's, 2B's, and CF's among the SPD leaders. There ain't. GM's put track guys in center, period.
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SSI has always sensed that the track guys in baseball were in CF, but we had no idea to what extent this is true, until HQ quantifed it.
Major league GM's are desperate to get track speed into center field. Everybody has a 100-meter guy in center.
Michael Saunders is faster than Gutierrez is, not per HQ's SPD, but just faster when running on a horizontal surface. If Guti could be cashed in for an Upton type, well, I'll guarantee you that Saunders can go .210/.250/.300...
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Or not,
Dr D