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| TODAY: Monday, May 15 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player ratings: Left field | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Welcome to the ESPN.com player ratings. Our panel of baseball authorities will rank the top 10 players at each position. The basic question is this: Which player do you want at that position for the 2000 season?
For more about our panel, check the the catchers page. The numbers used in the chart below are explained at the bottom of the page.
Other positions: C | DH | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | CF | RF | SP | CL
Position comments Graham Hays: This is it for Jeffrey Hammonds. After years of injuries, inconsistency, and questions over playing time, he's been handed a starting job in the thin air of Denver. Last season's .870 OPS was markedly better than anything he had previously posted, although it did come in less than 300 plate appearances, and at 29 his skills should be at their peak. It seems that everything is in place for a career year from a player who entered the league with such high expectations, but that's probably all the more reason to expect just another disappointing campaign from a classic underachiever. Underrated: Rusty Greer. Sure he's 31 and wasn't astoundingly talented to begin with, but a .343 second half average in 1999 and a lifetime .393 OBP suggests there is still some pop in the Rangers' outfield. Overrated: Rondell White. Looked like a perennial All-Star coming through Montreal's system. Now he looks more like Ray Lankford. That's not a bad label, but the superstar torch has clearly been passed to Vladimir Guerrero. Keith Law: I can't get over how thin this position is, since left field is traditionally where you put your good bat/bad glove guys. To play left field, you have to be able to hit and to stand around looking bored. Yet major league left fields are populated by guys who really aren't great with the stick -- Al Martin, Wil Cordero, Troy O'Leary, Garret Anderson, whatever tripe Seattle is throwing out there this week, etc. When guys like Bubba Trammell and Mark Quinn are scraping for playing time you know that there's a lot of poor decision-making going on. Underrated: Bubba Trammell could out-hit half the left fielders in the majors, including O'Leary, Anderson, and Reggie Sanders, and can field the position better than Wil Cordero and Al Martin, but he's doomed to bench duty in Tampa Bay. Overrated: So many to choose from, but with Dante Bichette too easy of a target, let me hit a sacred cow. Rondell White has real power, but his frequent injuries have limited him to just two 500 at-bat seasons in the last five. At the same time, he has never posted an OBP above .363 and he has just barely cracked the .500 slugging mark in the last two years. David Schoenfield: Is this the year Ben Grieve busts out? He added power last season -- 28 home runs compared to 18 as a rookie (in 100 fewer at-bats) -- but his average dropped from .288 to .265. He'll need to cure his problems vs. left-handers (17-for-109, .156, last season) or he'll have to settle for being a good hitter instead of an All-Star. Underrated: When he was a center fielder, Ray Lankford was underrated. As a left fielder, he's still underrated. Look for his power numbers to jump back up this season. Overrated: It would be too easy to say Dante Bichette. So how about B.J. Surhoff? To his credit, he hasn't missed a game since 1997, but his OPS last year (his career year) ranked just 12th among left fielders. Rany Jazayerli: Jeffrey Hammonds is exactly the sort of player that Coors Field can turn into a superstar. He's an extreme flyball hitter, and after falling short of his early promise as a No. 1 draft pick, he has hit 44 homers in 916 at-bats over the last three years. If he stays healthy -- something he's never been able to do -- he is quite capable of hitting .310 with 40-45 homers, making people forget Dante Bichette very quickly. Underrated: Geoff Jenkins had a higher slugging average (.564) than Greg Vaughn (.535) last year, but there's nothing like playing for the Brewers when it comes to anonymity. Overrated: Bichette is too easy a mark, so we'll go with B.J. Surhoff, who put up great bulk numbers (like 28 HRs and 107 RBIs) because he led the league with 673 at-bats, but had an OPS lower than Al Martin. He had fewer wives, too. Brandon Funston: If Moises Alou can pick up where he left off prior to his knee injury last season (38 HR, 124 RBI, .312 average in '98), he is a top three left fielder. In his last three seasons, his power and patience had showed steady improvement. Given his professional nature and strong work ethic, there is every reason to believe he'll make a full recovery. If so, however, he'll probably end up in right field so the Astros can platoon youngsters Daryle Ward and Richard Hidalgo in left. Underrated: Rusty Greer. Most people recognize Greer as a good player, but he's deserving of a closer look. Over the past four seasons, he's averaged 150 games played, 20 HR, 99 RBI, 105.5 runs, and a near 1:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Above all else, he's a smart player who often adapts his style of play to fit the team's need. Overrated: Al Martin. While laser eye surgery has made him a better player, Martin is still not a leadoff hitter. He does not walk enough, and he strikes out way too often. On defense, his arm is much closer to a cap gun than a cannon. The numbers We've avoided most of the traditional numbers in favor of "sabermetric stats": Pts: Total points from our panel (10 for first, etc.) G: Games played OBP: On-base percentage SLG: Slugging percentage OPS: On-base + slugging RC: Runs created. Using all of a player's offensive statistics, tells how many "runs" a player was responsible for. Added together, individual runs created match closely with a team's overall run total. OW%: Offensive winning percentage. The percentage of games a team would "win" with nine of that player in the lineup, given average defense and pitching. |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||