Comments on: A Gardner Worth His Weight

By: Zack

Zack — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:11:52 +0000

Melky seemed to struggle alot with accuracy this year, not hitting cutoff men, throwing to the wrong place and letting guys advance a base- not sure if that stuff factors into his rating though

By: Disco

Disco — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:38:47 +0000

I am just reading this now and from watching, the strength of Gardner’s arm is closer to Damon than it is Melky.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Cameron’s regression did not put Gardner in elite armstrength company. It put him in elite *defensive* company. Major difference. RTFA.

By: Ali Cow bell

Ali Cow bell — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:27:16 +0000

Gardner has a little better range and Melky a better arm. Gardner has a whopping three assists and Melky has one. In my opinion, while both are still young, they are 4th outfielders on championship caliber teams. Having Gardner’s speed on the bench if they get to the World Series will force Melky into starting. Gardner should start against most righties who struggle to hold runners or on the road at pitcher parks and Melky should start at home, against lefties and righties who tend to serve up more gopher balls. Both should be in the outfield at the end of the game as they are both slightly above agerage defenders. I don’t think the stats give really bely what we all can see with the human eye. Fluky numbers – lets check them with a bigger sample size.

By: Jared

Jared — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:22:53 +0000

Gardner takes horrible routes in the outfield, often running curved paths to the ball instead of straight lines. His arm would probably be a 45 on the 80 scale. He is fairly accurate but has no strength. Often when he gets excited to throw out a runner he throws the ball straight into the ground. That is how Rolen or Kevin Millar or I forget the guy but he was slow tagged from first on a ball that did not even reach the warning track.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:15:23 +0000

Those comments aren’t especially convincing. A month of pitching will establish that lincecum is a better K pitcher than pineiro. And a half season will probably establish that ichiro has a better arm than Pierre. That doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to considerable fluctuation. Look I’ll concede that these stats establish that Gardner doesn’t have a horrible arm. But Camerons “regression” is still placing him in elite company. That’s just not justifiable.

By: CSM

CSM — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:36:49 +0000

Yeah… Gardner has nice range in the outfield, but anyone who’s actually watched him play knows he has an average arm that is definitely inferior to Melky’s. No one bothers to run on Melky.

By: tom s.

tom s. — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:56:44 +0000

see tom tango’s comments #7, #12, #13.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/best_of_arms_2008/

By: Schteeve

Schteeve — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:00:07 +0000

Anyone who really thinks that they can judge an outfielders arm by watching tv is nuts, unless they meticulously record standard outcomes, (velocity, vector, trajectory, times the ball hit the target on the fly, on one hop, missed the target missed the cutoff man etc) anything short of that is reliant too much on memory.

I’ve never heard anything other than that Melky has a cannon, and Brett has a pop gun. And I’d bet most “fanscouts” remember that when thrying to eyeball the two players. Far easier to go along with conventional wisdom than to question it.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:21:15 +0000

Tom, that would explain why the differences matter, and why there CAN be significant differences between players, but it would have very little effect on the reliability of a small sample size. Certainly not to the point where you could confidently group Gardner in with the best arms in baseball after 700 innings of data.