Bill's latest (over at Bill James Online) concerns post-1940 third basemen, and the biggest news is that Mike Schmidt and Brooks Robinson were really good.
/zzzzzzzzz
Okay, so that's not exactly new news. It's nice to see these things quantified, and it's nice to see some confirmation of my belief that Brooks, as great as he was, probably didn't deserve those last few Gold Gloves. But no, the real value of Bill's work is when he gives us something different to think about.
Case in point! The method's identification of Cincinnati's Tony Pérez as the National League's best third baseman in 1971.
After the season, the Reds traded their first baseman and moved Pérez over there, which a) supposedly was because Pérez was a pretty terrible third baseman, and b) reportedly propelled the Reds to their Big Red Machine successes. However, Bill:
I'll give you two alternative ways to interpret this set of facts:
1) Tony Perez was a bad third baseman, and the Reds needed to get him off third base. They made the trade with Houston to open up first base for Perez, and lucked into a truckload of talent that Houston was under-utilizing. Perez never played an inning at third base after 1971.
2) Tony Perez was a struggling defender who, by 1971, had made significant progress as a third baseman, although he was still in the range of an average defender. The Reds saw an opportunity to improve the team defensively at four positions (first base, second base, third base and center field), and leapt on it. Perez never played an inning at third base after 1971.
Of course the Reds also got Joe Morgan, César Gerónimo, and Jack Billingham in that deal. Which was also good.
