Has defense played a part in the Rangers' first place showing thus far this year?

The Texas Rangers finished 79-83 last season, a full 21 games out of first place in the AL West. Team defense was no small part of the problem; their defense cost them 27 runs last year, ranking them 27th out of 30 teams in Major League Baseball. Over the winter, reigning American League shortstop Gold Glove winner Michael Young was asked to move to third base to accommodate a top prospect, defensive whiz Elvis Andrus.

Young has historically rated near the bottom in our Plus/Minus rankings and cost the Rangers 24 runs at shortstop over the past three seasons. The early returns are not good at third base, as he has cost them 10 runs defensively thus far.

Fortunately, Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels knew how to compensate. Andrus has flashed some serious leather, posting six Runs Saved about a quarter of the way into the season. Besides promoting Andrus, Daniels signed bargain defensive-minded backups Omar Vizquel and 2007 Fielding Bible Award winner Andruw Jones to stabilize the infield and outfield, respectively. Vizquel and Jones are primarily backups but even in limited roles they've saved four runs defensively. Combine these shrewd moves with Ian Kinsler's improvement at second base (10 Runs Saved) and you have the top-ranked defense in all of baseball, and the AL West division lead.

Also leading their division, the Toronto Blue Jays have relied on shortstop Marco Scutaro (9 Runs Saved) and another 2007 Fielding Bible Award winner, second baseman Aaron Hill (8 Runs Saved).

We might expect Kinsler and Scutaro to cool off a little bit given their mediocre defensive numbers in the past. Defense has been and will continue to be a key component for both the Rangers and Blue Jays to stay in contention this year.

Here are the top five and bottom five defenses in baseball through May 20th:

One more defensive note: The Seattle Mariners acquired leather-flashing outfielders Endy Chavez and Franklin Gutierrez in the offseason. With Ichiro in right field, most of us thought this would give the Mariners the best defensive outfield in baseball. Has this been the case so far? Yes. The Mariners outfield has saved 11 runs this season, just one behind the 12 runs saved by the Rangers and the 12 runs saved by the Angels in the outfield in Los Angeles.