Posted by John Dewan on Dec 16th 2015
November 02, 2006
As a follow-up to my book, The Fielding Bible, Bill James had a suggestion: Why not assemble a “panel of experts” to vote on the best defensive players at each position prior to the announcement of the Gold Glove awards? Done. Here are the winners of the inaugural 2006 Fielding Bible Awards: First Base – Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (87 points) Second Base – Orlando Hudson, Arizona Diamondbacks (90) Third Base – Adrian Beltre, Seattle Mariners (78) Shortstop – Adam Everett, Houston Astros (98) Left Field – Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (87) Center Field – Carlos Beltran, New York Mets (90) Right Field – Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners (95) Catcher – Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit Tigers (96) Pitcher – Greg Maddux, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers (78) The numbers in the parentheses show the final point tally each player accumulated to win their position. A first place vote received 10 points, second place 9 points, third place 8 points, etc. A perfect score is 100 because we used a panel of ten experts. They examined the 2006 seasons of every defensive player in Major League Baseball. There are several important distinctions that differentiate the Fielding Bible Awards from most other baseball awards, such as the Gold Gloves:
Complete details of the voting, results, and the panel of experts are in The Bill James Handbook 2007, available now.