Second base FWS FWAA Phillips 7.1 1.4 Utley 6.6 0.4 Hudson 5.2 1.2 K.Johnson 4.3 1.2 Uggla 4.7 0.8 Iguchi 2.4 2.0
The names are pretty much the same as last year, including Phillips at the top...except Kaz Matsui and Marcus Giles lost their jobs. Some may be surprised by Uggla since his All-Star Game appearance made him look like a little leaguer. But he was in the top 5 last year too, and he's a hard worker.
I only saw two major league games live this year. In one, Kelly Johnson made a horrible error that caused the Braves to lose to the Phillies and was generally regarded as the nail in the coffin for the Braves. And that was in July. But it couldn't have been all Johnson's fault. Besides, Johnson has been on my gold glove list before.
And let's acknowledge the defensive talent of Orlando Hudson. The guy only played 107 games. I saw him make a play, behind shortstop(!), that told me all I need to know about his fielding.
DeRosa made the WS list, but that's a composite from all over the field. He played 95 games at 2b, 22 at 3b, 27 in LF, 38 in RF and one each at short and first. BP sees about half of his defensive value coming at 2b. That takes him off our list, but BP agrees he was a positive fielding contributor. What a valuable guy to have on the team.
I've got Iguchi on the list because of the disparity in system rankings. WS has him far below average, and FWAA has him as the best in the NL.
As a whole, this is generally an unremarkable group. Using the composite score method (see the NL Catcher's gold glove post), based on an average second baseman achieving 4.3 fielding win shares, Phillips gets the gold glove again, with Hudson second and Kelly Johnson third. [Technically Iguchi finishes second in the composite method because of the high FWAA score, but I can't give him second when the two systems disagree so greatly.]
Phillips is one hell of a talent, because that bat is something to talk about too. He's lost behind the Utley-love.
Last year the Iron Glove went to Craig Biggio and his stand in Chris Burke. Since we don't have them to kick around anymore, who was the worst in the NL at second? I always like to start by looking at Jeff Kent. In year's past he has foiled me by not being as bad as I think. But not anymore. Welcome Jeff, to the Iron Glove club. We can only be thankful he had to sit out 20 games he otherwise would have played.
