August 07, 2003
BASEBALL: Jason Giambi, Gold Glover?
Looking through the graphs of in-season Win Shares through August 2, 2003, I noticed something really odd: Dodgers shortstop Cesar Izturis is credited with 7.11 Win Shares, all of them in the field. I wonder what player holds the record for most Win Shares in a season entirely from defense. All I could find on this in Bill James' book was that Bill Bergen was the last regular player to regularly have no offensive Win Shares in a season.
I thought I'd look more closely at who the system rates as the best defensive player at each position in each league, both cumulatively and per inning (with more than 100 innings):
| Pos. | NL Cum. | NL Per Inn. | AL Cum. | AL Per Inn. |
| C | Brad Ausmus | Michael Barrett | Ben Molina | Molina |
| 1B | Derek Lee | Lyle Overbay | Doug Mentkeiwicz | Jason Giambi |
| 2B | Alex Cora | Cora | Bret Boone | Tony Graffanino |
| SS | Izturis | Izturis | Jose Valentin | Valentin |
| 3B | David Bell | Bell | Joe Crede | Robin Ventura |
| OF | Steve Finley | Ruben Rivera | Mike Cameron | Carlos Beltran |
| OF | Andruw Jones | Finley | Beltran | Cameron |
| OF | Craig Biggio | Marvin Benard | Terrence Long | Dee Brown |
Jason Giambi? Terrence Long? I think maybe I need a little more convincing on the merits of the defensive system.