Mays vs. Speaker: Who Played Better Defense?

Earlier this week, I wrote about a recent ranking of the Top 10 Center Fielders of all-time, according to Bleacher Report senior writer Zander Freund.    Read the full four-parts piece here:  Introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III

While my last post profiled the sim offensive stats of these greats, this post examines their sim defensive prowess. I chose to look at three sim stats -- Fielding Average, Range Factor and Assists per 9 innings -- along with the Diamond Mind Online salary attached to each player.  And, as I did in the offensive comparison, I'll only going to focus on historical players (Ken Griffey, Jr. and Andruw Jones were the two active players on the list).
 
Most are familiar with Fielding Average (PO + A) divided by (PO + A + E), but Range Factor is a bit unique.  RF is calculated as (PO + A) divided by innings played x 9, ultimately showing a player's ability to get to the ball.  There are arguments from different camps on the importance of this stat, and does it ultimately mean more errors by that player, but I'll leave that for another post.  Search on "range factor" on our Message Boards and you'll see much debate on this topic.  Also check our our Explanation of Statistics within our Reference Guide to see more on calculations and definitions.

 
Do you think Zander miss any other great center fielders that should have made his list?

- Dayne

Comments

*Name	*Email
*Comment
*For security, enter the word you see below