Big Men up the middle - this ain't the 70s anymore

SB's seem to be up, and everyone from Baseball Today to PTI and beyond are acting like we're going back to the 70s or something. We're not. Don't get on a horse and ride into the scrapset and expect to see grit and dirt on the jersey being the complete name of the game again. We're finding equilibrium between power and speed. Just because Duane Kuiper doesn't like Stewart at 2B because he doesn't "catch the ball" doesn't mean that he isn't the right man at 2B. (We're pretending Atkins SHOULD be playing for the sake of this commentary.) While I don't doubt that SBs are going to increase to counteract the lower numbers of dingers,

Fielding is such a touchy thing because everyone focuses on the end result - and understandably so. All of these classic players who were respected in their time sure don't seem to realize what fielding is. Yes, I know they were good fielders, they can do it. But how much credit do you give to the hands and how much to the feet? Yes, Clint Barmes is the superior 2B in terms of fielding, and his money is always going to be in his glove. Stewart's is going to be in his superhuman power, but we know he has good IF range, esp at 3B. His 2009 2B numbers aren't supporting my case, but his 2008 numbers do (I still blame lack of acclimation at a position), and I don't think that a lot of these "big guys" are getting the credit they deserve.

Just because every team isn't just lining up to sign the David Eckstein types to play the middle infield doesn't necessarily mean anything. Over the past 2-3 years, we've seen several articles about the advent of the Big SS, centering around guys like Hanley Ramirez and Troy Tulowitzki, and while Hanley was a notorious butcher with the glove in 2006 and 2007, his Range showed drastic improvement in 2008, and if he keeps up the way he's playing right now, he's a +2.5 W player just based on his glove. (Seriously, there's not a player I'd not give up to acquire Hanley Ramirez.)

Hanley Ramirez is almost an unfair player to use for the sake of comparison, just because he puts so much work into his game. As a rule, no, the bigger guys aren't the best fielders, but they make it sound as if Cristian Guzman is facing the wrong direction he's so bad (hint: he isn't). Brandon Phillips is another big dude who plays 2B excellently.

I don't mean to badmouth the Eric Young type, because they still do have their place. It's just that Sportswriters who pine for Charlie Hustle and Jim Norris are looking for a player to grind their axe on, so when you see Ian Stewart flub a grounder, it becomes an indictment of big guys playing the middle infield. They, of course, ignore the fact that it may have been a deep grounder that he had to dive for, or that he'd made the previous 5 tough plays, but no no these big sluggers have no room blah blah blah blah. Homers aren't GOING OUT OF STYLE so much as the numbers are more deserved now and less inflated. We still want guys who hit them, just realistically, and we're seeing more multifaceted players in the field anymore.

Chicks may not dig the long ball as they once did, but that doesn't mean they suddenly dig the skinny short dude with great range but can't hit it out of the infield.