Brett Gardner, Elite Outfielder?

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Brett Gardner. Although he’s playing well, even better than I thought he would, he still has a long way to go before anyone would begin to consider him anything more than a marginal-to-good center fielder. He’s arguably not even the best center fielder on his team; he’s splitting time with Melky Carbrera. Which is why I was surprised that FanGraphs is ready to declare him one of the best defensive outfielders in the league, a notch below Hunter Pence, Matt Kemp, Ryan Ludwick and Nick Markakis.

Gardner has racked up an incredible +8.4 ARM rating since showing up in the majors last year, and he’s done it in half a season’s worth of playing time. He has 83 “defensive games” as a major league outfielder, meaning that he’s had just over 1/2 of a season’s worth of balls hit to him to turn into outs. The four guys ahead of him are all at 200+ defensive games during this same time span.

This is a ridiculous performance, honestly. Over a full season, Gardner’s +17 pace would easily be double that of the 2008 ARM leader (Pence). He’s been worth almost a win to the Yankees (in half a season!) just by chucking the ball back in from the outfield

These numbers, which are a result of a pretty narrow 754 total career innings, are misleading. As a number of FanGraph commenters rightly pointed out, Gardner does not have a particularly good arm. I'd describe it as somewhere between Damon's pop gun and Melky's cannon. Gardner's fast as hell, which allows him to cover a lot of ground in the outfield. His ability to get to more balls, though, doesn’t reveal anything telling about his arm strength. Kid’s got only 3 assists in 448 innings this year. 3 assists in 448 innings. Matt Kemp, in comparison, has three times as many assists in twice as many games, while Oakland's Rajai Davis has 4 assists in about 153 less innings, or 17 less games, than Gardner. Call me crazy, but I'm not ready, as FanGraph seems to be, to declare Gardner an elite defensive player. Not even close. 

(Photo stolen from New Stadium Insider)