I got an email a few minutes ago with a link to Howard Megdal’s Sports On Earth article about Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons. That’s like sending porn to a sex addict. How that didn’t go straight into the spam folder with all the other offers sent in order to appeal to my prurient interests I have no idea. All I know is that if anyone needs me, I’ll be in my bunk.
While I’m gone, go read Megdal’s piece. In it he asks Fredi Gonzalez to compare Simmons and Ozzie Smith. Which, after one gets past the silliness of comparing a Hall of Famer to a guy in his second full year and allows themselves to take a few magical leaps of faith, isn’t the silliest comparison at all.
But no matter how you fall on that -- defensive metrics are still in their infancy, making such comparisons even more difficult than they seem at first -- it’s undeniable that Simmons is the best defensive shortstop in the game and that his offense, while still a work in progress, doesn’t have to be that much better to transform him from the best defenders in the game into one of the best players in the game, full stop.
