Polanco and Ordonez Win Silver Sluggers

Earlier in the week, Placido Polanco won the Gold Glove award for the first time and now he has won his first Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger award. Magglio Ordonez also earned a Silver Slugger for his 2007 performance. According to Jason Beck at MLB.COM, Major League Baseball coaches and managers select one player at each position in each league according to the following criteria:

Selections are based on a combination of offensive statistics, including batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, as well as the coaches' and managers' general impressions of a player's overall offensive value.

My first impression is I'm happy that OBP and slugging percentage are listed as two of the three key statistics rather than homers and RBI. I'm not sure whether that comes from Jason Beck or from Major League Baseball but it's good to see regardless. My next thought was that they seemed to get the awards right. Well almost.

The table below lists the American League runs created per game (RC/G) leaders at each position in 2007. The last column of the tables indicates whether or not they won the Silver Slugger. It turns out that my list matches the Silver Slugger awards at every position except one of the outfield positions. Curtis Granderson (7.8 RC/G) outproduced silver slugger Ichiro Suzuki (7.2 RC/G) but came away empty handed.

Granderson was benched against some left-handed pitchers and Suzuki never gets benched at all so I next looked at overall runs created (RC). Grandy won there by a narrower margin: 126 to 123. One could also make the case that Curtis was better than Vladimir Guerrero who had 7.7 RC/G and 119 RC. I'll also point out that center fielders play a somewhat more demanding position than corner outfielders and that offensive standards should be somewhat higher for corner outfielders.

My conclusion is that Granderson should have won the award over either Guerrero or Suzuki or both. It was not an egregious error but I think it was not the correct decision. It was the second time this week that Granderson was overlooked for an award as he also should have won a Gold Glove.


Table 1: American League RC/G leader at each Position in 2007

Pos	Player	Team	PA	RC/G	RC	Silver Slugger
C	Posada	NY	589	8.4	111	Yes
1B	Pena	TB	612	9.3	126	Yes
2B	Polanco	Det	641	7.0	105	Yes
SS	Jeter	NY	714	6.2	108	Yes
3B	Rodriguez	NY	708	9.7	154	Yes
OF	Ordonez	Det	679	9.5	142	Yes
OF	Granderson	Det	676	7.8	126	No
OF	Guerrero	LA	660	7.7	119	Yes
DH	Ortiz	Bos	667	9.5	136	Yes