My reaction to this, as always, is epitomized by Smeagol: It turns out, according to MLB.com beat writer Jeffrey Flanagan, that the split is there for a reason:Īlex Gordon said he fully expects to split time between left field and right field this season, depending on stadiums and matchups. Gordon has played equal parts left and right field this spring, and even some center field. Taking another step to some slightly more complicated math, Gordon has played 316 times as much left field as right field, which is coincidentally the same ratio of John Buck mentioning Madison Bumgarner in his broadcasts compared with the next closest human mentioned. Gordon has played 7,912.2 regular season innings in left field (plus another 31 playoff games’ worth of innings) and only 25 innings in right field. That last part is important-Gordon became known as the premier left fielder in baseball, and he has four Gold Gloves to prove it (it should have been five, but ‘Yoenis Cespedes: Gold Glove Winner’ was too big a joke for Rawlings to pass up). If you’ve got one memory of Gordon, it’s probably of the unbearably terrifying excitement of his ‘triple’ in Game Seven of the 2014 World Series, or of Gordon’s emphatic game-tying homer in the bottom of the ninth in Game One of the 2015 World Series, or the time he became one with the Chicago White Sox bleachers in such an astounding catch that he broke SportsCenter’s top plays. Gordon went on to dominate in 2011, calling his shot Babe Ruth-style, and from 2011 to 2014 was one of the top ten position players in baseball by Fangraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement. Of course, the amazing thing about this particular blunder is that nobody remembers it. Gordon started in right field that day, July 23, and went 0-4 in what was a profoundly disappointing gut punch of a start to his new outfield career. In Alex Gordon’s first outfield start in 2010, the year that he was cast off to the minor leagues and undergo a metamorphosis from disappointing third baseman to hopefully not disappointing corner outfielder, he made an error on a catchable ball in his very first opportunity to make a play in the outfield.
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