1.  I'll guess Huston Street.

2.  That is just insane.

3.  Incredible. Billy Beane really is a genius after all.

4.  Big Hurt?

5.  I guess that Fast set him right.

6.  Wow, he wins more games with his glove than even Cesar Izturis.

7.  Yeah, but check out VORP:

http://tinyurl.com/o5mg8

Has JK really added 3 wins (defensive WS/3) on the basis of his defense? Thomas, Zito, Haren, Swisher and Kendall are all around 10 WSAB.

8.  That guy leads in Win Shares?

You're doing to me what I just did about 45 minutes ago before I left.

9.  If six of the top ten most valuable fielders in baseball by win shares (our hero being #1) are catchers , it makes me think that maybe there's something wrong with the formula. You'd think a SS, 2B, or CF would/should have the best odds of coming up on top.

10.  FWIW, I've always thought the win shares formula for catcher's defense and 1B defense are 100% worthless. For all the other positions, I think it does a pretty good job.

11.  Wow...haha

12.  My brother and I both guessed Dan Haren. I'm shocked that it's Jason Kendall, but given that I have very little trust in defensive WS -- and almost none in WS for catcher defense -- I don't feel too bad about it.

Our second guess was Nick Swisher.

13.  I'm not saying I trust those WS ratings that much (also, they are not rate-based, and will reflect Kendall's no. of games played, right?).

BUT, Kendall no longer inspires hate at the plate from me. I was always comfortable with his play-calling; now he seems quite trust-worthy at throwing out runners, and getting on base as well (no power tohugh, I know). And his "alertness" or "veteran savvy", for lack of a better word, is unparallelled - he must hold some kind of record at getting on base or getting runners out by unconventional means - at the most opportune moments.

He just threw out Hinske, saving Saarloos some work.

14.  Kendall is the best I've ever seen at "causing" batters interference. He's actually done it to end a few games.

15.  If you read Bill James's explanation of the Win Shares formulas for catcher, and look at the results it produces over time, i think you WILL find its relative ratings of catchers convincing. He's identified and eliminated a huge number of measurement biases, and left something which seems like it correctly identifies the nimble, sure-handed, and strong-armed: reputations and Win Shares correlate very nicely.

That said, the total number of Win Shares he assigns to catcher is kinda strange, given that he's not trying to measure game-calling ability. I think it's done to compensate for the weak hitting of catchers, and it's a very indirect way of doing that.

17.  14 The 2 often gets a bad rap, but those guys are field generals out there. Causing interference is a small, but important, trick of the trade. Much respect for the Tools of Ignorance.