Absolutely just look through what seems like almost every win this year and you will find a great defensive play and it's happening all over the field.
Agree. There are more great defensive plays being made. Perhaps as importantly, there are less bad plays being made. Less errors, less throwing to the wrong person, less drops and bad throws.
I haven’t looked at numbers but on the infield, the changes seem relatively minor but there seems to be improvement pretty much across the board.
Escobar hasn’t been great at 3B. Maybe average, maybe slightly above average. But a big step better than JD Davis at 3rd.
Lindor appears to be stepped up quite a bit defensively this year. Maybe a bit more range. His arm appears to be more accurate and his fundamentals are better.
At second, Cano had little range and was bad but he was jettisoned pretty quickly. McNeil has been solid. Good range, accurate arm, and way better chemistry with Lindor than last year, when they seemed to blame each other for bad plays on balls hit between them too often.
Gillorme always seems good whenever he plays. Last year and this year.
Pete Alonso seems to be slowly improving at 1B. Not as many ill advised attempts to field ground balls where he can’t make a play if he gets it. He appears to be getting better scooping low throws. And he appears to be throwing it a little better. He is far from a golf glover but I think he is getting better.
Seems like our catches have been a little better. McCann seems to be making less passed balls. Both catchers have been throwing it well on steal attempts. But no amazing improvements here either. Modest improvements.
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The place where I think we have seen vast improvement is with the outfield defense. Canha has been good. Pretty solid. Nimrno has been good too. Not a lot of spectacular catches but he makes the plays and is getting the ball to the relay infielders well. Marte had a couple of mistakes early when he was first playing right field but seems to have settled in and has been improessve. Lots of range and it looks like he has a really good arm. Though it has rarely been tested. McNeil just might be our best outfielder in LF. And Jankowsli has range and a good arm and can play all 3 outfield positions.
Last year we played Dom Smith in LF a ton. He was okay but had limited range. JD was always an adventure in LF. Conforto was okay in RF but got run on a lot. We are a lot better now.