I know what Jeff Kent's stats are, but am just not sure why he should be a no-doubt-about-it hall of famer. Surely, he was not so wonderful as to entertain no doubts. Also, I highly recommend Ms. Ryan's book, "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes." In fact, for the parents of girls with an athletic inclination, I insist on it.

Babies all tend to look like Winston Churchill in swaddling to me, but then I'm a heathen. With one notable exception, naturally.

If Kent played any other position besides second base (maybe C or SS as well) he would not be going to the hall. His numbers are nice but remember that Kent was brought up as a third baseman and was too much of a sissy to stay there.

As far as Rowand and Winn being better then Lewis (I threw up a little in my mouth by the way after reading that) I think anyone who is dumb enough to keep either of those two over Lewis should be fired (that would be you sabes). Lewis is like most Giants prospects in that he is slow to mature but the upside for Lewis is great, I see him as a Torri Hunter type player, 5 tool and a difference maker. I would rather see the giants lose 100 games next year with Lewis in the starting lineup every day then see them make the playoffs with him on the bench and Winn and Rowand in the outfield. As far as Winn and Rowand being solid major leaguers... how much crack did Jeff smoke before writing that article?

Rowand in my humble opinion is the worst defensive center fielder in baseball (no range, no arm, lots of heart and hustle but that doesn't equate to outs as he proved last year). He may have won a few gold gloves in the past but those days are far behind him, his range last year was awful, he dove for way too many balls that any other CF would have caught on the run. His throws from CF last season were laughable, I would love to see the numbers on how many attempts he made to throw out runners and how many assists he actually made.

Winn would be a nice compliment if we had two other studs in the outfield but at best he is a 4th outfielder on a good team. He isn't even a 2 hole hitter as most fans would claim, he belongs at the bottom of the lineup or the bench. If you don't agree with me then ask yourself why in the midst of his hot streak last season why the Giants still couldn't trade him for a pack a smokes.

I have to come to the defense of Jeff Fletcher here with regards to "Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn are both solid major leaguers who are likely to outperform Fred Lewis in 2009." It is closer perhaps then Jeff might be implying or thinking but the average of the offensive and defensive projection systems I have access to agree with Jeff.

Player-----------wOBA---wRC/625PA---RS/150---ValueRuns
FredLewis--------.336---------77.5-----------1------------78.5---
AaronRowand---.338---------78.6-----------7------------85.6---
RandyWinn-------.335---------77.0-----------7------------84.0---

wOBA is the average of 5 publicly available projection systems (BillJames, Chone, Marcel, ZIPS, and Oliver).

wRC/625 is the estimated Runs Created per 625 Plate Appearances calculated from wOBA.

RS/150 is the Runs Saved per 150 Games projected by the Defensive Projections from Chone.

ValueRuns is the sum of wRC/625 and RS/150.

From this I think it is pretty clear that the projection systems agree with Jeff Fletcher that "Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn are both solid major leaguers who are likely to outperform Fred Lewis in 2009."

I like Lewis quite a bit but he certainly does not have the others' track record of proven ML performance. Both Winn and Rowand have CAREER OPS+ ratings over 100 (102 and 104 respectively). As far as who will "outperform" whom is speculation, of course. I think Lewis will be our best OF, but that is a hunch (and hope) based on less than a full year (@ 105 OPS+) of ML play.

Kent was a marvelous player (esp. as a Giant), but if he had been a 1B or LF he would not be a BBWAA-HOF candidate. (That's moot at this point.) The BBWAA likes slugging and a slugging 2B will be hard to resist. Compare:

Ryne Sandberg .285/.344/.452 OPS+ 114 5.7 RC/G
Jeff Kent .290/.356/.500 OPS+ 123 6.2 RC/G

Isn't it assumed that Lewis is still improving, while Rowand has peaked and Winn is (ever so slightly) trending downward? I could be way off here, but I see these stats as showing the intersection of 3 curves; one going up, one pretty flat, and one starting down.

I have booed Kent so hard that I nearly hacked up a lung, but compared against other 2Bs of his era he is a definite HOFer. He was a dominant offensive player during his years wearing the orange, black, and cream. When he is inducted, though, Barry Bonds should give his induction speech, since Bonds is personally responsible for Kent's candidacy.