I see different numbers for
Hamilton vs.
Freel on zone rating. My numbers are from the Hardball Times stats pages:
Pos Inn PO A TE FE FPct DPS DPT BIZ Plays
RZR OOZ
Freel CF 444 136 3 2 0 0.986 0 0 125 103
0.824 33
Hamilton CF 385 115 5 0 2 0.984 4 0 113 101
0.894 14
DPS: Double Plays Started, in which the fielder typically gets only an assist.
BIZ: Balls in Zone, a fielding stat that represents the total number of balls that were batted into a fielder's zone while he was in the field.
OOZ: Out Of Zone, or the total number of outs made by a fielder on balls hit outside of his zone.
Zone: The areas on a ballfield in which at least 50% of batted balls are handled for outs. Zones are standardized and defined separately for each position.
Freel does get more balls out of his zone, but Hamilton has a higher percentage in the zone. Hamilton clearly has the stronger arm.
Then of course, there is hitting....
Hamilton: .279/.371/.543 for an OPS of .914 (14 HRs)
Freel: .245/.308/.347 for an OPS of .655 (3 HRs)
Overall, a good metric to use is 'win shares'. Invented by Bill James, Win Shares is a very complicated statistic that takes all the contributions a player makes toward his team’s wins and distills them into a single number that represents the number of wins contributed to the team.
Freel: fielding win shares; 1.4, batting 3.3
Hamilton: fielding win shares; 1.3, batting 8.0
Ryan Freel has played about 11 more games than Josh Hamilton at this point. So Hamilton has more win shares in less games....and the fielding is close to a wash.
Oh and on Jay Bruce...bring him up for a cup of coffee after the AAA season is finished. Let him get the butterflies out this year. After tonight, he is hitting .314/.378/.640 for an OPS of 1.018 with 7 HRs in 24 games.