"Reggie Abercrombie, Houston, .301 wOBA
Corey Patterson, Washington, .304 wOBA
Chris Duffy, Milwaukee, .313 wOBA
Jason Ellison, Philadelphia, .298 wOBA
Ryan Langerhans, Washington, .330 wOBA
Scott Podsednik, Colorado, .305 wOBA
So Taguchi, Chicago (NL), .291 wOBA
This group is -12 offensively, and considering they’re mostly above average defenders, we might have our first deviation from the norm. With a +2.5 position adjustment for CF, these guys would have to be something like -10 defenders in center field to be two wins below average. But there’s no way to make that argument - Patterson, Abercrombie, Duffy, Ellison - these guys are good defenders.
So, teams apparently value center fielders if they can hit well. But as soon as a CF, even as a plus defender, shows that he’s not a great hitter, he gets discarded.
It’s interesting, however, that we didn’t see this at SS or 2B. There’s not a glut of premium defensive middle infielders available for nothing. So, defense up the middle is valued a lot more for IF than OF? Sounds plausible."
I combined quotes from Dave Cameron's article and what he said in the comments.
