See copyright notice at the bottom of this page.
List of All Posters
Bruce, Lee, and the Goose
December 23, 2002 - Lenny
Why would make CF a grueling defensive position? There may have been a few excellent CFs (like Lynn) whose careers were shortened by injury, but I think every position has players like that (and I don't remember Murphy being injury prone).
Although I haven't studied it myself, CFs may well have shorter careers. But if that's true, my first hypothesis would be that its due to the fact that many CFs becone CFs due to their speed. When their speed starts to go, their defense declines and they need to justify their spot in the lineup more based on their offense - either by being able to move to LF, RF or 1B, or by being good enough offensively to carry their reduced glove in CF. This speed issue is not as significant for other defensive positions like SS and 2B (and especially C) so players at those positions can remain at a high level defensively even after their speed declines.
If that is the case, I cannot see using a lower standard for CFs than for other positions. While C and 2B (and maybe RP, although that hasn't been studied adequately) generaly have shorter careers due to the physical "gruelingness" of the positions, I think CFs have shorter careers (if they do) just because some of the players who get jobs as CFs early in their careers lack the skill set to remain effective once their speed starts to decline.
Copyright notice
Comments on this page were made by person(s) with the same handle, in various comments areas, following Tangotiger © material, on Baseball Primer. All content on this page remain the sole copyright of the author of those comments.
If you are the author, and you wish to have these comments removed from this site, please send me an email (tangotiger@yahoo.com), along with (1) the URL of this page, and (2) a statement that you are in fact the author of all comments on this page, and I will promptly remove them.