Greetings, and welcome to a new season.

Cardinals fans are among the most intelligent in MLB.

That said, the disproportionate criticism of left fielder Chris Duncan is a little odd.

Is he a good left fielder? Well, according to John Dewan’s respected Fielding Bible plus-minus system, Duncan rates as slightly below average, but hardly qualifies as terrible. The same is true of the zone rating system used by STATS. Over the last two seasons, Duncan’s ZR of .854 ranks about 10th best on a list of regular LFs in the National League.  He isn’t great, obviously, but based on zone rating he’s gotten to more catchable fly balls than Pat Burrell, Jason Bay, Adam Dunn and Carlos Lee (among others).

Duncan isn’t smooth, but he generally snares the balls that he should get to. And left field isn’t a standard preserve of great defense. A lot of teams use left field as a holding area for big bats. It’s a way to get sluggers into the lineup. 

And Duncan qualifies.

Look…

Slugging percentage among LH batters, NL, over the last two seasons, minimum of 600 at-bats:

Ryan Howard, .623

Barry Bonds, .554 

Prince Fielder, .551

Luke Scott,  .547

Chase Utley, .545

Brad Hawpe, .527

Chris Duncan, .527

In onbase + slugging (OPS) Duncan ranks ninth among LH hitters over the last two seasons.

That’s pretty impressive.

No one is saying Duncan is Babe Ruth, and another minus is that he isn’t used against many LHP. But the Cardinals face mostly RHP, anyway.

Fact is, Duncan has been one of the top lefthanded hitting sluggers in the National League over the last two seasons. And despite the caterwauling to the contrary, the Cardinals don’t lose games because of his defense. And he’ll be paid about $500,000 this season.

That’s very good value.

–B