TOWER GROVE — In his illuminating and detailed look at the defensive difference between baseball’s two best free-agent bats, ESPN.com Jerry Crasnick opens with a combination of words that won’t be used again this winter: “Poor Matt Holliday.”

The St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Holliday and fellow free agent Jason Bay, last of the Boston Red Sox, are easily the two best impact bats available in this year’s marketplace. That has spurred a cottage industry for columnists: Who’s better? Bay v. Holliday. Holliday has the most luminous resume with a second-place MVP finish, a batting title, a postseason MVP and an overall reputation as a fit for almost any team’s cleanup spot. A knock on Holliday that (inexplicably) persists is that he’s a product of his first ballpark — Coors Field in Denver. Bay has more power and — yes, this counts — he’s done well in Boston where other quality players have faltered. The dings on him is his batting average, he’s slightly older and … defense.

Defense is a common skill used to differentiate the two.

Crasnick, in his article for ESPN.com, captures the debate through an explanation of how teams are trying to find the silver-bullet stat to judge defense:

The eye test, however, tends to complicate matters. Several baseball executives told ESPN.com that they consider both Bay and Holliday below-average defenders, and one American League GM described Holliday as “brutal” with a glove. A National League assistant said his team’s internal defensive metrics rank Holliday as superior to Bay, but that the team’s scouts actually prefer Bay to Holliday.

“If there’s some kind of discrepancy, you need to use your best judgment,” the assistant says. “If a scout says, ‘This guy stinks,’ but the numbers say he’s excellent, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.”

As Crasnick points out, Holliday scored well with some of the accepted defensive metrics: He was above average in Ultimate Zone Rating. (Holliday was a 5.7, distant to leader Carl Crawford, but better than Bay’s minus-13.0.) Holliday also did fine with Runs Saved in left field, scoring a 14, which was third behind only Crawford and Juan Rivera. They eye test is still the way to go, though it’s important the eye test comes with a caveat. The defensive play that is stuck in everyone’s eye when it comes to Holliday is him dropping a crucial out in the NL Division Series. It’s not fair to let that one play overwhelm or completely shape an opinion of his defense.

A few years ago, when the Cardinals coveted Bay — then a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates — one official acknowledged that his defense was subpar, but his offense and his fit with the club more than made up with that. As first reported in the Post-Dispatch by baseball writer Joe Strauss, the Cardinals don’t see Bay as an immediate alternative to Holliday this winter. It was subsequently explained to me that the Cardinals don’t see the commitment that Bay would command being in the best interest. An official explained to me that right now there are “better ways” for the Cardinals to dedicate what they have available.

Some other articles that compare Bay to Holliday:

• A detailed statistical look at the two hitters, also from ESPN.com, including a scan of how they do “when it matters most.”
• Stan McNeal, with The Sporting News, gives his tale-of-the-tape on the two top hitters available in the free-agent market. McNeal writes, simply, that Holliday is “bigger, stronger and younger.”
• Rotoprofessor takes a Fantasy Baseball-bend on the subject, but the discussion of performance is worth reading for its reflection of on-field production.
• Way back in September, Jon Heyman, of SI.com, tackled this topic with an interesting approach. Not the stats. Not the defense. He looked at the contract. Quoting unanimous sources from different positions in baseball, Heyman draws a line between Bay and Holliday by the contracts they are expected to command. One of his sources sees a seven-year, $147-million for both. Looks to me like Heyman’s estimates are closer to reality.

And also from this past weekend is an interesting read from New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden: The Mets remain an elusive presence in the Holliday derby, and Madden makes the point that he believes the club only “realistically” has $20 million to spend. He then tells you what that means for the Mets and their interest in any of the top free agents out there.

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