Hardy is good at defense

Fangraphs is ranking the top 5 defensive players during the past 3 years and so far they've done the bottom 3, which look like this -

5. Ryan Zimmerman
4. Omar Vizquel

And then JJ Hardy -

Hardy’s inclusion should not be too much of a surprise. Unlike the previous two profiles, Hardy does not have much in the ways of peaks or valleys in UZR. Instead, he is rather consistent with UZRs always in the level a tad more elevated than simply ‘above average’.

If you wanna get lost in the weeds, you can read up about how UZR is measured here. In short, it takes into account range, arm, double plays, and errors and the numbers are how many 'runs' above or below average he is.

I watched a bunch of Brewers' games with Jared this year and he hates JJ Hardy - thinks he's awful in the field as well as at the plate. I can understand the reaction because Hardy has a way of moving that makes it look like he's never truly going his hardest, but I was also aware that you don't have to be a Brewers' apologist to think Hardy was actually a very capable defender. This is important because his bat completely disappeared and his trade value needs to come from somewhere. Maybe he can get sent to Philly because he looks exactly like Mac from It's Always Sunny -



Also, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder both rank near the bottom of the league in defense over the past 3 seasons, hopefully Braun is only there because of his experiment at 3rd base, but he looks lost out in left often enough to make me hope he gets better.