With Howard Washington of the Indians winning the Gold Glove, I had to ask how. I thought it was because the perennial winner Brett Kinney was injured. That was not the case. Kinney is the premier CF with 6 Gold Gloves and an average of 20+ plus plays per season at the position. So what happened? Al Mack happened! I can hear the boos from here already and a lot of head scratching to go with it. How did Al cause Brett up to 20 plus plays and another Gold Glove? Range Factor is the answer there. The previous LF in Kyle Forster had a range of 69 which allowed Brett free range in center the previous seasons with Pedro Amaral in right. Al only has a range of 55 which means the CF has to shade to left to cover the extra gap instead of playing straight away center. This little change that probably no one pays attention to can have some big ramifications, like the RF of Brett being only 2.60 instead of above 3.00. That means he had more ground to cover that apparently he couldn't.
The second question, did Al cause the Cubs to miss the playoffs? It is a good possibility, but his hitting should have made up for it, well maybe. His hitting was not as good as Kyle either but not bad.
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