He has been declining offensively the past three years.
2002: .287/.370/.499
2003: .287/.363/.500
2004: .271/.333/.490
His walk rate also dropped for the third season from 11.3% in '02, to 9.8%, to 8.8% last year.
And Gold Gloves is one of the last things I would use to measure defense, among the Gold Glove winners from '04 are Jim Edmonds, a player whose range is pretty average and routinely jogs after fly balls to set up dramatic catches, Derek Jeter, who is widely regarded as having one of the worst ranges for a shortstop in baseball, and Bret Boone, who was below league average defensively for a second baseman in pretty much every statistical category this year.
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"When I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. When you fall down a manhole and die, that's a comedy." -- Mel Brooks
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