My vote for post of the week goes to "And that" on page 2. Great job! Let's play a little game. Let's combine Hall and Hardy's innings, putouts, total chances, attempts, erros and double plays at shortstop. Together they have combined for 1,349 innings at shortstop this year. Hardy has: played 64% of those innings committed 59% of the putouts had 61% of the total chances 60% of the assists committed 63% of the errors contributed to 64% of the double plays Basically he's played 2/3rds of the time and contributed 2/3rds of the counting stats, give or take a few percentage points. Do with this what you wish. You might want to argue Hall shows a slight edge. You might argue Hall has played 30% fewer innings at ss than Hardy, therefore they aren't as true a representation of his ability. Me, I think the percentages of his counting stats are within a reasonable range, less than 10% in each case, to his percentage of playing time. Using this sort of comparison there is no clear difference between the two defensively. While Hall has had a breakout season of sorts, surprising everyone with his quality play, I think Hardy has already shown himself the better offensively player. Given they appear about equal defensively, and it's Hardy's first season in the bigs, I'm inclined to peg Hardy as the one who should be given the starting ss job for Milwaukee next year, and the one who has the best shot at an All Star caliber career.