So I was having a catch with my son the other day and he tried to jump up and catch one a la Torii Hunter. He thinks Hunter is awesome - but probably only because of his “Spider-Man” nickname.
He missed: “Dad - what kind of glove does Hunter use? I need one of those.” Already he wants an upgrade from the Derek Jeter special I got him (there weren’t any Clint Barmes models.)
“I think he uses a Rawlings. You’ve already got a Rawlings.”
“Is that the best glove? Do they make more catches?”
I was about to say something poignant about great skills being more the player and not the leather … but I said, “Yep. That glove will help you catch anything.”
That got me to thinking. What are the fielding percentages by glove this season in MLB? Then I got beaned since I wasn’t paying attention.
When I came to … I remembered that baseballgloves.com had a list of players and their gloves. It’s not a complete list and there were some glitches (Sosa and Dunn were listed twice and there were a bunch of retired players) but after auditing the list and adding some players, I came up with a sample list of 199 players. And then I mined ESPN for some fielding stats. One pivot table later …
| Manufacturer | Players | Fld Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Akadema | 4 | .971 |
| Easton | 12 | .977 |
| Mizuno | 16 | .987 |
| Nike | 19 | .981 |
| Rawlings | 98 | .979 |
| SSK | 1 | 1.000 |
| TPX / Louisville Slugger | 19 | .985 |
| Wilson | 30 | .987 |
| Total | 199 | .981 |
I’m not surprised to see that Rawlings holds a 50% Market Share in the Major Leagues. But I was surprised to see that Wilson didn’t have a higher percentage of users.Â
By the way, I was right … Hunter uses a Rawlings. And my son caught the next 6 balls thrown at him. If you think you have a magic glove … you have a magic glove.
Stats through Monday 5/28.
Entries (RSS)
May 30th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Screw Torii Hunter (and Tori Spelling).
May 30th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
It’s not apparent in your photo of Torii, but there’s another from the same play that shows how his Rawlings glove has a golden Rawlings label indicating his Gold Glove status. Nice bit of research, Rich. Glad to hear the fielding aspirations in your home are so high.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Rawlings has great gloves and it’s not surprising that they have the biggest market share. However, like you I was surprised that a few others (Wilson and Mizuno namely) didn’t have more players using their brand of glove. The best glove I ever owned was a Mizuno and it wasn’t even close.