I wonder how much these fan surveys will reflect the "Jeter effect", where fans vividly remember some tumbling, over-the-back throw to get a runner by a step, while a technically superior fielder would have made the same play look routine and thus less memorable.

It's really hard to judge some of the Mets.  I know Shawn Green is bad.  I know Carlos Beltran is good, but I'm not sure how good Jose Reyes really is in the field.

I wonder how much these fan surveys will reflect the "Jeter effect", where fans vividly remember some tumbling, over-the-back throw to get a runner by a step, while a technically superior fielder would have made the same play look routine and thus less memorable.

It's really hard to judge some of the Mets.  I know Shawn Green is bad.  I know Carlos Beltran is good, but I'm not sure how good Jose Reyes really is in the field.

As Tom said, these aren't new, so if you'd like to find out, you can see the previous years' voting at Tom's website.

Last years' best shortstops were Adam Everett and Yuniesky Betancort. Voters usually take it pretty seriously.

The goal isn't to be right, it's to provide your own impressions of the players you see on a regular basis. Your opinions will be balanced against all the other votes. So if you see the Mets' defense often, you should have some idea of a players' strengths and weaknesses via comparisons with visiting players.

Jeter has rated as an average SS pretty much every year.

The important thing that I'm doing is I'm forcing the evaluators to give me 7 discrete measures.  If I just said to give me an overall number, it might look different.  I believe that asking people for somethign specific makes it easier for the evaluator to respond without an overall bias.