Great hitters are abundant, great pitchers plentiful.
There's a rare bounty of great shortstops all over the major leagues, great outfielders aplenty when it comes to chasing down fly balls and diving catches and balletic leaps over the wall to steal home runs. You can count them on the fingers at the end of one arm. Ask baseball people the same question, however, and most will mention Kotsay. Over the past three seasons, nobody in the majors has anything even close to Kotsay's 53 assists. Atlanta's Jones and Boston's Dante Bichette trail with 42 each.