Julio Lugo Analysis - Defense

So the last post was obvious - Julio Lugo is an offensive upgrade over Alex Gonzalez. No shit - Bryon Bratt is an offensive upgrade over Alex Gonzalez.

The conventional wisdom defensively seems to be that Lugo is a significant step down defensively. Many of the articles I've read take the position that Lugo is just as quick and covers as much ground, but his "hands" aren't as good so he makes more errors.

Let's take a quick trip down inane stat lane and see how Lugo compares to Gonzalez over their careers in Fielding Percentage, Zone Rating and Range Factor. (click on the link for an explanation of the stat).

Player     FPCT    ZR    RF
Lugo       0.965   0.848 4.690
Gonzalez   0.970   0.843 4.510

From those numbers, it looks like Lugo actually covers slightly more ground, and the gap in their fielding percentages is negligible. Here are their stats using the Probabilistic Model of Range:

Player          ActOut  PredOut  DER    PredDER  Difference
Julio Lugo      253     241.59   0.120  0.115    0.00542
Alex Gonzalez   350     347.62   0.117  0.116    0.00080

Lugo is the better player under this metric, 6th in the majors vs. 17th for Gonzalez.
None of these metrics measure ability to turn the double play, however. That's a tough one to measure in numbers, since the second-baseman has a lot to do with that.