One angle covers speed, athleticism, glove, and arm strength. Basically, toolsiness.

The other angle is polish, intelligence, accuracy, and consistency. Basically, skill.

It’s the question of Derek Jeter vs Jason Bartlett. (Defensively only.)

Jeter can’t get to any balls in the field, doesn’t have a very strong arm, and has ever-decreasing speed. However, when he gets to a ball he always fields it cleanly and makes a good, accurate throw to first.

Bartlett gets to just about everything on the left side of the infield, can move equally well in both directions, makes strong throws (that sometimes miss their mark). He’s got all kinds of physical tools, but not the polish on this game.

Jeter’s defensive reputation is stunningly mixed, as is Bartlett’s.

The media considers Jeter to be a great defender, and Bartlett to be a poor defender. This opinion seems to be based on “number of Gold Gloves won” and “number of errors.” However, neither one of those has anything to do with actual defense or defensive ability.

The stats guys measure how far a player had to travel to get to a ball in play, how many balls in a player’s “zone” did he get to, how many plays he made that other people at his position DON’T make, and how many plays he failed to make that other people at his position MADE. Every statistical benchmark agrees that Jeter is the worst defensive SS in baseball, while Bartlett is among the best.

Ultimately, this is a question of tools. Not of polish, or of skill. It’s not even a question of whether or not Gomez is currently a plus defender — merely “does he have the physical talent to be a plus defender.” (That’s what “tools” are. Delmon Young has all kinds of tools, according to scouts. But until he actually demonstrates a LITTLE bit of those tools, I’m not going to run around touting them. Gomez has been demonstrating his tools from day one.)

So missing the cutoff man and making poor reads and bad decisions has nothing to do with tools. Those are things you can be taught.

Running down a line drive and making a fantastic diving catch that looked impossible the entire time the ball was in flight — that kind of talent cannot be learned.

“You can’t teach speed.”

That’s the basis of the Dayton Game. Tools. Not skills.

I’m nowhere close enough to the organization to know what they think about it, but there’s definitely some talent potential here.

I still don’t buy that Gomez is a all-star caliber defender, yet. Not to say that he doesn’t have the tools to develop that, but as it stands right now he isn’t. Poor reads and missed cut-off men (while the instances of those have gone down) burn a little to close to memory for me to put him at that level.

Something to think about is if all of these players develop to their potential how many 60 tools are we looking at in 2010? 12-15?

This game really only applies to the traditional “five tools” for position players, so pitchers don’t really count. If they did, the Twins would probably have some more on this list, what with all Nathan’s pitches, and the plus command for all their young starters. But they’re not part of the game.

And what about Nathan? I would say he’s a 60 closer!