Beyond the Box Score assigns infielders around baseball a ranking for their defense. The rankings are based on zone rating, which measures the numbers of balls a defender gets to compared to the number of balls hit to his zone. Obviously, it's not a perfect metric. What's good about these rankings, though, is that they use numbers from zone rating to assign a number of runs above or below average that a fielder has created. These are kind of rough, of course, but at least the results for the Pirates' corner infielders are pretty much what we'd expect. Craig Wilson and Sean Casey are both ranked below average at first - Wilson is ranked 3.9 runs below average and Casey is 4.4 below average. The great Freddy Sanchez is solidly above average at third.
Jack Wilson and Jose Castillo are both ranked below average for their positions, but it's surprising just how far below - Wilson has been 6.1 runs worse than the average shortstop according to this metric, while Castillo has been the worst regular second baseman in baseball, fourteen runs below average.
Can Castillo really be this bad?