So the question is...
Is Jack willing to admit to himself that the value of one of his signature acquisitions is not what he (and, admittedly, most others) estimated it to be after 2009? It's one thing to dump Bavasi's guys. Gutti is Jack's guy. Funny how even the sharpest minds are often unable to reach conclusions that would imply they make mistakes too. Before we knew how bad the team would be offensively in 2010, Franklin was slotted as a MOTO hitter. Granted the alternatives were few. So was Jose Lopez.
'Twill be interesting to follow what happens here.

GREAT topic of threads.
My question is this -- do those top 7 speedsters ALSO have the top 7 (or near it) UZRs?
The danger here is the self-fulfilling prophecy: All great CFs have speed - therefore find ONLY the fastest guys, put them in CF.
(I continue to have a MAJOR problem with triples included in the speed scores, because triples are MOSTLY a product of hitting left-handed.
--------- RHB --- LHB
AB/2B - 19.08 - 19.55
AB/HR - 33.30 - 37.53
AB/3B - 275.21 - 162.89
Being lefthanded literally increases your odds of hitting a triple by 70%.
If and when I see (RHB = 3B * 1.7) in one of these formulas, then I'll be much more ready to accept it. And, of course, switch-hitters tend to get most of their ABs as lefties, but the split complicates their calculation tremendously.
You ask me - the "key" isn't speed, (though speed can MAKE UP FOR other problems), the key is "jump". How quickly is the CF off in relation to the bat, and how often is that initial jump incorrect?
Ideally, you want a CF with lightning jump AND sprinter speed. But, "what if", 2/3 (3/4? - 9/10?) of the speedsters being shoved into CF because of speed really don't have any feel for the ball off the bat?
Was Andruw REALLY done as a star CF at age 24? Because that's the year his triples and SB attempts plunged. Perhaps.

Take a highschool track star and an Olympian. Have the highscooler run a 100 meter dash face forward and take an olympic track star and have him look backwards while running.
The highschool track star smokes the olympian 10 times out of 10 under those circumstances.
I think Gut's greatest asset defensively is his ability to predict where the ball is going to fall, make a quick judgement, and run STAIGHT to the that spot with minimal ball tracking (hes a master of not looking at the ball as much as possible).
Making speed the only factor in defense is oversimplification IMO. Even Bill James argued that speed was overrated in defense (though very important). Skill and instincts are a large factor.
Andruw Jones could have an argument as being the best CF of all time and he was never one of the fastest guys in the league.

Using your SPD list, what were the UZR/150 for these guys?
Peter Bourjos, CF - 173 -- 44.7 (#1 - by non-qualifier)
Michael Bourn, CF - 171 -- 18.5 (#1 by wide margin)
Austin Jackson, CF - 160 -- 5.9 (#7 among qualifiers)
Dexter Fowler, CF - 152 -- (-3.7) (#14 among qualifiers)
Cameron Maybin, CF - 152 -- (-4.4)
Brett Gardner, CF/LF - 151 -- (27.9 - most as LF)
Ichiro, RF - 148 -- (14.8 - most of RF)
Gutierrez - ??? -- (6.8) - #4 among CFs
So, the top two guys on the list definitely seem to support the speed rules CF mindset.
But, the Yankees go with Granderson over Gardner in CF, screwing up the analysis slightly. But, then you get Maybin and Fowler with negative UZR/150 scores, mucking things up.
The data suggests the fastest CFs are the best CFs. BUT, it also suggests "something" other than speed has the ability to completely destroy defensive performance, despite track speed.
Ichiro, in Safeco, in 2007, for a full season, managed a 4.8 UZR/150. In his partial '06 and '08 seasons, he ran low double digits, (not even close to the Gutz 2009 outlier).
I'm no huge fan of UZR - but it's the best we've got at the moment, so if we KNOW that Ichiro is not only really fast (or was in 2007), AND we know he is a leader in reading ball off bat and running routes, (as his RF UZR figures indicate), then why didn't Ichiro produce a 'silly' number in his full 2007 season, if in fact, the Safeco Effect is inflating CF stats significantly?
As for "jump" -- I'll go back to my foundation principle of defensive ENGAGEMENT. Yes, "physically", every MLB CF has the capacity to get a good jump. But, over the course of 162 games, 35-40 batters per night, 4 pitches per batter, what percentage of time is each CF *really* paying attention?
Is he paying attention to the catcher position (in or away) and preparing to break appropriately when the pitcher goes into his windup? My best guess is that those speedy guys with bad UZRs are (on occasion), day dreaming about which restaurant they're heading to after the game - or contemplating new pickup lines for the the next Baseball Annie.
You ask me about Andruw? I'll suggest his defense didn't suffer because he lost a step or he put on weight. It suffered because in the midst of the steroid peak, he was spending more mental effort in CF contemplating his next AB than on the next pitch thrown to the guy at the plate.

for inattention = bad defense would be if you could split UZR into when in a blow out (up or down by 4+ runs) vs. in a tight or important ball game.
Of course UZR doesn't have these types of splits, and the samples would be so small in single years you would have to do it by 3 year clumps I would guess.  Matt, could you throw those types of splits into your defensive stat?
Also this in general could explain the difference between Guti 2009 (when we were still actually fighting for something late into the year) and 2010 (when we were basically out of it in mid April).  Maybe Guti lost than tiny imperceptible bit of edge that a contending (or near contending) team has.  This might also be an area where a superlative manager can improve his ball players, if he can give those players a external reason to have that edge without them having to generate it from the score of the game or the teams place in the standings.

When he came up with win shares though, I remember him saying that skill was as much of a factor as speed in defense. Speed is no doubt an extremely important variable.

I know that league BABIP rises a bit in the second half each season, (and I've suggested this is due to waning engagement by teams 'out of it').
another potential tell - (the "Andruw" tell) - would be, does UZR peak and/or drop in innings before/after a plate appearance.
One of the old saws of great defensive baseball plays is that a guy will make a great defensive play and then hit a HR the next half-inning.
Of course, before looking at individuals, you'd need to look at the masses. What's the variance of UZR (babip) based on game score and/or hit last half-inning vs. scheduled to hit in the first 3 hitters next half-inning.
We KNOW that success breeds success -- so, it is not uncommon for a player in a bad slump offensively to start making errors in the field, (regardless of position).
In 2010, the entire team went down in flames to one degree or another, (except Ichiro), so drawing conclusions (that aren't pre-conceived) gets problematic.

Doc, you may very well be right that speed is the most important factor in the outfield, but you are likely overstating its signifigance. There are several reasons why the behavior of major league clubs isn't as strong of evidence as it appears.
First, players aren't primarily selected for their defense but for their offense, and teams often wildly overrate the value of speed in putting runs on the board. Any fast player who can get the bat on the ball is tagged as a potential leadoff guy, and teams will often give such a player lots opportunities because they so badly want the guy to succeed. Slower players don't get nearly as much leeway unless they can really mash. (Also, if teams overrate the importance of speed on offense they probably overrate its value on defense as well).
Second, the fact that most burners play center doesn't mean that teams are "desperate" to put super fast guys there, but rather it's because it's the only place that makes sense. When I'm deciding where to play people on a softball team, the first thing I think about is who plays shortstop. That is the most difficult position because it requires the most variety of skills (quickness, reflexes, coordination, arm strength, accuracy, instincts, etc.). Speed is flat out not enough there. Outfield is a much easier place to play because you dont have to worry about ground balls and rarely have to make tough, quick throws. Add in the fact that lefties aren't even allowed to play the infield and it becomes clear that a huge reason speed pools in the outfield is because speedy players often don't have the skills to play elsewhere, not simply because they are in such hot demand.
Angles are fine, but it's silly to talk about them as making up the difference between a 10.2 100m and an 11.2 100m ... especially when the 10.2 guy is also a polished ML outfielder.

A big reason why you put so much emphasis on speed is because you are underrating just how big a difference in instincts between players there is. In past discussions you have argued that there are very small differences in this regard amongst major leaguers and therefor an underwhelming runner can't make up much ground on guys who are way faster than him. That's what you mean by "polished". This can't be true.
Take a look at the speed scores again. While there are a bunch of elite track guys in center, there are also quite a few full timers there who aren't anything special, guys like Jim Edmonds, Vernon Wells, Aaron Rowand and Josh Hamilton (and Gutierrez). Even Torii Hunter isn't real fast. So if there is a really big spread in speed among center fielders, and speed is the most important factor, then there should be a larger spread in instincts/rout-running among CF's. That's because the less important a skill is, the larger the variation there will be in that skill in the selected population (if something didn't matter at all, the variation between players could be totally random). The only exception would be if the unimportant trait happened to correlate closely with something that was important, but I don't think that is the case here. So in order for there to be a small difference between outfielders in terms of instincts (or at least smaller than the difference in speed), then instincts would have to be extremely important, in fact, the most important trait.
Last point. It needs to be remembered how little time outfielders have to catch most difficult hits. They usually have just a few seconds to run to the landing spot, and so a delay of even one second can be huge. Also, we can't really appreciate how much time is wasted by poor instincts because the plays happen so quick and because we aren't looking at the fielder when the ball is hit. If we could actually see how much range was lost by poor reactions and routes, I think we would be surprised.

I wrote up a similar post ti this one a couple days ago, but it looks like it was somehow deleted.
The last time the issue of Guti's defensive value vs other CFers came up I put out this question but I can't recall the conclusion.
Is there a way to look at Guti's UZR (or appropriate defensive stat) at home vs at an away park as a means to estimate the Safeco effect?  Or to look at opponent CFers in Safeco vs at their home parks?  If an opponent CFer's defensive value reliably goes up in Safeco it might give some rough idea of the magnitude of the Safeco effect.
Could it be useful to look at Guti's (and other CFer's) UZR splits between hitter's parks vs pitcher's parks?  It seems like there might be too many compounding variables to make definitive conclusions (eg defensive chances change if there is a flyball pitcher vs a GB or strikeout pitcher, or there might be more defensive chances in a hitter's park than in a pitcher's park), but there might be some interesting info.
 

here at the very bottom of the page for career, and links to individual years are up at the top of the page.  But for easy perusal here is a handy dandy table (Only shown is data as a CF):
 
          Home              Away
          UZR   UZR/150   UZR   Uzr/150
career  26.6  22.0      15.9  15.3
2010    4.4   7.2       2.6   5.6
2009    21.6  39.7      9.6   19.3
Following is as an Indian, and with a very limited Sample Size:
2008    1.2   35.3      .1    2.9
2007    -.01  -12.5     1.4   66.4
 

What does it all mean???  Who knows.  The sample sizes are quite small once you split things up too small, and he shows a home and away difference in 2008 as an Indian as well, so maybe he just sleeps better at home?  Or maybe Safeco makes every Tom, Dick, and Guti a superstud CF.

I wanted to see what happened with the rest of our good fielders.  Were Cammy and Winn also beneficiaries of Safeco?
Yeah.  Then the middle years get a bit awkward.
CF for the Mariners by UZR:
 
2010: 4.4 home, 2.6 away (Gutierrez)
 
2009: 21.6 home, 9.6 away (Gutierrez)
 
2008a: 0.5 home, 4.7 away (partial Ichiro)
 
2008b: 1.8 home, -0.8 away (partial Reed)
 
2007: 1.7 home, 3.3 away (Ichiro)
 
2006a: 3.8 home, -0.8 away (partial Ichiro)
 
2006b: -2.1 home, 0.1 away (partial Reed)
 
 2005: 9.7 home, 3.4 away (Reed)
 
2004: 6.8 home, -0.4 away (Randy Winn)
 
2003: 11.2 home, 8.4 away (Mike Cameron)
 
2002: 8.4 home, 3.3 away (Mike Cameron)
 
 Make of it what you will.
 
~G

If you were to take the UZR splilts by face value, on average CFielder's did 3.05 UZR better at home.
Even if you were to adjust for park, no one ever came even remotely close to Gut's 2009 defensive season.
Gut was even better in Cleveland overall on a rate basis and his '10 season was worth 15+ runs by any other system either than UZR. I think hes the best defensive CF in baseball.

It seems that there is probably is some Safeco effect then.  Is there data comparing visiting teams CFers in Safeco to their play elsewhere?  I'g guess that data would be hard to come by, but it might have a bigger aggegrate sample size.

It looks like on average CFs do about 3 UZR better at home on Safeco than on the road. It would be interesting to see visiting data.