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Who would you rather have? Gardner has slight better OBP , but McCutcheon makes up for it with considerable more pop? I've been playing ATG exclusively and the pricing for OBP seems insane - is it that rare a commodity in this set that a slap hitter with speed like Gardner is priced that high (6.97M)?

In CF it's not even close, McCutcheon is better in nearly every offensive way and he's can't get injured for more than 3 games whereas Gardner can get injured for 15. Maybe if you played in a a park with no BPHRs and you really needed a left handed leadoff/base stealer guy Gardner might be worth considering.

A lot of Gardner's value is that he is a 1 in left field, which is lost based on your question.

Gardy is way overpriced IMO - the 1 in LF doesn't justify that price - LF doesn't get enough chances for a 1 to make that great of an impact. Since I hardly play 200X games, the price kind of shocked me and thought I'd have a little input.

Thanks for confirming what I already suspected

I agree, certainly in CF he is overpriced for this set which has some real strong center fielders. That being said, here's what he is doing in one league I'm in:

Gardner, Brett I L LF 1(-2)e1 124 20 34 6 3 0 8 25 32 12 3 0 .274 .397 .371 1R 6.97M

No power, but nearly a .400 OPB and 12 for 15 in steals. He's playing in a complete pitcher's park (safeco), so I think his owner would be at least OK with his performance so far. He is 2nd in the league among outfielders in OBP. Looks like he's nursing 7 game injury, however. :)

As apolivka pointed out, Gardner is primarily priced for LF, and it is a slight waste of $$ to play him in CF, whereas McCutchen IS a CF.

Also, how many true leadoff hitters are there in this set with speed?

very very few, and Gardner is one of them.

and more importantly, given the 65-35 split of rightly pitchers to lefty pitchers, and Gardy does better against righties than MCC (MCC is a 2L hitter), then perhaps Gardy's value is better understood.

bottom line: there are very few true top of the order .400 OBP hitters with speed. Gardy is one of them.

Thanks for the inputys - I went with McCutcheon. OBP not as good, but the Slg% more than makes up for it.

its early, but I fell in love with Gardner preseason, and he absolutely sucks. 30-game in one league, low 220's b.a., 305 obp, and those numbers are way UP. he clearly hates me, and the worst part is, those were live draft leagues so he was a 3rd round pick! other league, he plays for someone else, but is dead last amongst qualifying leftfielders in ops.
at least he's no longer leading off so I get fewer two out innings, since he's been an automatic out...

please don't draft him anymore, Gardner sucks :P

Gardner, Brett L LF 1(-2)e1 209 44 57 6 2 1 11 39 54 15 4 1 .273 .387 .335