No one could carry Sandberg's glove, but Carew was pretty damn close based upon fielding percentage (.985/.989), given the fact that Carew had nearly 7000 more fielding chances in his career than Sandberg (17,479/10,660 or 7.3 CPG/5.0 CPG), which suggests that Carew had greater range than Sandberg and therefore, more fielding oppurtunities. Pretty impressive for a guy who played most of his games on artifical turf where the ball moves much faster.
As far as hitting, Carew was a lead-off hitter. Lead-off hitters are supposed to get on base, and that he did with a vengence and a batting average 43 points higher than Sandberg. And despite being a lead-off "singles hitter/bunter with no power" Carew drove in nearly as many runs as Sandberg (1015/1061), hit 42 more doubles than Sandberg (445/403), smacked 36 more triples than Sandberg (112/76), had an OBP 49 points higher than Sandberg (.393/.344), and had a slugging percentage only .023 less than Sandberg (.429/.442).
No, it suggests that Carew was so weak defensively at second that they moved him to first, where he then had more fielding chances than at second. Carew actually played more games at 1b than at 2b.