Cap’n Derek wins 4th Gold Glove! (among other travesties)
I’m glad to see Mr. Jeter being rewarded for returning to performing as an above average defender at his position while rebounding with an outstanding offensive season. Everybody knows the best defense is a good offense, right? I’m sure that Elvis Andrus, Adam Everett, and Erick Aybar wish they could have the “intangibles” (read: ability to hit the ball) that would allow them to win this defensive award. And I’m glad that Franklin Gutierrez wasn’t recognized, because really, Ichiro was the most deserving Seattle outfielder. OR NOT. Ichiro is a solidly above average right-fielder and probably is deserving of the award, as he has won 8 times before (not necessarily saying that means he is deserving). What’s not up for debate is that Gutierrez was the best defensive OF in the American League (and all of MLB). Logically, he should win an award that supposedly is entirely independent of one’s offensive performance, especially when he plays a position that could, theoretically have three winners. I’m not sure which of the OF winners should be replaced, but I do know that Ichiro, Torii Hunter, and Adam Jones had better offensive seasons than Gutierrez. Is it any coincidence that two of Mike Cameron’s three Gold Glove seasons were also his two best OFFENSIVE seasons? Cameron is a great CF, but his recognition as such has been tied to his offensive performance. Gutierrez was no slouch with the bat this year, but his offense wasn’t quite good enough to win him a defensive award. Makes sense, right?
Every time I think that people are catching on to more advanced defensive metrics (I know, there’s still a lot of debate about their accuracy), something like this happens.
fivetoolwill
fivetoolmike
Take note – only one of the Gold Glove winners had an OPS+ below 100, and that was Polanco.
Take note: Jeter had 8 errors for the season, and .986 fielding … both lead the American League. Voted by coaches and managers only. Travesty? You lose credibility when your statistical passion is manifested in exaggeration.
I’m sorry, I am not drinking your Jeterade. I am not a Jeter-hater, and in fact mentioned that he is probably no longer the worst defensive shortstop in baseball. But, as counterintuitive as this sounds, if you’d like to talk to me about fielding goodness, you’ll have to use a different statistic than fielding percentage.
For your edification:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/an-aside-on-jeters-defense/
Thanks for reading
And, to clarify, the travesty of Jeter is not so much that he won this year; it’s that this is his 4th award.
Gold glove winners are rarely deserving – though this was probably as close to deserving as Jeter as ever been. Still – he shouldn’t have won. This was only the first time since UZR began being used that Jeter had a positive UZR (this goes back to 2002).
Matt – to speak directly to fielding percentage and errors, these are certainly the most oft-used defensive metrics, but they’re flawed in a number of ways. They essentially just tell you whether or not a play was made. They make no effort to explain the actual ability to get TO the ball (fielder’s range), or the quality of their arm. A great defensive player will get to a lot more balls then a sub-par one – but may make more errors as a result. Defender A may never have even gotten to the defender B made it to, but made an error on – so no error for defender A. Who’s the better defender? Errors are often given unfairly as well, in that it’s really on the official scorer to rule either way. To remain as objective as possible, I try to ignore them on the whole.
Defensive metrics are an imperfect science, though UZR is a pretty good one for now. You can read up more on FanGraph’s statistics of choice at the glossary here:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/glossary/
I accept your analysis and knowledge. I really do. But what I don’t understand id that if Jeter was was awarded this recognition by coaches and managers, guys that live and breath this game with heart, sweat, talent, and vocation, how can they be so off from your stats reasoning? Coaches and managers do not summarily dismiss the intangibles that statisticians tend to do (or at least summarily diminish). Grudgingly giving tacit acknowledgement to a future HOF and next entry into Monument Park seems a bit shallow.
What’s shallow are the ways in which the coaches and managers evaluate fielders. How they can be so off is that they’re too close to be objective; Jeter looks like a good fielder to them and he’s won before and he sure can do a lot of other things well, so he must be a good fielder, right? It’s irresponsible for managers and coaches to take an award that unfairly affects the legacy of players so lightly. Did you know that Rafael Palmeiro won the Gold Glove in 1999 while spending, wait for it, ONLY 28 GAMES IN THE FIELD? Raffy may well have been a good fielder at one point, but I am sure he was not the best defensive first baseman that year in those 129 games he played where he didn’t set foot in the field. I’m sorry, the Gold Glove is preposterous and there’s simply no reason that it should be that way now that we have better ways to judge fielders.
To speak to how coaches and managers can be so far off – I only wish I knew. There is a very clear difference between new school baseball analysis and old school – primarily in that old school analysis statistics are simply not employed. Old school baseball guys use their god-given senses and memories to do these evaluations. And yes, they live and breath baseball. They are also old, and their memories often fail them. 162 games is a lot of baseball to take in, and when not using statistics or even considering the advanced metrics now at our disposal – you end up with results like this.
The game has evolved, as have our ways to evaluate it – though we’ve yet to see mainstream “baseball guys” embrace that, which I think is sad.
As for Jeter – he gets more flack than deserved because of how often, and the ways in which he’s celebrated. He’s an absolutely phenomenal offensive baseball player, and will go to the Hall of Fame – deservedly so. That doesn’t change the fact that he was not the best shortstop in the American League in 2009.
Coaches are too close…
Fans make it a popularity contest…
Players are jealous…
Writers are biased…
Only stats can be the metric.
I think you should rent “Bang The Drum Slowly”, “Field Of Dreams”, “For The Love Of The Game”, and “The Natural”. All fictional stories, but capture the raw emotion, magic, and our own boyhood dreams of baseball. You have lost your romance.
I like “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams” (although if I’m going Kevin Costner baseball flicks, it’s “Bull Durham” for me); I’m really excited to see “Sugar” when it comes out on DVD (if it isn’t already out). I have not lost my romance; I like to see the good stories be recognized and have happy endings. Franklin Gutierrez was the best defensive CF out there and he wasn’t rewarded for it, so THAT is what kills my romance, not moderately advanced statistical analysis. As an fyi, even the fans voted Gutierrez as the best defensive CF: http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/index6.php?sortid=7&prim_fld_cd=8
Read the post that’s going up today, and you’ll see what I mean.
I really should have been more clear that Jeter was not the worst choice this year and I may have been lazy in not doing some more extensive research to see who the other qualified candidates were. Jeter was not a bad choice, as Joe Posnanski points out: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/11/10/this-years-gold-glove-ripoff/
Can we just agree that the Rawlings™ Gold Glove is not always the best measure for judging who were the best fielders by position?
Read my post later today that will hopefully explain how much of a mistake Franklin Gutierrez
Nice post. Makes me want to keep reading and responding each day. You will always drill deep into the numbers, while I will always search for the emotion. I like that.