Nationals Arm Race

Andrelton Simmons was completely hosed in the GG awards in 2015. Photo via espn.go.com

Third year running for this post, looking at the announced winners of the Gold Gloves for 2015 and comparing them to the Fielding Bible winners for 2015 and the leaders of various defensive metrics available to us.  For a glossary of the metrics, see the end of the post.

Here’s 2014’s post and 2013’s post as well.

Here’s a Google XLS link to all of this data in one sheet.  Also available in the Links section to the right.

First off, here’s the announced winners of the 2015 Gold Glove awards (bold is a repeat winner from last year, red is a questionable selection)

There are a couple of other “repeat” winners in here (as in guys who have won awards previously, just not in 2014), namely Manny Machado and Paul Goldschmidt.

So, why are we calling Jose Altuve, Alcides Escobar, Yadier Molina and (especially) Brandon Crawford questionable selections?   Read on.  We’ll pass some judgement at the end.

Here’s the Fielding Bible winners for 2015: (bolded are repeat winners, green throughout are also GG winners)

So, Andrelton Simmons is a unanimous choice of a blue-ribbon panel yet doesn’t win the Gold Glove?  Likewise, Kinsler and Posey are selected but neither got the Gold Glove.  Simmons is probably the biggest mistake in the Gold Glove awards, but lets dig into the stats to see what happened.

Now lets start in with the defensive metrics.  First: UZR/150.

We see some consistency here with the players named in the Gold Gloves and/or the Fielding Bible awards.   7 of the 14 leaders here also won Gold Gloves, and 4 of the 10 leaders here won Fielding Bible awards.  You’re going to see the same outfield names over and over; that’s how dominant this selection of outfielders were this year.  Ian Kinsler represents one of the bigger snubs in the Gold Glove awards, as we’re about to see.

Here’s Defensive Runs Saved

These are definitely closer to the Gold Gloves.   10 of the 16 league leaders here also won GGs.  A note here; the Kiermaier DRS figure is apparently the highest ever recorded by a fielder in a single season.  Simmons’ 25 DRS dwarfed the field, as does his overall DRS figure over the last three years, more evidence that the GG award to Crawford was poor.

Here’s FRAA:

Just 8 of the 18 leaders in this stat also won Gold Gloves, and the presence especially of the Nats’ own Danny Espinosa really calls this stat into question.  How is Espinosa, a part time player, the league leader here in a year where there were several other good 2nd basemen?

Lastly, Total Zone

Its easy to see w here some of the finalists came from in the GG awards, since this is the only list that GG finalist Wilson Ramos appears on.  Its also the only place where GG winners Altuve and Crawford appear.  Just 6 of these 18 leaders also won GGs, meaning its the least accurate predictor of GG winners.  And one of the leaders in practically every other category (Heyward) is supplanted by the 40-yr old Suzuki in these stats.  Makes you wonder.

Conclusion:

It seems to me that the “statistical”component of the Gold Gloves is using the wrong stats (FRAA and/or TZ), and that it should be using DRS and UZR/150.  Even so, as noted elsewhere, the Gold Gloves are doing a much, much better job selecting the award winners on a whole, and the days of awarding them to the likes of Derek Jeter or Rafael Palmeiro seem long gone.

Glossary of these various stats and awards

• Gold Gloves: awarded annually (presented by Rawlings) and are a combination of Manager/Coach voting and a “statistical component.”  This component is provided by SABR and is now 25% of the voting.  I cannot find details on what comprises this statistical component, but based on the finalists announced I strongly believe it is related to the Total Zone fielding measurements.
• Fielding Bible Awards: Bill James-driven website that uses a committee of national writers to select the winners.  The site is here and you can read about their methodology and panel members.
• UZR: Ultimate Zone Rating, defined well here at fangraphs, attempts to be a comprehensive measure of how many batted balls are turned to outs for a particular fielder, then adjusted by errors, arm and other factors.  UZR/150 standardizes the counting stat UZR to an average across 150 games to allow apples-to-apples comparisons of players who play different numbers of games in a season.
• DRS; Defensive Runs Saved, defined well here at Fangraphs, focuses more on pure “runs saved” from all possible defensive plays that involve a fielder.  It seems to measure more things that UZR and sometimes disagrees with UZR.
• FRAA: Fielding Runs Above Average, defined here at Baseball Prospectus.  A measure that attempts to remove the bias present in zone-based data and also tries to factor in the tendencies of the pitcher on the mound (ground-ball guy, fly-ball guy, etc).
• Total Zone: defined here at Baseball-reference.com.  A different “total defense” measurement incorporating all the various defensive data available, including catcher data, zone fielding, errors, arm, etc.

Zack Greinke at the Royal's photo day 2010. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images North America

12/19/10 update: this article is essentially moot: Zack Greinke was dealt to Milwaukee along with infielder Yuniesky Betancourt for four players (outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress (who played HS ball in South Boston ironically enough).  I’m not familiar enough with the Milwaukee prospects to offer opinion one way or the other; here’s some opinions on the trade from FanGraphs, Ken Rosenthal, Jerry Crasnick, Joe Sheehan, and Keith Law.  Also from beat writers Kilgore and Zuckerman.

And, according to Jon Heyman via twitter, the Nats were close to a deal for Greinke in a deal that may or may not have included Storen and Espinosa.  Read more below.

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About 6 weeks ago the question of a possible Nat’s trade for Zack Greinke came up in a Keith Law chat (link is ESPN insider only) and the trade proposal was Zimmermann, Espinosa, Burgess and Detwiler.  I wrote about this theoretical deal at the time, saying it was too much to give up.

A glass-is-half empty analysis of these four players (which was apparently the opinion of Law, since he thought this would be a good deal for Washington) is something along the lines of the following: Zimmermann is promising pitcher but has yet to really produce consistently at the major league level.  Espinosa is also promising but is replaceable by our up-and-coming 2nd base prospects Lombardozzi and Kobernus.  Burgess has been solidly improving as he’s progressed through the system but he’s still the toolsy/high promise player that Jim Bowden adored but which has never really panned out.  Lastly Detwiler has shown flashes of dominance but lost pretty much the entirety of 2010 to injury and is getting pushed further and further down the rotation depth chart.

The glass-is-half full opinion of these four players is simple: they represent the bulk of our farm system’s player development over the past few  years.  These four players represent the absolute cream of our drafting crop over the past few  years; a #1, a supplemental #1, a #2 and a #3 round draft pick.

Now today, we are hearing the TRUE bounty that Greinke would cost, and it is similarly heavy.   Greinke has hired new agents and apparently demanded a trade.  He also has a limited clause in his contract that allows him to block trades to certain teams, and the Nats are on that list.  According to Buster Olney though, the Royals and Nats have been talking and he discovered the actual price it would take (another ESPN insider link): Zimmerman, Espinosa and new closer Drew Storen.  On 12/24/10, KLaw reported that the offer was Zimmermann, Storen, Norris.  Wow that would have been quite the bounty.

This trade option replaces the unknown players (Detwiler and Burgess) with the known quantity (Storen), and only seems slightly less palatable than the Law chat proposal.  Can the Nats possibly give up 3 of their planned “starting 14” players (the 8 out-field players, the 5 rotation guys and the closer) next year for Greinke?

Here’s my problem: Greinke had the makings of looking like an otherwise solid pitcher with a one-year wonder season that won him the Cy Young in 2009.  Is he really an “Ace” in this league?  His 2010 season was unremarkable (an ERA+ of exactly 100, meaning he performed at the mlb average), but now scouts are surmising that he was tired of his team going nowhere and he was “bored” most of the year.  But the fact remains there is no guarantee he returns to his 2009 performance.

If i’m Rizzo, I say no to this deal.

One last note about possibly overvaluing “prospects.”  Storen, Espinosa and Zimmermann are not prospects; they’ve graduated to becoming “promising young players.”  They have all made the majors, they’ve all competed at the highest levels and the Nats have a decent idea of what they can do.  Guys like Detwiler (because of his injury history) and players who have never reached the majors (Burgess as mentioned in this post) are the real “prospects” in question.  Teams and Fans overvalue prospects in a pseudo-parental relationship because they’ve watched the players grow up and grow.  But as Rosenthal pointed out (in the linked article above), prospects mostly flame out or don’t become major leaguers.  That’s the difference; teams MUST be willing to part with prospects to get real players.