Nationals Arm Race

(whoops, forgot to post this earlier this off-season)

Every year I have kept a spreadsheet with each year’s Gold Glove award winners and then shown how the leading advanced statistical measures listed out the best in the league.

Here’s the same post for past years: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013.

In 2019, for the first time in a while, I think the selectors really did an excellent job picking the Gold Glove winners in each league.  Of the 18 winners, I think 15 of them were spot-on, inarguable selections.  And the 3 that I quibbled with each still led in some statistical categories, or were selected by the blue-ribbon Bill James-led panel of fielding Bible winners.  So you’d be hard pressed to even argue that those three were troublesome selections.  There’s no Derek Jeter esque selection (he won the Gold Glove in 2005 posting a -27 DRS figure) and no Rafael Palmeiro esque selections (he won the GG in 1999 playing just 28 games in the field and DHing the rest).  I feel like the selection committee is really getting good at picking the best defenders in the league.

Here’s your 2019 GG winners:

Pos	AL GG Winner	NL GG Winner
C	Roberto Perez	JT Realmudo
1B	Matt Olson	Anthony Rizzo
2B	Yolmer Sanchez	Kolten Wong
SS	Francisco Lindor	Nick Ahmed
3B	Matt Chapman	Nolan Arenado
LF	Alex Gordon	David Peralta
CF	Kevin Kiermaier	Lorenzo Cain
RF	Mookie Betts	Cody Bellinger
P	Mike Leake	Zack Greinke

I had quibbles with the following players (along with counter arguments):

• Nick Ahmed: did not lead the NL in Fangraphs all-encompassing Defensive Statistical measure (Paul deJong), nor UZR/150 (Miguel Rojas), but was the top SS in DRS and in Baseball-Reference’s Total Zone.  Ahmed was given the Fielding Bible award though (as we’ll see in a moment) but missed out on the Wilson defensive POTY award to Andrelton Simmons (which seemed to be a reputation award).
• David Peralta: This is a very slight quibble; Peralta missed out on officially qualifying for some of the Fangraphs lists by virtue of missing a bunch of time; otherwise he’d have gotten a clean sweep of statistical and named awards.  Marcell Ozuna was pretty much #2 across the board in all statistical categories.
• Lorenzo Cain: Cain wasn’t the leader in a single statistical category, but was the Fielding Bible and Wilson POTY.  Harrison Bader was the CF leader in both Fangraphs total Defense and UZR/150, while our own Victor Robles ended up leading the qualified DRS candidates in the NL.

Lets look at other fielding awards for 2019:

Fielding Bible

Pos	Fielding Bible Winner
C	Roberto Perez
1B	Matt Olsen
2B	Kolten Wong
SS	Nick Ahmed
3B	Matt Chapman
LF	David Peralta
CF	Lorenzo Cain
RF	Cody Bellinger
P	Zack Greinke
Util	Cody Bellinger

Every Fielding Bible recipient in 2019 also matched a Gold Glove winner; a first that I can remember.

Wilson Defensive POTY

Pos	Wilson Defensive POTY
C	Roberto Perez
1B	Freddie Freeman
2B	Kolten Wong
SS	Andrelton Simmons
3B	Matt Chapman
LF	David Peralta
CF	Lorenzo Cain
RF	Aaron Judge
P	Zack Greinke

Simmons seems like (as i said above) an award based on his reputation for years being the best defender in the league.  He’s not that anymore.  I’m not sure where the Freddie Freeman award came from; he did not lead any defensive measures in 2019.  The Aaron Judge award wasn’t too egregious; he led DRS in the AL, one of two primary defensive stats I like.

Fangraphs DEF stat (for a definition see here: https://library.fangraphs.com/defense/def/); it’s basically a combo state that tries to equate all players into one stat using positional adjustments.

Pos	AL Fangraphs Stat Avg (Def)	NL Fangraphs Stat Avg (Def)
C	Christian Vazquez	JT Realmudo
1B	Matt Olson	Anthony Rizzo
2B	Yolmer Sanchez	Kolten Wong
SS	Marcus Siemen	Paul DeJong
3B	Matt Chapman	Nolan Arenado
LF	Alex Gordon	Marcell Ozuna
CF	Kevin Kiermaier	Harrison Bader
RF	Mookie Betts	Cody Bellinger
P	n/a	n/a

So, 11 of the 16 GG winners are here, for about 70% match rate.  That’s not too bad.  A couple of the deltas we’ve already discussed (Ozuna and Bader).  Both SS figures resulted in different leaders here versus the GG winners, oddly.  But for the most part, this state predicted the GGs well.

Ultimate Zone Rating averaged over 150 games (UZR/150):

Pos	AL UZR/150	NL UZR/150
C	n/a	n/a
1B	Matt Olson	Anthony Rizzo
2B	Yolmer Sanchez	Kolten Wong
SS	Francisco Lindor	Miguel Rojas
3B	Matt Chapman	Nolan Arenado
LF	Alex Gordon	Marcell Ozuna
CF	Kevin Kiermaier	Harrison Bader
RF	Mookie Betts	Cody Bellinger
P	n/a	n/a

This is one of my two go-to defensive stats; it does suffer from Short Sample Sizes so you really need a full season, but the range factor it measures does seem to tell a good story about how much ground the defender covers.  Its interesting to go through and look at certain players UZR/150 machinations; when Mike Trout and Bryce Harper were hurt, their UZRs plummeted accordingly.

In 2019, 11 of the 14 GG winners also led their leagues in UZR/150, a great showing.  Two of the three outliers are guys we’ve already talked about (Ozuna, Bader).

Defensive Runs Saved (DRS)

Pos	AL DRS	NL DRS
C	Roberto Perez	JT Realmudo
1B	Matt Olson	Christian Walker
2B	Yolmer Sanchez	Kolten Wong
SS	Willy Adames	Nick Ahmed
3B	Matt Chapman	Josh Donaldson
LF	Michael Brantley	David Peralta
CF	Kevin Kiermaier	Victor Robles
RF	Aaron Judge	Cody Bellinger
P	Zack Greinke	Max Fried

this figure is often the go-to stat for people: I like using it in conjunction with UZR to tell a more complete picture.  DRS is context-sensitive; if you (for example) reach over the fence to save a grand slam … you get 4 defensive runs saved added to your total for the year (as opposed to the fact that you just made one out, albeit a tough one).  Its an accumulator stat … but its also worth noting that a player can accumulate a lot (or cost his team a lot) in a short amount of time.  So often times the DRS leaders don’t technically “qualify” by ABs or percentage of games played like other stats show.

DRS leaders include our own Robles, Josh Donaldson, Judge (in the only stat he led), and have some random players not present on any other stat.  So its kind of hard to depend on this stat for the purposes of saying, “So and so was the best defender at his position this year.”

Baseball-Reference total Zone

Pos	AL Total Zone rTOT	NL Total Zone rTOT
C	Roberto Perez	JT Realmudo
1B	Yuli Gurriel	Christian Walker
2B	Yolmer Sanchez	Kolten Wong
SS	Willy Adames	Nick Ahmed
3B	Matt Chapman	Nolan Arenado
LF	Robbie Grossman	David Peralta
CF	Mallex Smith	Manuel Margot
RF	Aaron Judge	Austin Slater
P	n/a	n/a

This is B-R’s equivalent to Fangraphs total Defense stat … and its always had issues.  I’m not sure why.  but for 2019, in only was in line with the GG winers half the time, and was the only stat that had a number of players listed as the leader.  Its the least dependable advanced defensive stat of those listed here.

Baseball Prospectus FRAA: I gave up on it this year b/c BP has gone to a subscriber model, and you have to be a subscriber in order to get sortable stats on their page.

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So that’s it.  Not sure if there’s much interest in this stuff but its something I track every eyar so I thought i’d post it.

(Note: this is the 2017 version of the “Gold Glove Awards versus Defensive Metrics Review” recurring post that I do each year, even if I havn’t titled it as such thanks to the tie-in to our players).

In Keith Law‘s chat yesterday, someone asked him about his reaction to Gold Glove awards being announced and he said something along the lines of “I have no more Fs to give.”

(btw: someone named “Wally” asked a Nats question at the very beginning … same as our own Wally?)

Anyway, its not hard to understand Law’s stance on the awards: they’re often given more based on reputation than accomplishment on the field, they’re often tied to a player’s offense (inexplicably, since its a defensive award), and we’ve had more than a few ridiculous awards in years past (see Derek Jeter in his waning SS years, or the year Rafael Palmeiro got one for “playing” 1B when he mostly DH’d).

However; the voting has gotten much better the past few years; last year there wasn’t a single Gold Glove award that I thought was “fishy.”  Every guy who got an award last year was a deserving winner and you could make a compelling argument for them.

Not this year.

Here’s your 2017 Gold Glove award winners:

Pos	AL GG Winner	NL GG Winner
C	Martin Maldonado	Tucker Barnhart
1B	Eric Hosmer	Paul Goldschmidt
2B	Brian Dozier	D.J. LeMahieu
SS	Andrelton Simmons	Brandon Crawford
3B	Evan Longoria	Nolan Arenado
LF	Alex Gordon	Marcell Ozuna
CF	Byron Buxton	Ender Inciarte
RF	Mookie Betts	Jason Heyward
P	Marcus Stroman	Zack Greinke

In my estimation,  more than 50% of these awards went to the wrong player this year.  Here’s the guys who I had a problem with:

• Hosmer was actively BAD in the field this year, posting negative range factor and negative DRS figures.  Meanwhile Joe Mauer led several defensive metrics for his position.
• Goldschmidt was a deserving winner, but Votto rated better than him across the board in nearly every defensive metric.
• Dozier was behind Kinsler in most every defensive metric as well.
• Longoria was only a slightly bad choice; clearly Todd Frazier was the better AL 3B in totality.  I wonder if his mid-season trade hurt him in this regard.
• As we have discussed, Rendon rated 2nd in all of baseball in Fangraphs’ total defense figure, but lost out on reputation to the multi-time award winner Arenado (who did lead the league in DRS fwiw)
• Ozuna also led NL left fielders in DRS … while Adam Duvall led in most every other stat category.
• Our own Michael Taylor nearly had a clean sweep of NL statistical leads … yet lost out to Inciarte on reputation.
• Heyward wasn’t a “bad” pick … but Yasiel Puig outshined him in the statistical category over and over.
• Both Pitchers (not that its that easy to pick them) seemed rather indefensible versus the same two names that kept popping up on leader boards: Dallas Keuchel and R.A. Dickey.

Here’s some quick tables showing all the leading defensive metrics by position for reference:

Fielding Bible 2017:

Pos	Fielding Bible Winner
C	Martin Maldonado
1B	Paul Goldschmidt
2B	D.J. LeMahieu
SS	Andrelton Simmons
3B	Nolan Arenado
LF	Brett Gardner
CF	Byron Buxton
RF	Mookie Betts
	Dallas Keuchel
Util	Javier Baez

7 of the 9  non-utility Fielding Bible winners also got Gold Gloves.  They gave the P to Keuchel as I thought the gold glove should have gone, and they gave LF to Brett Gardner over Alex Gordon in what was probably a toss-up.  But otherwise well done here.

Fangraphs Total Defense 2017:

Pos	AL Fangraphs Stat Avg (Def)	NL Fangraphs Stat Avg (Def)
C	Martin Maldonado	Tucker Barnhart
1B	Joe Mauer	Joey Votto
2B	Ian Kinsler	Dee Gordon
SS	Andrelton Simmons	Brandon Crawford
3B	Todd Frazier	Anthony Rendon
LF	Alex Gordon	Adam Duvall
CF	Byron Buxton	Michael Taylor
RF	Mookie Betts	Yasiel Puig
P	n/a	n/a

This is the stat that shows that Rendon is the 2nd best defensive player in the game, by the way.   And that Taylor was the best CF in the National League, barely trailing Byron Buxton by a tenth of a point.

Just 7 of the 16 GG winners were leaders by this metric, which is either an indictment of the metric or the gold glove selections this year.  In case you couldn’t tell, you can guess which picks I trust more.

UZR/150 for 2017:

Pos	AL UZR/150	NL UZR/150
C	n/a	n/a
1B	Joe Mauer	Joey Votto
2B	Ian Kinsler	Dee Gordon
SS	Andrelton Simmons	Brandon Crawford
3B	Todd Frazier	Anthony Rendon
LF	Alex Gordon	Adam Duvall
CF	Byron Buxton	Michael Taylor
RF	Mookie Betts	Yasiel Puig
P	n/a	n/a

I like UZR/150; it is the defensive stat I most frequently mention because it is mostly about a player’s range.  Generally speaking everyone can hit a ball hit right to them; i want a guy who can make plays out of their “zone.”   UZR/150 this year predicted just 5 of the 14 GG winners … but in my estimation identified fully 13 of the 14 most deserving winners.  So perhaps my bias shows through here.

DRS for 2017:

Pos	AL DRS	NL DRS
C	Martin Maldonado	Tucker Barnhart
1B	Carlos Santana	Joey Votto
2B	Ian Kinsler	D.J. LeMahieu
SS	Andrelton Simmons	Trevor Story
3B	Evan Longoria	Nolan Arenado
LF	Brett Gardner	Marcell Ozuna
CF	Byron Buxton	Michael Taylor
RF	Mookie Betts	Yasiel Puig
P	Alex Cobb	R.A. Dickey

DRS did the best job of predicting Gold Glove winners, and predicted 15 of the 18 guys who I “thougth” should have won.

FRAA for 2017:

Pos	AL FRAA	NL FRAA
C	Martin Maldonado	Austin Hedges
1B	Matt Olsen	Anthony Rizzo
2B	Brian Dozier	D.J. LeMahieu
SS	Andrelton Simmons	Odubel Herrera
3B	Matt Chapman	David Freese
LF	Brett Gardner	Starling Marte
CF	Byron Buxton	Michael Taylor
RF	Mookie Betts	Jason Heyward
P	Dallas Keuchel	R.A. Dickey

FRAA is Baseball Prospectus’ Fielding Runs Above Average metric and was the worst performing predictor of both actual GG awards and those that I thought should have won.  Furthermore it spit out some truly random names (David Freese as leading NL 3B??).  So i’d probably put it as the least reliable defensive metric right now.

Total Zone for 2017

Pos	AL Total Zone rTOT	NL Total Zone rTOT
C	Martin Maldonado	Tucker Barnhart
1B	Carlos Santana	Paul Goldschmidt
2B	Jose Altuve	D.J. LeMahieu
SS	Elvis Andrus	Orlando Arcia
3B	Adrian Beltre	Anthony Rendon
LF	Alex Gordon	Brandon Nimmo
CF	Byron Buxton	Manuel Margot
RF	Mookie Betts	Jason Heyward
P	n/a	n/a

Technically “Total Zone Total Fielding runs above average” or the “rTOT” Baseball-reference.com stat.   It did a decent job predicting the GGs (50%) but also spit out some really random names (Elvis Andrus over Andrelton Simmons??) that make it a bit squirrelly to trust.

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So, another year passes of Gold Gloves.  None of these defensive metrics are infallible, which is kind of why the three major flavors of WAR often disagree on positional players (each uses a different one of these defensive stats to measure value).  But looking across the landscape of the measurements it isn’t hard to see trends and patterns for who was the most deserving at each position.

 

 

I saw a little throw-away post at USAtoday.com before the start of the 2016 baseball season: there were no less than 23 Cuban-born players on MLB rosters on 2016 opening day.  And even more defected or were signed in the 2016 calendar year.

How awesome is that?  I think its great that we have a huge contingent of Cubans playing in the league again and I wish that a generation hadn’t been lost due to politics.  A good percentage of the teams in the majors now have at least one Cuban on their 40-man roster somewhere, and many have multiple IFA Cuban signees scattered in their lower minors.  Not the Nats though; we got kinda burned by Yunesky Maya and then blew our IFA budget last year on some D.R. players; perhaps they’ll go after some of the rising talent next July 2 window.

I’ve long hoped for a unification of the Cuban National team to compete in the WBC; I think they’d take so much pride in their team it would really add to the event.  However it looks as if the Cuban government will continue to hold a grudge and prevent any defectors from representing their country in the 2017 WBC.  The WBC rosters were announced recently, and we’ll see some of these names in the analysis below for reasons that will become apparent soon.

So, since we won’t get a full-strength Cuban WBC team, I thought I’d take a stab at what could have been.   I did a similar post in March of 2013 but with all the recent defections the roster looks much improved.

 

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Manager: Fredi Gonzalez of the Atlanta Braves.  The only Cuban-born hall of Famer Tony Perez can be the bench coach.  They can bring out the likes of Tony Oliva and Camilo Pascual to be his assistants; they’re the most decorated Cuban ex-pros still living.

Pitching Coaches: Livan Hernandez and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez: the brothers re-unite to teach the staff how to throw junk balls and make starts despite being hooked on Marlboro Reds.

Hitting Coaches:  Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro.  These two can double as “Strength coaches.”  🙂

Positional Players:

• C: Yasmani Grandal, starting catcher for the Dodgers, 2015 All-Star.
• 1B: Jose Abreu, 91 homers in his first three years in the MLB, Rookie of the Year in 2014, when he also made the All-Star team and won the Silver Slugger.
• 2B: Aledmys Diaz: debut in 2016 and made the All-Star team; prodution fell off so he “only” finished 5th in 2016 Rookie of the Year voting.
• 3B: Adonis Garcia: a solid bat for Atlanta at the corner despite debuting at age 30.
  
• SS: Jose Iglesias: 2015 All-Star for Detroit after finishing 2nd in RoY voting in 2013.
• LF:  Jorge Soler: Flipped to Kansas City this off-season, escaping a log-jam in Chicago.  Huge power, yet to reach his potential.
  
• CF: Yoenis Cespedes: just signed the largest contract of the off-season; not really a CF but played there nonetheless.  2-time All-Star and Home Run derby winner 
• RF: Yasiel Puig: despite his demotion in 2016 has the potential to be one of the elite players in the game, which he in-arguably was his first two years in the league.  2015 all-Star.
  

That’s a pretty solid starting lineup; 6 of the 8 players here have already made a MLB all-star team.  Lots of power; you’d probably have a slugger like Soler batting 7th.  I think you line these guys up Iglesias, Diaz, Pug, Cespedes, Abreu, Grandal, Soler, Garcia, Pitcher.

Reserves:

• Catcher: Brayan Peña
• Corner Inf/PH: Yonder Alonso , Kendrys Morales, Yulieski Gurriel, Yoan Moncada
• Middle Infield: Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria,  Alexei Ramirez,  Alex Guerrero
• OF: Rusney Castillo, Hector Olivera, Yasmany Tomas, Leonys Martin, Alfredo Despaigne, Yoelkys Céspedes, Victor Mesa

The reserves include a number of solid veteran guys like Alonso and Morales, middle infield cover from the likes of  Hechavarria and Ramires, and plenty of OF coverage from players like Tomas and Olivera.  And one of the top prospects in all of baseball (Yoan Moncada, the centerpiece of the Chris Sale trade this past off-season) can’t even crack this lineup; he may be your starting 3B before long.  Perhaps Gurriel, a decade-long star in the Cuban series, should be starting at third over Garcia; we’ll see how he fares once he gets more time in Houston.  Despaigne is the biggest player on this list who still hasn’t come to the MLB: he opted to take up the Cuban government’s relaxing of rules and has been playing in Japan recently.  Yoelkys Cespedes is indeed Yoenis’ younger brother and is getting some attention for his abilities already.

Starting Pitchers

• Oridismar Despaigne: he’s been knocked to the bullpen in the Majors, but someone has to start for the Cuban team.  Career 4.89 ERA.
• Raisel Iglesias: posted a 2.53 ERA in 2016 as he transitioned from the rotation to closer.  He’s gotta start for this team though.
• Roenis Elias: 4th starter for Seattle in 2014-15, struggled/got hurt for Boston in 2016.
• Ariel Miranda : 10 starts for Seattle last year with a 3.54 era; he may not make their rotation in 2017 but he’ll get time.

So, we’re a little light on starters.  We may be reaching out to some domestic-based pitchers.  Starter Lazaro Blanco just pitched two masterpieces in the Caribbean Series, shutting out the Dominican Republic team for 6 innings then giving up just one run in seven innings in the semis against Mexico.  Their #2 and #3 starters (Vladimir Banos and Vladimir Garcia) weren’t half bad either.  Freddy Alvarez got pummeled in his only series start but is on the WBC roster as a returning veteran and should see time.  Perhaps we should also look at promising 18-yr old Cuban prospect Osvaldo Hernandez, who was just declared a FA and may sign a multi-million dollar deal soon.

Relievers

• Aroldis Chapman (2009 WBC team member): the most dominant reliever in the game, 4-time All-star
• Dalier Hinojosa: setup guy with Philly, decent numbers, like a 6th/7th inning guy.
• Raudel Lazo: lefty reliever with Miami’s farm system; closed for their AAA squad and posted a 1.78 ERA in 2016 in New Orleans.
• Yaisel Sierra: struggled in AA for the Dodgers, demoted to bullpen.
• Armando Rivero, RP for Atlanta
• Yadier Alvarez: LA’s #1 remaining prospect; only in high-A but well regarded.

Past Chapman and Hinojosa, there’s not much depth here either, so again we dip into the domestic-based players.  Cuba depended on three late-innings relievers in the Caribbean series: Livan Moinelo, Miguel Lahera and Jose Garcia.  All three are named to the official WBC roster.

 

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In summary, the Consoildated all-Cuban team can bash the heck out of the ball … but will struggle on the mound until the 8th or 9th inning when Chapman can take over.  But it’d be a fun team to watch play!

Did I miss anyone?  Maybe; its impossible to keep track of the dozens of Cuban signings done over the last couple of years.  Pipe up if you see someone mising.

Some references used to make this:

• Here’s a direct link to all Cuban-born players in baseball-reference.com.
• 2016 July 2 International signing list
• Here’s the 2017 Cuban Caribbean Series Roster, which may look rather similar to the WBC roster.
• Cuba’s official 2017 WBC roster
• Ben Badler’s top 10 Cuban prospects circa 2015

And Peter Gammons just posted his own version of this the day before I published (but weeks after I wrote this).  Compare and contrast his team; i did not cross check to see if I missed anyone.

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)

Pos	AL GG Winner	NL GG Winner
C	Salvator Perez, KC	Yadier Molina, Stl
1B	Eric Hosmer, KC	Paul Goldschmidt, Ari
2B	Jose Altuve, Hou	Dee Gordon, Mia
SS	Alcides Escobar, KC	Brandon Crawford, SF
3B	Manny Machado, Bal	Nolan Arenado, Col
LF	Yoenis Cespedes, Det/NYM	Starling Marte, Pit
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB	A.J. Pollack, Ari
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA	Jason Heyward, Stl
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU	Zack Greinke, LAD

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.

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

Pos	Fielding Bible Winner
C	Buster Posey, SF
1B	Paul Goldschmidt, Ari (2nd award)
2B	Ian Kinsler, Det
SS	Andrelton Simmons, ATL (repeat, unanimous)
3B	Nolan Arenado, Col
LF	Starling Marte, Pit
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (unanimous)
RF	Jason Heyward, Stl (repeat, Unanimous)
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU (repeat)
Util	Ender Inciarte, KC

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.

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

Pos	AL UZR/150	NL UZR/150
C	n/a	n/a
1B	Mitch Moreland, Tex (6.4)	Brandon Belt, SF (10.7)
2B	Ian Kinsler, Det (6.7)	Dee Gordon, Mia (6.0)
SS	J.J. Hardy, Bal (10.1)	Adeiny Hechavarria, Mia (17.7)
3B	Adrian Beltre, Tex (13.0)	Matt Duffy, SF (12.7)
LF	Yoenis Cespedes (22.2)	Starling Marte, Pit (12.1)
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (42)	A.J. Pollack, Ari (14)
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA (12.1)	Jason Heyward, Stl (22.3)
P	n/a	n/a

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.

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Here’s Defensive Runs Saved

Pos	AL DRS	NL DRS
C
1B	Adam Lind, Mil (5)	Paul Goldschmidt, Ari (18)
2B	Ian Kinsler, Det (19)	Dee Gordon, Mia (13)
SS	Didi Gregorius (5)	Andrelton Simmons, ATL (25)
3B	Adrian Beltre, Tex (18)	Nolan Arenado, Col (18)
LF	Yoenis Cespedes (15)	Starling Marte, Pit (24)
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (40.7)	Billy Hamilton, Cin (18.8)
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA (6)	Jason Heyward, Stl (22)
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU (13)	Zack Greinke, LAD (9)

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.

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Here’s FRAA:

Pos	AL FRAA	NL FRAA
C	Francisco Cervelli, NYY (11.7)	Yasmani Grandal (20.9)
1B	Mark Canha, Oak (5.8)	Paul Goldschmidt, Ari (13.0)
2B	Roughned Odor, Tex (5.0)	Danny Espinosa (10.7)
SS	Elvis Andrus, Tex (10.3)	Jean Segura (10.3)
3B	Manny Machado, Bal (20.3)	Nolan Arenado, Col (20.6)
LF	Kevin Pillar, Tor (14.3)	Yoenis Cespedes (5.2)
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (24.6)	Ender Inciarte, Ari (5.9)
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA (9.5)	Jason Heyward, Stl (11.4)
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU (10.4)	Jake Arrieta, Chc (7.4)

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?

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Lastly, Total Zone

Pos	AL Total Zone Total Fielding	NL Total Zone Total Fielding
C	James McCann, Cle (11)	Wilson Ramos, Was (11)
1B	Mike Napoli (10)	Adrian Gonzalez, LAD (16)
2B	Jose Altuve, Hou (13)	Neil Walker, Pit (7)
SS	Francisco Lindor, Cle (14)	Brandon Crawford, SF (19)
3B	Evan Longoria, TB (14)	Jake Lamb, Ari (10)
LF	Yoenis Cespedes, Det (11)	Christian Yelich, Mia (12)
CF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (24)	A.J. Pollack, Ari (20)
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA (17)	Ichiro Suzuki, Mia (14)
P

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.

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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.

Last year, I created a little spreadsheet upon the announcement of the Gold Glove winners, to see how they compared to various defensive metric leaders (2013 xls link here).  And I threw in the “Fielding Bible” award winners, since that has now taken over as the “accepted” list of the year’s best defensive players, thanks to the Gold Gloves continuing to pick inexplicable players (this  year’s repeat “I cannot believe he won” player again being Adam Jones).  But, as we’ve seen, the Gold Gloves are getting better, and the days of picking someone like a statue-esque Derek Jeter and/or a nearly permanent DH in Rafael Palmeiro seem to now be over.

So, now that we’ve announced the 2014 Gold Glove winners, lets also look at the league leaders in various defensive metrics.

This data is in the following spreadsheet for 2014 on Google Docs.

First, your 2014 Gold Glove winners: bold are also Fielding Bible winners, and red are the most egregiously bad selections.

Pos	AL GG Winner	NL GG Winner
C	Salvator Perez, CLE	Yadier Molina, STL
1B	Eric Hosmer, KC	Adrian Gonzalez, LAD
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS	DJ LeMahieu, COL
SS	J.J. Hardy, BAL	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Kyle Seager, SEA	Nolan Arenado, COL
LF	Alex Gordon, KC	Christian Yelich, MIA
CF	Adam Jones, BAL	Juan Lagares, NYM
RF	Nick Markakis, BAL	Jason Heyward, ATL
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU	Zack Greinke, LAD

As with last year, the league still remains obsessed with Adam Jones despite his possessing negative defensive rankings across the board.  Kyle Seager wasn’t “bad” but wasn’t nearly as deserving as Josh Donaldson.  The only other real “bad” selection was Molina, not because he’s not a great defensive catcher (he is), but because he missed a ton of time and there were better options in the NL this year (namely, Jonathan Lucroy).  Otherwise every Gold Glove winner listed here was deserving.

Repeat Gold Glove winners from last  year: Molina, Hosmer, Pedroia, Hardy, Simmons, Arenado, Gordon, and Jones.  So, 8 of 18.

Here’s the 2014 Fielding Bible Awards, which (if you’re not aware) is a 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).  Bolded are also GG winners:

Pos	2014 Fielding Bible Winner
C	Jonathan Lucroy, MIL
1B	Adrian Gonzalez, LAD
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS (repeat)
SS	Andrelton Simmons, ATL (repeat)
3B	Josh Donaldson, OAK
LF	Alex Gordon, KC (repeat)
CF	Juan Lagares, NYM
RF	Jason Heyward, ATL
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU
Util	Lorenzo Cain, KC

They selected Lucroy over Molina, and Donaldson over Seager.  They’ve also added a 10th position for “Utility,” to recognize the excellent work of Lorenzo Cain playing multiple outfield positions.

Now, here’s the league leaders by various defensive stats.  The links to get any of these leaderboards are in the Google xls.  First: UZR/150.

Pos	AL UZR/150	NL UZR/150
C
1B	Albert Pujols, LAA (9.3)	Anthony Rizzo, CHC (8.2)
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS (20.4)	DJ LeMahieu, COL (11.0)
SS	J.J. Hardy, BAL (15.4)	Andrelton Simmons, ATL (18.4)
3B	Josh Donaldson, OAK (13.3)	Todd Frazier, CIN (8.9)
LF	Alex Gordon, KC (22.6)	Christian Yelich, MIA (14.1)
CF	Jackie Bradley JR, BOS (22.6)	Juan Lagares, NYM (25.3)
RF	Nori Aoki, KC (7.7)	Jason Heyward, ATL (20.5)
P

I like UZR as a measure and use it often. UZR/150 somewhat standardizes the scores across a 150-game average to represent the figure for a full-season for apples-to-apples comparisons.  A good number of these leaders also earned Gold Gloves and/or Fielding Bible awards.  Josh Donaldson was the clear AL 3B leader.  Otherwise there’s a lot of similarities to the lists we’ve already seen.  I was surprised as heck to see Albert Pujols on this leader board.

For a quick point of reference to the above scores, the BEST UZR/150 of any Nationals player this year was Anthony Rendon‘s uZR/150 of 4.6 while playing 3B.  Span and LaRoche (our two GG finalists) both scored *negative* UZR/150 scores … perhaps an indictment of their nominations in general as being based on reputation and not actual on-field performance this year.

Next: DRS; Defensive Runs Saved.  Some like this stat a lot; I struggle with it because single plays (like an outfielder reaching over the wall to take away a homer) result in huge swings in the numbers on plays that aren’t necessarily the hardest to make.

Pos	AL DRS	NL DRS
C
1B	Chris Davis, BAL (8)	Adrian Gonzalez, LAD (12)
2B	Ian Kinsler, DET (20)	DJ LeMahieu, COL (16)
SS	J.J. Hardy, BAL (10)	Andrelton Simmons, ATL (28)
3B	Josh Donaldson, OAK (20)	Nolan Arenado, COL (16)
LF	Alex Gordon, KC (27)	Christian Yelich, MIA (13)
CF	Leonys Martin, TEX (15)	Juan Lagares, NYM (28)
RF	Kole Calhoun, LAA (2)	Jason Heyward, ATL (32)
P

Dustin Pedroia had one of the highest UZR/150 ratings in the league … but he was not the top-rated 2nd baseman in the AL.   We have our third different AL center fielder in three lists.  Otherwise this is a pretty good list.

Next: FRAA: Fielding Runs Above Average, a Baseball Prospectus 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,

Pos	AL FRAA	NL FRAA
C
1B	Steve Pearce, BAL (7.7)	Adrian Gonzalez, LAD (11.4)
2B	Jason Kipnis, CLE (9.5)	Chase Utley, PHI (6.9)
SS	Alexei Ramierez, CWS (8.1)	Jean Segura, MIL (23.6)
3B	Kyle Seager, SEA (20.5)	Nolan Arenado, COL (14.3)
LF	Alex Gordon, KC (12.2)	Khris Davis, MIL (6.6)
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury, NYY (12.0)	Ender Inciarte, ARI (11.0)
RF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (8.3)	Jason Heyward, ATL (26.4)
P	Dallas Keuchel, HOU (6.7)	Tyson Ross, SD (3.7)

Interestingly, Jean Segura shines highly here (the supposed “best defensive player in the league” Andrelton Simmons only scored a 10.0 in FRAA).   And this stat really favors the play of some random players: I had no idea who Kevin Kiermaier or Ender Inciarte were before doing this post, nor did I know what position they played.

Adam Jones scored a -8.1 FRAA; ranking him 1187th out of 1212 players for 2014.  I’m not kidding.  That’s how bad a selection for the Gold Glove Jones was.

Last stat: Baseball Reference’s Total Zone Fielding

Pos	AL Total Zone Total Fielding	NL Total Zone Total Fielding
C	Salvator Perez, CLE (12)	Wilson Ramos, WAS (8)
1B	Steve Pearce, BAL (13)	Justin Morneau, COL (11)
2B	Jonathan Schoop, BAL (16)	Anthony Rendon, WAS (12)
SS	J.J. Hardy, BAL (14)	Jordy Mercer, PIT (21)
3B	Kyle Seager, SEA (23)	Chase Headley, SD/NYY (18)
LF	Alex Gordon, KC (25)	Khris Davis, MIL (13)
CF	Lorenzo Cain, KC (18)	Billy Hamilton, CIN (14)
RF	Kevin Kiermaier, TB (12)	Jason Heyward, ATL (30)
P

Check it out: our own Wilson Ramos is on this list as the “leader” for the NL.  Which, no offense to Ramos, makes you question at least the catcher rankings for this stat.  Rendon also factors in for his partial season at 2B.  But overall, this seems like the least reliable defensive stat.

As mentioned above, both our GG finalists (LaRoche and Span) seem to have been nominated on reputation only; neither of them appeared near the top on any of these statistical measures (unlike last year, when Span at least was a leader in Total Zone)

Did I miss any good defensive metrics?  Do you have one you like more or less than these?  I know there’s other stats out there; I can update this analysis with more of them.

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So, how did the Gold Gloves do this year in selecting the most deserving winners?  Pretty good.  Alex Gordon was the AL leader for left fielders in every stat.  I think they picked the two correct short stops.  Catchers are difficult to measure.  They absolutely screwed up the AL Center fielder (though to be fair; there were four statistical measures presented and four different AL center field leaders.  Excellent defensive players who jump around (Lorenzo Cain, Ben Zobrist) make the awards somewhat challenging in some cases.

… is probably the best, most reasoned, least hyperbolic explanation of a Hall of Fame ballot that I’ve read, probably ever.

Its ESPN Insider, but if you’re a true baseball fan you should be paying the $2/month or whatever pittance it is in order to get Buster Olney and Keith Law‘s stuff.

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/post?id=4360

He voted for Rafael Palmeiro but not Mark McGwire (I’d tend to disagree here but he reasonably explains why).   He voted for Jack Morris but not Curt Schilling or Mike Mussina (again, even up comparing Morris to either of these guys I’d disagree, but I also like Morris for the Hall despite all the vehiment arguments that people make against him).  Olney explains his thoughts about the “character clause” that seems to be catching so many voters in the most clear and concise way i’ve seen.

Its just a nice read in the face of the just over-the-top criticism on the baseball blogosphere (which is heavily slanted towards the use of metrics above all else) of writers and their votes.

Like you, i’ve had my annual fill of reactionary blog postings to those writers who make their ballots public, with titles judging whether or not the ballot was “good” or “bad” based on whether or not the voter did or did not include someone’s pet name.   Olney simply dismisses these criticisms by saying that “he understands arguments but disagrees.”   I’m tired of some kid writing blog posts in his mommy’s basement acting as if he knows more than a guy who has been covering the game, in the clubhouses and on the road, for 25 years.  (Yeah that’s a total cliche but it isn’t far from the truth; if you found out that some blog post was written by a college freshman who just took a stats class and thinks he knows everything, would you give it more weight than by a veteran beat reporter for a major newspaper?  I didn’t think so).  I’m ready for the announcement of the 2014 class to come, one way or another, so we can get back to preparing for next season.

Pitchers and Catchers in 37 days.   It won’t come a day too soon.

Before starting, if you hadn’t heard Deadspin has bought a Hall of Fame vote this year and is going to submit it as populated by crowd sourcing.  Click on this link to go to Deadspin.com’s page to vote.  Voting at deadspin ends on 12/28/13 and all hall of fame ballots are due to be mailed back to the BBWAA by 12/31/13.  The class of 2014 will be announced later in January.

Everyone else has a post about how they’d vote if they had a BBWAA ballot.  Here’s mine.  Only its slightly different from how i’ve done these in the past.

Joe Posnanski has put out a survey in October 2013 that anyone can take that simply asks you to rank the 2014 candidates 1-10.  It is an interesting exercise because it very quickly highlights the depth of the ballot, since as everyone knows, there are many very deserving candidates who are outside the top 10 and who may very well fall off the ballot this year because of the glut of candidates.  It also makes you think; if you rank your candidates 1 to 10 … how many names would you be leaving off your ballot that you’d want to vote for?

So, instead of doing a “who’s on/who’s off” post like i’ve done in years past (and like everyone else does) here’s a different take driven by Posnanski’s ranking question.

My first 8 “Yes Votes” were relatively easy: Maddux, Bonds, Clemens, Thomas, McGwire, Bagwell, Glavine, Piazza.  I don’t think there’s one of those 8 candidates who shouldn’t be a slam dunk hall-of-famer based on baseball accomplishments.   (That most all of them likely do not get in because of PED suspicions is another story).  The only one of my top 8 that doesn’t match with Posnanski’s survey results is McGwire (replace him with Raines, everyone’s favorite Bert Blyleven-style charity case for getting more support).

Then I got stuck.  Who were the last 2 I’d put on the ballot?  Lets look at the rest of the 2014 ballot:

• Voting No altogether: Walker, McGriff, Palmeiro, Smith, Sosa and anyone else new to the ballot this year not otherwise mentioned.  Why are these No votes?  See 2012 and 2013’s links for my reasoning on the 5 names here, all of whom are repeats.
• Remaining Pitchers in order that I’d likely vote them in: Schilling, Morris, Mussina
• Remaining Hitters in the order that I’d likely vote them in: Raines, Martinez, Kent, Biggio, Trammell

So I guess my last two would likely be Schilling and Raines, or perhaps Raines and Martinez.

Man, tough ballot this year.

If there wasn’t a 10-person limit, then I’d go crazy and probably vote for 16 candidates, basically the first 8 plus all the other “remaining” players above.   I’m by no means a “small hall” person, and I’m also not obsessed with the stat-driven arguments against Morris.  I think all these guys merit a plaque in Cooperstown.

Coincidentally, to all those people who write 1,000 words on all the things the BBWAA should do to fix the congestion issue (expand beyond 10 names, remove the 5% threshold), just stop wasting your time.  Year after year the BBWAA stays in the news for weeks at a time exactly because they refuse to change the standards.  Why would they relent now?

If you want to read how I’ve weighed in on the Hall votes in year’s past, here’s some links:

• Jan 2013: A huge post on how players from the 1980s are under-represented in the Hall (a favorite post of mine)
• 2013 Class: post on who I’d vote for with my imaginary ballot.
• December 2012 post on Jack Morris and what the Hall of Fame really “means” (another favorite post of mine).
• Feb 2012: a post on what it really means to be “In” the Hall of Fame.
• 2012 Class: post on who I’d vote for with my imaginary ballot.
• 2011 Class: post on who I’d vote for with my imaginary ballot.
• Dec 2010 post on on Blyleven in response/ahead of his eventual enshrinement.

And lastly, I have a huge draft post dated from Dec 2011 with pictures from my actual visit to the Hall of Fame that I started but never finished (mostly because adding pictures to WordPress is a huge pain in the *ss).  Maybe I’ll get bored, finish it up and post that in conjunction with the 2014 class announcement.

The recent years have been a rise in all sorts of statistical analysis in the game of baseball (as we all know), and one of the more important areas of research has been the measurement and tracking of defensive metrics.  The data we have at our disposal is not yet infallible, but the data has opened our eyes to the real impact that some major leaguers have on the defensive side of the ball.

We’re all quite familiar with the WAR-based arguments that have completely consumed last year’s AL MVP award voting as an example of modern statistics helping to shape the selection of a traditional award winner.  However, up until 2013, the Gold Gloves remained an award that was given out without practically any consideration given to any advanced metric, and the awards have been embarassed in recent years with some amazingly inept selections.  The two most laughable selections of recent memory were Rafael Palemeiro in 1999 (given a Gold Glove for his play at 1B despite the fact that he only played 28 games in the field that  year) and Derek Jeter in 2010 (a year in which he posted a -5.1 UZR/150, was dead last among all 59 AL shortstops in Total Zone Total Fielding and had the selection was openly mocked by the normally staid Baseball-Reference.com website).   Even the more defensible gold gloves over the past few years have been considered “wrong” by the stat-crowd, to the point where a number of national writers openly mock the awards and go out of their way to “ignore” th em.

This concerns me as a fan, and as someone who is keenly interested in the Hall of Fame merits of players.  I absolutely believe that when it comes time to judge players on the whole of their careers, that individual awards such as the Gold Gloves, MVP and Cy Young awards matter.  I want these awards to be relevant and properly awarded.

Two things have happened lately that give me hope:

1. Bill James and a varied panel of baseball writers, statisticians in the field and former players now vote on The Fielding Bible awards each year.  The 2013 Fielding Bible awards are not league specific; they recognize the best in the majors at each position each year.
2. The Gold Glove award committee for the first time in 2013 has incorporated a statistical element to the traditional surveying of players and coaches to choose the award winners.

(All winners/leaders listed below are on one common Google XLS here.  Listed are the winners of the GGs, Fielding Bibles, and then the leaders in each league by position of these Defensive stats: UZR/150, DRS, FRAA, and Total Zone.  I haven’t gone into the various definitions and pros/cons of these stats; I have a planned off-season defensive statistical overview post where I’ll go into greater detail).

First off, if you believe that the Fielding Bible panel has picked the best possible awardees, then you’ll be happy to note that every Fielding Bible award winner also received a Gold Glove this year.  Here’s the Fielding Bible winners by position for 2013:

Pos	Fielding Bible Winner
C	Yadier Molina, STL
1B	Paul Goldschmidt, ARI
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS
SS	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL
LF	Alex Gordon, KC
CF	Carlos Gomez, MIL
RF	Gerardo Parra, ARI
P	R.A. Dickey, TOR

Now, here’s the Gold Glove winners, with the Fielding Bible award winners bolded:

Pos	AL GG Winner	NL GG Winner
C	Salvador Perez, KC	Yadier Molina, STL
1B	Eric Hosmer, KC	Paul Goldschmidt, ARI
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS	Brandon Phillips, CIN
SS	J.J. Hardy, BAL	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL	Nolan Arenado, COL
LF	Alex Gordon, KC	Carlos Gonzalez, COL
CF	Adam Jones, BAL	Carlos Gomez, MIL
RF	Shane Victorino, BOS	Gerardo Parra, ARI
P	R.A. Dickey, TOR	Adam Wainwright, STL

As you’ll see below by looking at the various defensive metrics out there, most of the Gold Glove winners were merited.  In fact, there only seems to be one egregiously bad selection here (which we’ll get to below).  Nearly every other winner was at the top of one or more of the advanced metrics available by position for his league:

UZR/150 leaders per league (again, with Fielding Bible winners bolded):

Pos	AL UZR/150	NL UZR/150
C
1B	Mike Napoli, BOS	Anthony Rizzo, CHC
2B	Ben Zobrist, TBR	Darwin Barney, CHC
SS	Yunel Escobar, TBR	Andrelton Simmons ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL	Juan Uribe, LAD
LF	David Murphy, TEX	Starling Marte, PIT
CF	Colby Rasmus, TOR	A.J. Pollack, ARI
RF	Shane Victorino, BOS	Gerardo Parra, ARI
P

Defensive Runs Saved leaders per league:

Pos	AL DRS	NL DRS
C	Salvador Perez, KC	Wellington Castillo, CHC
1B	Mike Napoli, BOS	Anthony Rizzo, CHC
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS	Darwin Barney, CHC
SS	Pedro Florimon, MIN	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL	Nolan Arenado, COL
LF	Alex Gordon, KC	Starling Marte, PIT
CF	Leonys Martin, TEX	Carlos Gomez, MIL
RF	Shane Victorino, BOS	Gerardo Parra, ARI
P

FRAA Leaders per league:

Pos	AL FRAA	NL FRAA
C
1B	Eric Hosmer, KC	Paul Goldschmidt, ARI
2B	Ian Kinsler, TEX	Donovan Solano, MIA
SS	Nick Franklin, SEA	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL	Nolan Arenado, COL
LF	Andy Dirks, DET	Carl Crawford, LAD
CF	Alejandro De Aza, CWS	Brandon Barnes, HOU
RF	Shane Victorino, BOS	Hunter Pence, SF
P	R.A. Dickey, TOR	Andrew Cashner, SD

And lastly here’s the Total Zone Total Fielding leaders:

Pos	AL Total Zone Total Fielding	NL Total Zone Total Fielding
C	Matt Wieters, BAL	Yadier Molina, STL
1B	Mike Napoli, BOS	Paul Goldschmidt, ARI
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS	Brandon Phillips, CIN
SS	Jayson Nix, NYY	Andrelton Simmons, ATL
3B	Manny Machado, BAL	Juan Uribe, LAD
LF	Alex Gordon, KC	Chris Heisey, CIN
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury, BOS	Denard Span, WAS
RF	Shane Victorino, BOS	Norichika Aoki, MIL
P	R.A. Dickey, TOR	Patrick Corbin, ARI

So, after looking at all these leaders, lets talk a bit about the Gold Gloves and ask ourselves whether they did a good job representing the best defenders this year.  Position by position:

Catcher: Salvator Perez is as good an AL pick as any; the only other AL catcher in the mix is Matt Weiters.  On the NL side, Jadier Molina has earned his reputation and backs it up on the metrics side.  His only challenger being the little known Wellington Castillo from Chicago.

1st Base: Hosmer and Goldschmidt seem as good of picks as any; only Mike Napoli and Anthony Rizzo seemed close in either league.  Napoli may have been a better pick than Hosmer on the weight of the evidence.

2nd Base: There’s several decent candidates who were not honored, but I don’t think anyone is arguing vehimently against either Pedroia or Phillips as the winners.  Darwin Barney may be the most egreiged candidate.

Shortstop: the amazing Andrelton Simmons led every possible statistical category; there was no chance he was losing.   J. J. Hardy‘s selection wasn’t bad per se, but as you can see from the above tables four different AL shortstops led each of the four statistical measures.  None of them was Hardy though, making you wonder if his gold glove was slightly on reputation.

3rd Base: One day Manny Machado will move back to short (maybe) and challenge Simmons for the title of “Best Shortstop in the Game.”  But for now he has to settle for easily being the best defensive 3B in the game.  As with Simmons, Machado led every possible defensive measure at his position.  On the NL side, the choice of Nolan Arenado was a sound one, with only Juan Uribe really challenging him.  Thankfully the award didn’t go to someone like David Wright or our own Ryan Zimmerman based on reputation.

Left Field: Alex Gordon was a sound choice; the NL choice of Carlos Gonzalez may have been a disservice to one Starling Marte.  However, picking individual positions for the OF is somewhat tough, especially for the corners.  Fangraphs lists RF winner Gerardo Parra as a left-fielder for some reason.

Center Field: Carlos Gomez is a great pick (and is one of the reasons I posted my “Why no MVP support for Gomez” post in this space, which by the way, got almost no reaction from the readership…).   Adam Jones was nearly dead last in some of these range metrics and unfortunately has gotten this award via reputation (and his arm; still one of the best) as opposed to performance.   Jones is clearly the “Derek Jeter” of 2013, and the voters really erred badly on his selection.   Its hard for me to say who I would have preferred; Jacoby Ellsbury is the biggest name among the four guys who led the four different defensive numbers, but Ellsbury’s arm is weak (nearly last of any CF in the league) and a better candidate would have been Leonys Martin.

Right Field: Gerardo Parra and Shane Victorino are the leading candidates for their leagues and both selections are warranted.  I know that Hunter Pence led the NL in FRAA, but his arm is awful (one of the worst of any RF in the league), so that has to count against him.   In fact, Victorino was as good as or better than Parra in most of these metrics (with the exception of Arm; Parra has one of the better arms in the league).  I’m guessing its arm strength that tipped the Fielding Bible balance to Parra.

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Conclusion: I think the Gold Gloves did a pretty good job in 2013 of identifying the best overall defenders at each position.  With one significant exception (Adam Jones).  I think its time the sportswriters who have been purposely ignoring the awards come back into the fold.

 

Obligatory HoF Reaction post.

I wasn’t going to write one.  But email/text conversations later I thought it may just be easier to write a thousand words on the topic.

As the front page of the BBWAA site says, “No players elected for the first time since 1996.” Also for only the 8th time in the history of balloting, no player was elected this cycle by the electorate.

We all knew this day was coming.  You can google articles from nearly 5 years ago when the whole slew of these first time players were first known to all be eligible on this ballot and know this day was coming.  And now here we are.

My interpretation of the results for the major players kind of goes like the following:

• Craig Biggio was “penalized” by some voters for not being a “First Ballot Hall of Famer” calibre player.  Therefore lots of voters who have annointed themselves the keepers of this title skipped voting for him this year.  Much like what happened to Roberto Alomar (who went from 73% to 90% from 1st ballot to 2nd) we probably see Biggio get > 90% next year.  He’s clearly a hall of famer, but clearly not a first balloter in some eyes.
• Jack Morris is screwed.  He only rose from 66% to 67%, indicating to me that enough people have bought into the anti-Morris narrative that has been so fully expoused by sabre-tinged writers to outlast the old-school guard of baseball writers who covered Morris and remember him as I do.
• Piazza and Bagwell both are side effects of the PED argument, but clearly get more credit for possibly being clean than the next two names.  But enough people are believing that “back acne” proves PED usage for Piazza, and “muscles” proves PED usage for Bagwell, so both will likely struggle to get to 75% for a few years.
• Clemens and Bonds: both getting almost identical vote totals in the 36-37% range despite both being amongst the best who ever played indicates a clear statement being made by the older voters, who clearly are penalizing these guys for their alleged/accused/leaked grand testimony involving PEDs.  I’ll bet though that both players will get significantly more votes in subsequent years and probably eventually make it.
• Sosa and McGwire: probably both never get in, since both are in the 12-16% range.  Writers clearly believe both guys were 100% the product of andro and steroids, and thus artificially gained their accomplishments.
• Bernie Williams and Kenny Lofton both amazingly will fall off the ballot.  I don’t think either are HoFamers but I also thought they deserved to hang around on the ballot for a while (kind of like a Dale Murphy or a Don Mattingly) to discuss.
• Tim Raines and Lee Smith are probably never getting in; their vote totals don’t seem to be changing much, and a slew of more deserving names are coming in the next 5 years.
• Edgar Martinez, Trammell, McGriff, Walker, Mattingly: they’re all marginal candidates for different reasons, and they all seem likely to die on the ballot in the 30-40% range.  I like Martinez for the Hall; in a sentence if you elect the best relief pitchers, how can you not elect the best designated hitters?
• Palmeiro sealed his fate the moment he tested positive.  It doesn’t matter if he broached magical barriers of 500 (homers) and 3000 (career hits).  He’ll never get in.
• Lastly, the interesting case of Curt Schilling.  38.8% on the first ballot.  What does this mean?  He’s definitely never been accused of PEDs, had a great peak, was absolutely one of the best pitchers in the game for at least a short amount of time, has 3000 Ks but not 300 wins (or close to it), had an iconic moment in the bloody sock game, and was on two different WS winning teams.  A 127 career ERA+ puts him career 48th, even or ahead of plenty of hall of famers.  Why so few votes?  What statement is being made here?  I’m not sure entirely.  Maybe this is a combination of the “not a first ballot hall of famer” denials AND some sense of outrage against the outspoken Schilling from older media members who covered him and still vote primarily with their egos.

Back to the question of the article; is the HoF in trouble?  Well, yes and no.

No because I think Biggio will be elected next year, along with two more big names who have never had a schred of PED accusations (Maddux and Glavine).  And you can see guys in each of the subsequent years easily being elected (Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez in 2015, Ken Griffey Jr in 2016, Pudge and Manny in 2017 unless there’s still PED outrage at that point.  And that ensures there’s ceremonies with who should be absolute no-brainer electees each year for the next few years.

But, Yes because Cooperstown and the Hall itself are not always profit making endeavors, and having an election year without any recently retired players is going to mean a massive drop in income for the town and the hall.  Reportedly the museum has lost money in 8 of the last 10 years.  That coupled with the continued recession, and we could see some serious financial hardship in upstate New York in 2013.  Will it be enough that the BBWAA agrees to one of the litany of election system changes being proposed on the internet?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if this continues into 2013, yeah we may see something change.  Perhaps a panel of judges versus the BBWAA electorate (similar to what the NFL does) makes sense in the long run.  The point is that the HoF NEEDS to have a compelling election class in order to stay profitable, and may change its entry mechanisms to guarantee attendance (and thus revenues) each year.

One thing I do agree with; I think writers who purposely send in a blank ballot should be removed from the voting system.  You just can not look at this list of players and tell me there’s not at least ONE deserving candidate.  A blank ballot does nothing but hurt the chances of legitimate players to be honored and should be interpreted as a writer who does not take the process seriously.

Murkier are my thoughts on entrance requirements to the BBWAA in general.  Should we allow in all these internet baseball writers?  I think that a lot of the moral outrage and indignance expressed by frequent baseball bloggers over the BBWAA and the “old school” writers is simply mis-placed jealousy that they (the internet blogger) are not eligible to vote.    There is a section of the BBWAA constitution that talks about internet writer acceptance and the requirements don’t seem that unfair.  The intent of the organization is to find people who “cover the game” but also people who actually “attend the games,” interview players and coaches, and are generally members of the traditional media.  People who have access and who understand more than the average baseball blogger, who interprets box scores and statistics websites to pass judgement.  I’m ok with the limitations set out as thus.

Two other quick thoughts:

• Yeah, we should probably increase the 10-player limit.
• Yeah, we should probably force writers to reveal their ballots (much as the major awards now do).

Until next year.  One thing is certain; much like relief over the end of the election news, I’m relieved that no more HoF articles will be appearing.

Obligatory Class of 2013 Hall of Fame opinion piece.

The 2013 Hall of Fame class ballot was released in Late November, on BBWAA’s site.   Here’s the 2013 class on Baseball-Reference.com, along with relevant career stats and past voting results.

As we’re about to read, over and over again from every writer in the Baseball world, this is the Steroid-era ballot.  Several of the biggest names of the era are on the ballot.  Just in case you were wondering who has or hasn’t been officially linked to PEDs, here’s a handy guide for your ethical dilemma.

My Previous posts on the same topic:

• Recent post on Jack Morris and what the Hall of Fame really means.
• 2012 Class: post on who I’d vote for with my imaginary ballot.
• 2011 Class: My post specifically on Bert Blyleven (who I didn’t like for the hall) and then thoughts on the rest of the class.

I typed up such exhaustive opinions on a number of candidates from the two previous versions of these posts, that I won’t repeat them here.  Instead i’ll just state below, of the returning candidates this year here’s who I’d vote for and who I wouldn’t in list form.

Returning Candidates I’d vote for:

• Jeff Bagwell
• Jack Morris
• Tim Raines
• Mark McGwire
• Edgar Martinez

Returning Candidates that I would NOT vote for (my reasons mostly are stated in the 2012 class post referenced above):

• Bernie Williams
• Alan Trammell
• Lee Smith
• Larry Walker
• Rafael Palmeiro
• Don Mattingly
• Fred McGriff
• Dale Murphy

New Candidates in 2012 that I’d vote for, with some  discussion; Unlike a lot of opinions I state, my thoughts on the Hall of Fame have always been more driven by how a player “seems” to be in the pantheon of baseball history.  I don’t like to get into the same stats-driven discussions that other writers do.  So and so had a career WAR of X, or a career ERA+ of Y, which makes him better than this other guy.

• Barry Bonds: A transcendent player before any use of “the cream” or “the clear,” this 7-time MVP is clearly in the pantheon of the greatest players of all-time.  The best 5-tool player since Willie Mays, the only thing that should have been standing in the way of unanimous voting is Bonds’ surly nature towards sports writers (several of whom would have “penalized” him by omitting him from first ballot status).
• Roger Clemens: replace “7-time MVP” with “7-time Cy Young winner” and the Bonds argument essentially repeats itself with Clemens.  Normally we’d be talking about his place as one of the greatest right handed pitchers to ever play the game.  Instead we’re talking about how much of his later career was enhanced by virtue of foreign substances.
• Mike Piazza: One of the best 3 hitting catchers of all time (Johnny Bench being the best, with Yogi Berra in the discussion), his purported “back acne” proof of steroid use likely costs him votes.  Which is just ridiculous, but that’s the nature of this ballot and the next 15 year’s worth of ballots unfortunately.
• Curt Schilling: his career accomplishments don’t include a Cy Young award, but that wasn’t for lack of trying; he just happened to pitch in the same ERA as Randy Johnson and Johan Santana in his prime power.  But Schilling was a game-changing starter, an Ace who could get you the win.  He was one of the biggest “big game” pitchers out there.  And, his legendary playoff performances push him over the top for me.  Some will argue against him b/c he “only” had 216 wins or he “only” had a career 3.46 ERA.  He passes the eye test for me.
• Craig Biggio: he wasn’t the flashiest player, but then again you can’t judge middle infielders the same way as you judge power hitters.  Biggio hit the 3,000 hit plateau, was a good combination of power (291 career homers) and speed (414 career SBs), and showed good defense (several Gold Gloves).  For one of the last career one-team guys, he makes the cut for me.

New Candidates that I would NOT vote for:

• Sammy Sosa: 600+ career homers, and I can’t help but think that a good number of those were either PED or corked-bat assisted.  That’s probably completely unfair, but you can make a good argument that more than 150 of his career homers were likely “surplus” to his legitimate career capabilities.  He averaged 37 homers/season as he approached his prime, then suddenly averaged 60/season for four seasons.  Clearly Bonds’ 73-homer season is attributable to a single-season PED spike, but Sosa made a career of it.  There’s just no way for me to distinguish who the real Sosa was (he had a 99 OPS+ the year before his power spike) versus the PED enhanced version.
• Kenny Lofton: I know lots of people view Lofton in the same breath as Rickey Henderson in terms of quality lead-off hitters, but to me he was just a vagabond who kept looking for work year after year.  He played for 12 teams by the time he hung them up.  Perhaps I’m not really “remembering” his time in Cleveland, where he stole a ton of bases and set the table for that powerful lineup.   He had a handful of gold gloves, a handful of all-star appearances.  I may be under-appreciating him a bit, but when I hear his name I don’t knee-jerk Hall of Famer.
• Everyone else first time eligible, the best player of which is probably David Wells.  Wells basically had two good seasons (the only two times he received any Cy Young consideration) and otherwise was a rubber-armed hurler who prided himself on making 35 starts despite being in god-awful shape (as noted extensively in Joe Torre‘s book The Yankee Years).

I’d be shocked if anyone else on the first time eligible list got enough votes to even stay eligible for 2014’s ballot.

Critics may state that my fake ballot has some inconsistencies; how can I support a vote for Biggio but not for Trammell?   How can you vote for McGwire but not Sosa?  How can you vote for Edgar Martinez but not Larry Walker?  How can you vote for *any* PED guys but shun Sosa and Palmeiro?  How can you support Morris but not support Wells?   All these are good points; good arguable points.  Maybe if I had an official ballot I’d have a more serious discussion with myself about these points.  All the above thumbs-up/thumbs-down opinions are mostly knee jerk, did the guy “feel” like a hall of famer as opposed to a full statistical analysis.   As I covered in my Jack Morris piece, I think its ok to have slightly lesser players who contributed more to the baseball pantheon than slightly better players statistically who had no real lasting impact on the game.

And for now, that’s good enough for me and my fake Hall of Fame ballot.