Both Byron Buxton and Brian Dozier were named winners of the Gold Glove Award on Tuesday.
Buxton, no question. Dozier, not so much. At risk of spoiling what I might comment on when my Handbook series gets to the Fielding Bible Awards section, Dozier wasn't in the top 10 of second basemen in that more-metric oriented approach. As the BIS-arranged voting has it, Ian Kinsler was by far the best fielding second baseman in the American League.
The Gold Gloves have a well-earned reputation for being swayed by a player's hitting, and Dozier has hit more than 100 homers over the past three seasons. Above-average defense and 30-plus homers a season makes him a very good player. But he's not really the best gloveman at his position, as Buxton is.
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The Twins sold Michael Tonkin to the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japanese baseball.
This clears another slot off the 40-man roster -- down now to 33 -- and gives Tonkin a better payday than he was going to get if he remained in the States. He'll get more than $2 million from the Fighters, who are expected to use him as their closer. (The team is owned by Nippon Ham; the name is not intended to imply that they are fighting hams.)
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Roy Halladay never pitched for the Twins, but he was for a decade one of the best pitchers in the game, and his death in a self-piloted plane crash Tuesday was the biggest news in baseball.
"Doc" Halladay was widely seen during his playing days as a likely Hall of Famer, but he didn't have the usual career path. His decline was brief and sudden, and his career totals (205 wins, 2,749 innings) are resultingly small for Cooperstown.
But his peak was longer than that of Johan Santana, his main rival for the title of Best Pitcher of the 2000s, and there are consensus enshrinees who essentially match Halladay's career totals -- Ed Walsh, Sandy Koufax, Rube Waddell, Dazzy Vance. And a few more dubious honorees.
He becomes eligible for the voting next winter -- I doubt the Hall will waive the five-year rule for him as it did for Roberto Clemente -- and his surprising death may perversely increase his chances of first ballot selection.
I think Halladay will eventually get in, and that's fine. I'm not sure he's a more deserving enshrinee than Mike Mussina or even Curt Schilling, but he should get in, sooner or later. Unfortunately, he won't get to be there to enjoy the honor.
Showing posts with label Gold Gloves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gold Gloves. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
Notes, quotes and comment (Twins edition)
A little Twins news on the World Series off day:
And I'm absolutely certain that I just oversimplified Alston as a coach.
That said: Among the things the Twins need to do to move up the heirarchy of the American League is come up with at least one and preferably two starters who can slot above Ervin Santana. If Santana is your third-best starter, you can talk World Series; if he's your best, it's not very realistic. The best in-house candidate to do that, because he has the raw stuff, is Jose Berrios. Berrios needs better fastball command.
If, as I surmised last winter, Jame Rowson's mission as hitting coach was to get Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano going, Alston's Job One may be polishing Berrios.
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Two Twins were named Gold Glove finalists at their respective positions, which was kinda expected. The identity of one was a surprise.
Byron Buxton in center, absolutely. Brian Dozier at second, a bit less so. And the absence of Joe Mauer at first base got some immediate blow back on Twins twitter.
I wrote a bit about the subject of Mauer and a Gold Glove earlier this month. Giving the big ugly trophy to Mitch Moreland or even Carlos Santana would not be a travesty.
Meanwhile, there's even better evidence than bypassing Mauer that despite a variety of changes the Gold Glove selection process is flawed. The three finalists for the NL award at second base include superutility man Ben Zobrist of the Cubs but not that team's regular second baseman, Javy Baez.
If Zobrist were the better second baseman, he'd be the Cubbies' full-time second baseman. He's not better than Baez, so he plays a lot of outfield.
Welcome to our new pitching coach, Garvin!— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 26, 2017
Alston was w/ the Padres & A's in the '17 season. The '18 season will mark his 14th as a coach. pic.twitter.com/peX1l5Lphm
There were a number of name brand pitching coaches on the market, and the Twins hired one whose name I'm unfamiliar with. Which isn't necessarily a bad move.
Alston has bounced around some -- he worked for two different organizations last year alone -- and has filled a variety of roles, including at least two major league stints as bullpen coach.
Most pitching coaches come in preaching some version of the Rabbit Miller Mantra: "Work fast, change speeds, throw strikes." Neil Allen, the pitching coach the past three seasons, put an emphasis on the second part. Judging from this quote contained in this John Shipley piece on Garvin, he may put a bit of emphasis on a version of part three:
“First,” he said, “one of the biggest things I teach is commanding the zone with the fastball.”
And I'm absolutely certain that I just oversimplified Alston as a coach.
That said: Among the things the Twins need to do to move up the heirarchy of the American League is come up with at least one and preferably two starters who can slot above Ervin Santana. If Santana is your third-best starter, you can talk World Series; if he's your best, it's not very realistic. The best in-house candidate to do that, because he has the raw stuff, is Jose Berrios. Berrios needs better fastball command.
If, as I surmised last winter, Jame Rowson's mission as hitting coach was to get Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano going, Alston's Job One may be polishing Berrios.
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Two Twins were named Gold Glove finalists at their respective positions, which was kinda expected. The identity of one was a surprise.
Byron Buxton in center, absolutely. Brian Dozier at second, a bit less so. And the absence of Joe Mauer at first base got some immediate blow back on Twins twitter.
I wrote a bit about the subject of Mauer and a Gold Glove earlier this month. Giving the big ugly trophy to Mitch Moreland or even Carlos Santana would not be a travesty.
Meanwhile, there's even better evidence than bypassing Mauer that despite a variety of changes the Gold Glove selection process is flawed. The three finalists for the NL award at second base include superutility man Ben Zobrist of the Cubs but not that team's regular second baseman, Javy Baez.
If Zobrist were the better second baseman, he'd be the Cubbies' full-time second baseman. He's not better than Baez, so he plays a lot of outfield.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Mauer and a Gold Glove
For some reason the subject of Joe Mauer and a possible Gold Glove award for him at first base kept popping up on my Twitter timeline Monday.
One ignornamus insisted that Craig Biggio won one of the big ugly trophies during his catching days and might have won one in the outfield. Not true. All four of Biggio's came at second base.
Reality: Only two players have won Gold Gloves at two different positions. Darrin Erstad at first base and outfield (for most of the award's history, the voters made no differentation between left, right and center. This is no longer the case.) and Placido Polanco, who won twice at second base with Detroit and once at third for the Phillies.
Biggio did begin his career as a catcher. He was the Astros regular behind the plate for three seasons and made an All-Star team. Then he shifted to second -- precisely BECAUSE he wasn't a Gold Glove-caliber catcher, and he was an All-Star caliber hitter.
The Astros wanted to keep his bat in the lineup and figured they could improve on Biggio's defense behind the dish. Had he been a high-quality defensive catcher, he probably would have remained a catcher.
Mauer was a legitmate Gold Glove catcher, and those types seldom change positions. Mauer moved because more is known about concussions than in decades past. Move his career forward a decade, and he probably doesn't move to first base -- and he might well have had more brain damage and had his career curtailed, as was the case with Mickey Cochrane, Mauer's closest historical comp.
Should Mauer win the Gold Glove? That is the conventional wisdom in Twins Territory, in large part because Dick Bremer and Co. started beating that drum by midseason. For what it's worth, John Dewan of Baseball Info Systems says Mitch Moreland of the Boston Red Sox had the most runs saved among American League first basemen.
I'd like to see Mauer win it, not because the award changes anything about him but because it would be a little bit more on his side when his Hall of Fame credentials are up for debate. I've said this before, repeatedly: He's done the heavy lifting for Cooperstown.
One ignornamus insisted that Craig Biggio won one of the big ugly trophies during his catching days and might have won one in the outfield. Not true. All four of Biggio's came at second base.
Reality: Only two players have won Gold Gloves at two different positions. Darrin Erstad at first base and outfield (for most of the award's history, the voters made no differentation between left, right and center. This is no longer the case.) and Placido Polanco, who won twice at second base with Detroit and once at third for the Phillies.
Biggio did begin his career as a catcher. He was the Astros regular behind the plate for three seasons and made an All-Star team. Then he shifted to second -- precisely BECAUSE he wasn't a Gold Glove-caliber catcher, and he was an All-Star caliber hitter.
The Astros wanted to keep his bat in the lineup and figured they could improve on Biggio's defense behind the dish. Had he been a high-quality defensive catcher, he probably would have remained a catcher.
Mauer was a legitmate Gold Glove catcher, and those types seldom change positions. Mauer moved because more is known about concussions than in decades past. Move his career forward a decade, and he probably doesn't move to first base -- and he might well have had more brain damage and had his career curtailed, as was the case with Mickey Cochrane, Mauer's closest historical comp.
Should Mauer win the Gold Glove? That is the conventional wisdom in Twins Territory, in large part because Dick Bremer and Co. started beating that drum by midseason. For what it's worth, John Dewan of Baseball Info Systems says Mitch Moreland of the Boston Red Sox had the most runs saved among American League first basemen.
I'd like to see Mauer win it, not because the award changes anything about him but because it would be a little bit more on his side when his Hall of Fame credentials are up for debate. I've said this before, repeatedly: He's done the heavy lifting for Cooperstown.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
On the AL Gold Glove for catchers
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| Salvador Perez was one of three Kansas City Royals awarded Gold Gloves, which fits the notion that the Royals were the best defensive team in the American League. |
Joe Mauer was the only finalist from the Twins. When the awards were announced last week (Tuesday, an off day during the World Series), Mauer didn't win.
No real surprise there. For one thing, Mauer caught just 658.2 innings. The winner, Salvador Perez of Kansas City, caught 1,115.1; the other finalist, Matt Weiters of Baltimore, 1201. That's a sizable difference.
Perez is probably the best throwing catcher in the league these days, and Kansas City had the lowest runs allowed in the league, so presumably he wasn't hurting his pitchers with his pitch calls. He's not a terrible choice by any means. Still, I would have favored Weiters for the ugly trophy.
Late in September, I wrote a post using wild pitch rates to compare Mauer as a receiver to his Minnesota colleagues. Perez comes off quite poorly here.
Perez was behind the plate for 49 wild pitches in 2013. He was also charged with three passed balls. That works out to .40 wild pitches per nine innings, .42 WPPB/9.
Mauer, as described in the earlier post, was .22 WP/9 and .26 WPPB/9.
Weiters had 28 wild pitches, five passed balls, rates of .21 WP/9 and .25 WPPB/9.
The American League averages were .37 WP/9, .45 WPPB. So Perez was slightly worse than average in allowing wild pitches, slightly better in the combination — and Mauer and Weiters much better than the norm.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Contemplating Derek Jeter, Part II
It's been what, two-plus weeks, and I'm still wrapping my little brain around the fact that Derek Jeter got yet another Gold Glove.
That's five. Only four shortstops have won more, which is a bit less impressive than it sounds, since the Gold Gloves started in 1957. So shortstops like Marty Marion, Phil Rizzuto, Honus Wagner, Leo Durocher and Dave "Beauty" Bancroft -- all regarded as superb glovemen -- have none.
Still, five is more than guys like Davy Concepcion, Ozzie Guillen, Alan Trammell and Barry Larkin won, and perhaps the weirdest thing about Jeter's Gold Gloves is that he didn't win any when he was in his 20s -- and was at least somewhat agile in the field.
Explanations I've devised and discarded:
The voters aren't paying attention. The voters are the managers and coaches; I daresay they pay more attention to baseball than I do, and I'm fairly obsessive. They may not take the vote with a great deal of seriousness, but this is not a willfully ignorant voting pool.
It's a plot to build Jeter's ego and make it more difficult for the Yankees to move him to a less demanding position. If the voters were all Red Sox employees, this might be plausible. Reality says you can't concoct a 70-person conspiracy and keep it a secret.
What I suspect is happening here:
1) The voters are divided. The specifics of the voting aren't released, but assume that there 70 AL votes (14 teams and five votes on average from each). There might be 25 votes for Jeter, 20 for Elvis Andrus, a dozen for Alexi Ramirez, five or six for Jason Bartlett, one or two apiece for Erick Aybar and Cesar Izturis and Asrubal Cabrera and J.J. Hardy ... you can win a Gold Glove, or the governorship of Minnesota, even if a majority wouldn't vote for you if you were unopposed. All you need is a hard-core base and a divided electorate.
2) Some of the voters are as much attuned to the mental aspects of defense as the physical. They'd agree that Andrus has more range than Jeter, but vote for Jeter on the basis that Jeter's aware of what baserunners might try to score from second on an infield hit, that Jeter knows where the cutoff man's supposed to be, that Jeter knows that this outfielder's throws tend to sail to the right or left ...
The Gold Glove voting isn't well designed, and screwups are a regular occurrence. One career Gold Glove for Jeter is plausible; five represents, in my view, multiple screwups.
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| Six errors in 2010, eight in 2009. There's more to defense than avoiding errors, but that counts too. |
Still, five is more than guys like Davy Concepcion, Ozzie Guillen, Alan Trammell and Barry Larkin won, and perhaps the weirdest thing about Jeter's Gold Gloves is that he didn't win any when he was in his 20s -- and was at least somewhat agile in the field.
Explanations I've devised and discarded:
The voters aren't paying attention. The voters are the managers and coaches; I daresay they pay more attention to baseball than I do, and I'm fairly obsessive. They may not take the vote with a great deal of seriousness, but this is not a willfully ignorant voting pool.
It's a plot to build Jeter's ego and make it more difficult for the Yankees to move him to a less demanding position. If the voters were all Red Sox employees, this might be plausible. Reality says you can't concoct a 70-person conspiracy and keep it a secret.
What I suspect is happening here:
1) The voters are divided. The specifics of the voting aren't released, but assume that there 70 AL votes (14 teams and five votes on average from each). There might be 25 votes for Jeter, 20 for Elvis Andrus, a dozen for Alexi Ramirez, five or six for Jason Bartlett, one or two apiece for Erick Aybar and Cesar Izturis and Asrubal Cabrera and J.J. Hardy ... you can win a Gold Glove, or the governorship of Minnesota, even if a majority wouldn't vote for you if you were unopposed. All you need is a hard-core base and a divided electorate.
2) Some of the voters are as much attuned to the mental aspects of defense as the physical. They'd agree that Andrus has more range than Jeter, but vote for Jeter on the basis that Jeter's aware of what baserunners might try to score from second on an infield hit, that Jeter knows where the cutoff man's supposed to be, that Jeter knows that this outfielder's throws tend to sail to the right or left ...
The Gold Glove voting isn't well designed, and screwups are a regular occurrence. One career Gold Glove for Jeter is plausible; five represents, in my view, multiple screwups.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Gold Gloves and questions of defensive stats
The Gold Glove Awards came out this week — American League honors Tuesday, National League on Wednesday — and they were, as always, accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Rob Neyer on the AL awards: The voters made two excellent choices: Evan Longoria and Mark Buehrle. They made some defensible (pun intended) choices. And with (Derek) Jeter and (Torii) Hunter and (Placido) Polanco and especially (Adam) Jones, they just flat blew it, overlooking true excellence in favor of gaudy hitting stats or superficially impressive defensive performances. Well played, sirs. Again.
You can find, interested, similar criticism of the AL awards here and here; of the NL awards, here and here, with the first of the NL critiques far harsher than the latter. And if you make the effort, I'm sure you can easily find more.
Now ... The Gold Glove voting system is flawed. Badly flawed.
- The electorate — managers and coaches — fill out a blank ballot with one name for each slot.
- They do this at a time of year when many of them are preoccupied with preparing for the playoffs, getting into the playoffs or finding a new job for next year. (Really, how much effort do you suppose Ron Gardenhire put during the final days of the regular season into identifying the league's three best defensive outfielders?)
- The totals are not announced; it is possible that Jeter got every vote at shortstop, and it is possible that he got 25 percent of the votes.
- And, finally, the whole thing is run by a sporting goods company that would probably rather see the awards go to famous players than to obscure ones.
With all that lousy process involved, it's amazing they ever get anything right.
And yet ... to some degree, these ugly trophies reflect the conventional wisdom on the field — that Joe Mauer really is a better defensive catcher than Gerald Laird, that the aging Torii Hunter is still a wizard, that Derek Jeter is a great shortstop.
These are claims not supported by the newfangled defensive metrics. By the numbers, Franklin Gutierrez was far and away the best defensive outfielder in the league. By the numbers, Laird was better than Mauer behind the plate. By the numbers, Jeter has spent his career a below-average — and at times absolutely terrible — shortstop.
So we have a choice: Either the managers and coaches are absolute idiots about baseball, or there are things on defense we still haven't figured out how to measure.
I'll take the latter. Consider, for example, the plus-minus system designed by John Dewan. Carlos Gomez shines in this stat. In 2008, he was a plus 35 in center; last year, playing about half time, he was a plus 17. That seems right to me — even Hunter in his prime didn't cover the ground Go-Go does.
But Gomez makes mistakes. Not just the errors he's charged with. He misses cutoff men so often it became a running joke. He'll chase a fly ball to the wall so aggressively that the carom bounces past him. These things aren't charged as errors, and they don't get penalized in plus-minus — but they cost bases and they cost runs.
Hunter doesn't get to balls that Gomez does. But he doesn't make the mental mistakes Gomez does.
Jeter ... I don't think he's the best shortstop in the league. I think Elvis Andrus was; and if not him, Erick Aybar. But, as I wrote earlier this year, Andrus is a rookie, and most managers have seen him in a handful of games. His time will come, maybe as soon as next season.
Meanwhile, Jeter not only showed improved range this past season, he continues to be consistently in the right place at the right time. The Punto play in the playoffs, while it came too late to be a factor in the voting, is an example. How many shortstops would have just fired to first in a vain attempt to throw out Denard Span — or, short of that, eaten the ball? A lot. Maybe most. Jeter was aware that Punto might try to take the next base.
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