The Dord of Darien

AL Gold Gloves!

Woo, awards have started! Now let’s complain about them!

I’m using some new stats this year. I’ll be going by Total Zone and Ultimate Zone Rating — both of which are advanced zone-based metrics measured in runs saved. Also I’ll be using TZ/135 and UZR/150, which are just Total Zone and Ultimate Zone Rating scaled to a standard number of games, to account for people who were blistering awesomeness and then maybe got hurt. And I’ll be mixing in Tango’s interesting Fans Scouting Report, which is a crowdsourced metric also measured in runs. In all cases, higher is better, and the rule of thumb is that ten runs is equal to one win. For catchers I’ll also list the caught stealing rate, since that’s pretty goddamn important, and I’m skeptical of the value of zone-based metrics at that position. Fangraphs agrees with me, and doesn’t even bother to make a UZR for catchers anyhow. Also, since nobody makes zone-based metrics for pitchers — and Tango doesn’t appear to have FSR for them either — I guess I’ll use Baseball Info Solutions’ Defensive Runs Saved Above Average and its scaled counterpart. Fucking pitchers.

C: Joe Mauer (TZ: 4, TZ/135: 5, FSR: 13, CS%: 26%)
1B: Mark Teixeira (TZ: 7, TZ/135: 6, UZR: -2.9, UZR/150: -2.4, FSR: 8)
2B: Robinson Cano (TZ: 0, TZ/135: 0, UZR: -0.6, UZR/150: -0.9, FSR: 10)
3B: Evan Longoria (TZ: 15, TZ/135: 13, UZR: 11.1, UZR/150: 12.4, FSR: 20)
SS: Derek Jeter (TZ: -10, TZ/135: -10, UZR: -4.7, UZR/150: -5.4, FSR: -9)
LF: Carl Crawford (TZ: 1, TZ/135: 1, UZR: 18.5, UZR/150: 21.2, FSR: 15)
CF: Franklin Gutierrez (TZ: 15, TZ/135: 14, UZR: 7.3, UZR/150: 6.8, FSR: 11)
RF: Ichiro Suzuki (TZ: 10, TZ/135: 9, UZR: 15.6, UZR/150: 14.8, FSR: 15)
P: Mark Buehrle (DRS: 8, DRS/135: 46)

So, looking at this list, you can probably already see a few names that clearly don’t belong (hint: they all play for the Yankees). Isn’t it odd that the Yankees’ entire infield — or, well, everybody who’s not a gutless choker, anyhow — won gold gloves, when poor infield defense was a major problem for them all year long? That Robinson Cano’s zone metrics are all bad but his FSR is pretty good is interesting; that indicates to me that perhaps he gets a lot of chances on easy plays to his right, since his shortstop — what’s his name — is legendary for getting absolutely nothing to his left. Crawford is pretty frustrating, since the two metrics don’t agree about him at all; I’d say that since his FSR is more similar to his UZR, it’s probably a closer-to-accurate measure of his contribution.

So, anyhow, enough of that. It’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the list of people who should have won gold gloves instead of these lumbering oafs from the Yankees!

C: Matt Wieters (TZ: 7, TZ/135: 8, FSR: 13, CS%: 31%)
1B: Daric Barton (TZ: 10, TZ/135: 9, UZR: 12.1, UZR/150: 14.2, FSR: 5)
2B: Mark Ellis (TZ: 7, TZ/135: 8, UZR: 9.9, UZR/150: 12.7, FSR: 8)
3B: Evan Longoria
SS: Cliff Pennington (TZ: 11, TZ/135: 10, UZR: 9.9, UZR/150: 8.8, FSR: 9)
LF: Brett Gardner (TZ: 18, TZ/135: 24, UZR: 22.3, UZR/150: 39.7, FSR: 10)
CF: Franklin Gutierrez
RF: Ichiro Suzuki
P: Ricky Romero (DRS: 10, DRS/135: 57)

Well, they got three right. Good work, gold glove voters! You notice how all those overrated infielding Yankees got replaced with Athletics you’ve never heard of? That’s neat how that happened. And then Carl Crawford did the impossible: he got replaced by a Yankee you’ve never heard of!

Now, of course, all the usual caveats about fielding metrics apply here, but come on. They’re fairly good, if taken together, at reflecting actual value. And which would you trust more: a complex collection of acronyms and numbers, or a bunch of boneheads who just gave Derek Jeter his fifth award for being the best fielder at a position he fields very badly?

November 9th, 2010 Posted by Darien | Baseball | one comment