As the number of games left on the baseball calendar slowly dwindles, the “pre-award awards” columns ramp up.
Keith Law of ESPN recently published My early award winners, top contenders, a column for Insiders, picking likely winners for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year. Mike Trout, Felix Hernandez, and Jose Abreu are his choices in the American League, and Giancarlo Stanton, Clayton Kershaw, and in absentia are his choices in the National League (since Law has a vote for ROY in the NL, he declines to make a prediction publicly before the voting).
Oregon Sports News’ own John Underwood throws some Seattle Mariners names in the ring for post-season awards in his article Award Season Coming up for the Seattle Mariners, delving a little deeper into Manager of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year.
Underwood makes an interesting point in his column, though, when he asserts that most of the awards are subjective in nature. The subjectivity of some of the awards is apparent in the very language used to describe them. Most Valuable Player begs the question, what values? By what criteria is one player’s glove “gold” and another player’s bat “silver,” using metaphors for precious and rare metals of enormous economic value?
As a self-professed amateur sabermetrician, I tend to resist the notion that these awards are, in fact, subjective in nature. I much prefer to think the voters either got it “right” or got it “wrong,” based on the more objective criteria of quantifiable statistics. And, yes, I’m one of “those” people who argued vociferously for Mike Trout as AL MVP in 2012 (and 2013) in the face of Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown and who crack up laughing when announcers laud Derek Jeter’s five Gold Glove awards.
It makes as little sense to me that one can ignore an overwhelming difference in wins against replacement (WAR) to decide an MVP as it would to ignore percentage points on a batting average to award the batting title. “Oh yeah, Jose Altuve actually has a higher batting average, but the casual fan knows Robinson Cano better, so he wins the batting title.”
As absurd as awarding a batting title on popularity sounds, that’s exactly what baseball does routinely in awarding Gold Glove awards, and, ironically, Cano was the beneficiary with his first Gold Glove in 2010, when Orlando Hudson of the Minnesota Twins should have won. And, it may happen again this year, even though Dustin Pedroia of the last place Boston Red Sox should be the clear cut winner.
Fortunately, in 2013, Rawlings, the sporting goods company that awards the Gold Glove, took steps to take some of the controversy out of the process and began using the Society for American Baseball Research’s (SABR) defensive metric known as SABR Defensive Index (SDI), to weight roughly 25% of the vote for their award. SDI incorporates Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) from Baseball Info Solutions, Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) developed by Michael Lichtman at FanGraphs, and Runs Effectively Defended (RED) from SABR. The remaining 75% of the vote is made by managers and coaches who cannot vote for any of their own players.
In the very first year of the new system, four of the nine Gold Gloves awarded in the AL matched up with the SDI index, as well as four in the NL. So, they’re starting to get it half right.
Since SDI is comprised of several metrics from several different sources and is proprietary to SABR, it’s difficult for humble amateurs to use the actual Gold Glove determining metric. However, one essential element of SDI, UZR, is readily available at FanGraphs.
So, using UZR and its companion piece UZR/150, which helps balance out unequal playing time by pro-rating runs saved over 150 games, I’ll take a crack at the Gold Glove winners for the American League and also see where Mariners rank.
Catcher
Unfortunately for this exercise, UZR doesn’t really apply to catchers because they don’t have a “zone” other than the occasional pop fly. Attempts have been made to measure how well a catcher frames pitches, blocks pitches in the dirt, and controls the running game. Using some of those metrics, FanGraphs assigns an overall defensive score (Def), that ranks Yan Gomes of the Cleveland Indians as the top defensive catcher in the AL.
Using the same scale, Mike Zunino, the backstop for the Mariners, ranks 4th.
First Base
There’s a reason first base has historically been the station of big power hitters. It’s not that demanding defensively, so it’s not necessary to be terribly athletic to play the position. This year’s AL Gold Glove candidates are no exception. With a 4.7 UZR, Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angles edges out Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers at 4.3.
Since, UZR is a cumulative statistic, it is worth noting that both Pujols and Cabrera have played about 900 innings at first this year, but that Steve Pierce of the Baltimore Orioles comes in third in UZR at 4.1, having logged just a tad over 250 innings. Using UZR/150 and eliminating part-time players, Pujols again emerges as the favorite.
The two Mariners with the most time at 1B, Justin Smoak and Logan Morrison, rank 44th and 58th in UZR, respectively.
Second Base
Dustin Pedroia, while having a somewhat disappointing year at the plate (.372 slugging), is still stellar in the field and should win his fourth Gold Glove. Pedroia’s 15.5 UZR is a third again better than Detroit Tigers’ 2B Ian Kinsler (10.2).
Technically, Robinson Cano ranks 19th in UZR, but if you’re willing to throw out a 700+ inning season from Baltimore Orioles’ Jonathan Schoop, a couple of 500+ inning seasons from Ben Zobrist of the Tampa Rays and Eric Sogard of the Oakland A’s, and a bunch of obvious part-timers, then Cano ranks 3rd among full-timers at 0.6. Based on UZR/150, Cano’s 0.6 ranks 4th among full-timers, behind Pedroia, Kinsler, and Howie Kendrick of the Angels.
Shortstop
J.J. Hardy of the Orioles is in line to win his third straight Gold Glove at the all-important SS position. A UZR of 10.9 beats out runner up Eric Aybar of the Angels at 7.9.
Trailing Hardy and Aybar by almost 300 innings, Seattle’s own Brad Miller comes in third with a UZR of 3.1. Miller maintains his hold on 3rd place among full-time SS (note: Chris Taylor now seems to be Lloyd McClendon’s choice most of the time at SS) when playing time is normalized using UZR/150.
Third Base
A compelling race is shaping up at the hot corner between AL West rivals Josh Donaldson of the A’s and Kyle Seager of the M’s. Donaldson’s UZR is 10.9 while Seager’s is 9.5. It would be the first Gold Glove for either player.
Right Field
Remember that mythical position in co-ed softball back in grade school, roving right field, where the most uncoordinated, awkward kids, were made to play? Well, some of the worst defenders in MLB are stuck in right for the same reasons.
There are a few 600+ inning types on the UZR leaderboard, like Norichika Aoki of the Kansas City Royals, Kyle Calhoun of the Angles, Josh Reddick of the A’s, Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays, and former Mariner Ichiro Suzuki of the New York Yankees. The first regular, full-time right fielder, with 1000+ innings on the list is Nick Markakis of the Orioles. With a 1.8 UZR and a 17th place showing, I guess we’ll give him the Gold Glove.
With not quite 400 innings in right, Seattle Mariners Michael Saunders comes in 15th in UZR/150 at 25.0, with several players under 100 innings above him.
Centerfield
Along with shortstop, centerfield is considered the marquee defensive position on the field, reserved for the best of the best. Names like Willy Mays and Mickey Mantle and Jackie Bradley, Jr. come to mind. Wait, Jackie Bradley, Jr.?
The Red Sox experiment in centerfield for close to 900 innings this year is the leader in the clubhouse in UZR at 16.9. To put Bradley’s defensive prowess in perspective, even with one of the worst offensive seasons in the history of major league baseball – .216/.288/.290 – he still has managed to generate 1.5 WAR.
High on the UZR list at 10th is the Mariners own light hitting opening day centerfielder, Abraham Almonte, since demoted to the minors, while recent acquisition and current Mariners centerfielder, Austin Jackson, ranks 59th in UZR with -7.0.
Left Field
Left Field is simple. It’s Alex Gordon of the Royals and it isn’t even close. Gordon’s 22.4 UZR is 15 runs saved higher than anyone else in the AL.
Among full-time players, the M’s Dustin Ackley comes in second at 7.3, trailed closely by Yoenis Cespedes of the Red Sox.
Pitcher
Pitchers, like catchers, are problematic defensively. Ideally, you’d like your pitcher to never be involved in a fielding play, but occasionally necessity requires them to field a bunt or cover first base. FanGraphs has so few pitching specific fielding metrics that I’m almost tempted to just skip this award. The usual suspects in the AL, like Mark Buehrle and R.A Dickey show up on the first page. Chris Young shows up at 70th.
Let’s just give the award to Greg Maddux even though he’s retired and never played in the AL.
Closing
And, on a closing note, Mariners fans have probably heard one or more of the home announcers brag that the Mariners are 1st in the AL in defense. Well, they are 1st in defense if you’re still looking at fielding percentage, an incredibly outdated statistic that provides almost no useful information. The Mariners fielding percentage is .988 while the average for the AL (and the NL for that matter) is .984. A deviation of .004 is hardly statistically significant.
In team UZR, the Mariners are a very good 6th behind the Orioles, Royals, Red Sox, A’s and Angels.
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