Foul Territory

A sports blog with no specific focus, though I like wrestling and baseball

11.06.2004

Gold Glove Travesty

I just checked, and my last five posts have been at least tangentially related to this week's Presidential election. Therefore, I'm going to veer away from that and talk about my favorite sport that can be seen on television, though not my favorite sport to watch. It's second, however. Here are some baseball related thoughts I had while trying to figure out a way to have a son that is both 6'3 and left-handed so I can watch him in the big leagues one day. I've got lefties in the family, but the 6'3 part may take some doing.

Gold Gloves were announced this week. Any given year, there are always choices that leave objective analysts scratching their heads. It's a given fact that many Gold Gloves are won with the bat, even though that's not really the spirit of the award. Additionally, once you win one, if you stay healthy the next year, you're likely to keep on winning. This is why Greg Maddux has 14 of these things now, though it's not certain he was the best fielding pitcher for all 14 of those years. He's not a bad choice in any year, however. On the other hand, there were a few travesties this year that have furthered stripped any remaining evaluative value from the award. First, Bret Boone won his fourth this year as a second sacker for the woeful Mariners. The boys (and girl) over at my favorite baseball website Baseball Prospectus have some fancy metrics that actually rated Boone as having a terrible year defensively. There is some slop in defensive statistics dues to the complicated nature of defense that relies on not only the individual but the batter, pitcher, and other fielders around him. However, if a player is rated below average, then they probably were. The statistics are better used for forming groups of equally good players than ranking them, and Boone belongs in the bottom group for sure, but his reputation and previous awards (when he was actually good) propped him up for at least one more year. It also helps to be well known (for monster offensive seasons past in Boone's case). The best statistically at the position was Orlando Hudson, and I doubt anyone reading this can tell me what team he plays for without looking it up.

Boone's selection was a minor blip, the likes of which are seen every year. The real story of the Gold Glove selections surrounds the second best shortstop on the Yankees. Derek Jeter beat the duo of being regarded as sub-par defensively and the lack of prior Gold Gloves to win the award this year. Objective analysts can hardly believe this. Actually, that's not true. They can believe it, but are flabbergasted by it. Jeter has, by all statistical measures, been nothing like a good shortstop in his career. In fact, according to Clay Davenport at BP, he has cost his team 138 more runs over his career than a league-average shortstop. To Jeter's credit, he had a good, for him, season this past year, coming in at roughly league average. The problem is that there is a perception among casual fans (thanks to Tim McCarver) and baseball people (thanks to SportsCenter) that Jeter is a great defender. He does have an above average arm and fairly good running speed. The problems are that he's not particularly adept with the glove, and he gets terrible, terrible jumps on ground balls. The most important characteristic of a middle infielder is the jump he gets on the ball, and Jeter is awful at it. This is why he costs his team so many runs. This is also why ends up diving so much. He just misses his jump. Edgar Renteria makes a lot fewer diving plays because he doesn't have to dive. He just gets to the ball. Of course, getting a good jump on the ball never lands you on SportsCenter. SportsCenter won Jeter this award. He made a play in the 12th inning against Boston in July where he caught a foul ball and then tumbled into the stands, hitting his face on the seat in front of him. This was replayed so much that my mom probably even saw it at some point. He won the award based on this play. Well, that and the fawning of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan. Managers and coaches vote on the Gold Gloves. What do you think they do? Do they read about Range Factor, Zone Rating, Runs Above Average and such, or do they watch the highlights, check the fielding percentage (a useless statistic if there ever was one) and vote on reputation. They're busy men, so we'll cut them some slack, but they (or someone else) should do a better job.

I'm really not that upset about Jeter winning the award, since much of the value has been lost due to previous voting abnormalities, so it's not like the award is cheapened in any way by his winning it. That was done long ago. The part that bothers me is that people like Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver has some legitimacy in their claims about Jeter's defensive brilliance. If you watch baseball, be on the lookout for it next year. Should the Yankees again make the playoffs, you'll hear about Jeter's Gold Glove an awful lot.
Andy, 7:22 PM