Monday, November 10, 2008
Gold Glove debate continues
There is nothing more thrilling to me than being called out by one of my baseball-writing colleagues.
For one thing, I selfishly want people to know who I am, so just about any publicity is good publicity. And two, being called out gives me something to chew on. Especially these days, because in addition to the initial criticism, there are also the follow-ups via the comments section. If you want to get better (or not get worse), you'd better be willing to listen to criticism and learn from it.
Prime Example: My colleague Evan Grant, who writes about the Texas Rangers for a living, thinks I'm all wet for having written last week that Michael Young -- coincidentally enough, a Texas Ranger -- does not richly deserve the Gold Glove that he's been awarded.
First, some preliminaries, in which Mr. Grant refers to my reference to my Fielding Bible ballot:
About that Fielding Bible vote, I guess we should point out to readers, Rob, that you are on John Dewan's panel of "experts" who vote on the Fielding Bible Awards -- which, as noted on the Fielding Bible's website -- is an attempt to offer an alternative to the Gold Glove awards. So, maybe, just maybe, you have a vested interest in fomenting the argument that guys other than those who were named official Gold Glove winners should, in fact, be recognized as better choices.
Maybe I do have that vested interest; the subconscious is a powerful thing. On a conscious level, though, I don't have any interest at all in fomenting this or any other particular argument. I mean, other than the argument that justice be served. I can't speak for the other voters, but this Fielding Bible voter would be absolutely thrilled if our choices matched the Gold Glove choices perfectly. Sure, if that happened there wouldn't be any reason for us to keep doing what we do. But if justice makes us obsolete? Most of us voters would find some other way to occupy ourselves for half a day every October.
Next, a passage addressing my suggestion that Carlos Pena was a solid Gold Glove choice, but that I would have voted for Lyle Overbay, in (small) part because Overbay's pre-2008 track record is stronger than Pena's…
But wait, on the Fielding Bible site, it says you voted for Pena as the best AL first baseman (if you eliminate Mark Teixeira, who rejoined the AL at the trading deadline). Overbay didn't get a mention from ANY of the 10 Fielding Bible voters. Aren't you one of those 10?
Oh, and one other thing: I think the awards are presented for single-season accomplishment, not for career achievement. What Overbay and Pena did in the past shouldn't be relevant to this year's awards. That would be as stupid as giving Mike Mussina a Gold Glove over Kenny Rogers because Mussina has a good reputation as a fielder and won a lot of games this year.
There's no way that Evan Grant could have known this, but Lyle Overbay actually did get some support from the Fielding Bible voters; there was simply an error in tabulating (or reporting) the ballots. I've seen the corrected balloting for first baseman -- it hasn't been posted yet, but probably will be soon -- which does show my fourth-place vote for Overbay (first in the American League) and an overall ninth-place finish for Overbay (fourth in the American League).
Again, you can't hold this against Grant. Based purely on the information he had, I did express a terribly inconsistency regarding Overbay. Except I didn't, really. Now, to address Grant's larger point that career achievement is irrelevant, he may have a point, but I'm not at all sure that he does.
Why? Because fielding analysis is a little bit squishy. Squishier, for sure, than hitting analysis. If you lock five sabermetricians in a room with the best available hitting data, they'll come out a couple of hours later with almost exactly the same answers. But if you lock those same figure filberts in a room with the best available fielding data? A couple of days later, they'll come out with some of the same answers, some similar answers, and a few wildly divergent answers.
As it happens, I know most of the actual filberts personally. They're wicked smart. I don't trust a single one of them. I do trust all of them, collectively. But the difference between a good fielder and a great fielder is a lot less than the difference between a good hitter and a great hitter. A good fielder might make an extra 10 plays in a season. A great one makes an extra 20. So the difference is 10 plays in a season, or less than one play every couple of weeks. You see why I might not completely trust one season's worth of fielding metrics? Why, when faced with a tough decision, I might consider ways to include more information in my deliberations.
I'm not saying it's right to consider, just a little bit, what happened in 2007. I'm saying it's defensible.
Finally, after some odd statistical hanky-panky that essentially double-counts fielding percentage -- a pretty lousy foundation for fielding analysis -- here's Grant's big finish:
The bottom line: You can make an argument that the AL's crop of shortstops was not the league's best in years. You can argue that Orlando Cabrera had as good a year in the field as Young. But there is nothing, short of plain-old opinion, that suggests Michael Young wasn't at the top of the AL's class at the position.
Nothing? Michael Young finished 22nd among major league shortstops in John Dewan's +/-. Granted, it was a lousy year for AL shortstops and Young did finish third in the Fielding Bible balloting. But it was a distant third, well behind Erick Aybar and Orlando Cabrera. Now, Aybar started only 91 games, and you might reasonably choose to exclude him for that reason (though if you do that, you have to completely ignore Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia as National League award candidates). But Cabrera started 160 games, is pretty good every year, and there probably isn't a general manager anywhere who would take Young's glove ahead of Cabrera's.
I would suggest that everything suggests that Cabrera, while perhaps not at the top of the class, got better grades than Young. Now, Grant might argue that even if Young is slightly (or otherwise) behind Cabrera, Young is still the No. 2 shortstop in the league, and there's nothing wrong with the No. 2 guy winning the award. After all, missing by one isn't that bad, right?
Sure. Usually. But that's assuming you get the No. 2 guy right. I don't think Young was the No. 2 guy. My ballot had Aybar first (among American Leaguers), followed by Jason Bartlett and Cabrera. I'm perfectly willing to consider the possibility that I have those three in the wrong order; really, it depends on which day you catch me. I do not have a rigid system. When it's time to fill out my ballot, I sit down with a range of materials, and it takes me three or four hours to fill out all 90 spots on my ballot (10 for each position).
Does Erick Aybar, who started only 91 games, deserve to be ranked as the best shortstop in the league? According to Baseball Info Solutions, Aybar made eight plays more than an average shortstop would have made in 91 games. Young made seven plays fewer than an average shortstop would have made in 142 games.
You might think those numbers mean Young was the more valuable defensive player. But my opinion is that the Gold Glove should go to the fielder who saved the most runs over the course of the season, just as I believe the Cy Young should go to the starting pitcher who saves the most runs. Let us suppose that a pitcher starts only 20 games but goes 15-3 with a 2.96 ERA. Would he not be a better Cy Young candidate than a pitcher who starts 34 games and goes 13-17 with a 4.52 ERA?
Most years, we don't have to make that choice. Most years, we've got a shortstop who plays great defense over the course of 140 or more games. This year, we had three or four of those guys in the National League. But none in the American League. In the absence of such a shortstop, there was a choice between (among other things) a good fielder who played a lot of games, a great fielder who didn't play a lot of games, and a below-average fielder who played a lot of games.
The third of those fielders would be my last choice rather than my first.
But of course that's just my plain-old opinion. I could be wrong.
