Gonzalez over Pujols??

McClouth over anyone?

Good to know all is right with the world.

I think we'll all feel much better if we just accept that Pujols' accomplishments are discounted about 30% for all award voting. He needs to be that much better than everyone else to win.

McClouth, eeeeh, that's the weak link. The rest of the picks seem defensible.

I just checked Beyond the Box Score's 1b ratings, and they had Pujols as +25 runs defensively over Gonzalez at 1st.

I know you gotta take defensive stats with a grain of salt, but that is a HUGE gap.

Does Mike Murphy vote on these, too?

I guess you could give 3B to Chipper. Feliz had a down year and nobody else enters my mind as a candidate.

Glad to see three center fielders, as usual.

Victorino is a nice surprise. Not sure what the numbers say, but he does cover a heck of a lot of ground and has a strong and accurate arm. It's weird that this guy is getting near quasi-star status.

Before you snicker at this go look up the numbers...

Kendall should have won at C. He had a better year defensively than Molina in every single area. I don't know what the Brewers fed him to cause the turn around but he was outstanding defensively last year after being completely miserable the year before.

McLouth is the really bad one though, he is one of the worst fielding CF in baseball.

Molina had an off year defensively, but I can live with that pick.

Gonzalez? Didn't Dial have him below average defensively?

McLouth? Seriously? Victorino is not a great choice either, but he's Maysequse next to McLouth

It's weird that this guy is getting near quasi-star status.

Maui No Ka Oi.

Dial's DRS

Molina 2.5 (Kendall 9.7)
Gonzalez 3.5 (Pujols 14.5)
Phillips 8.2 (Utley 12.9)
Wright -4.8 (Chipper 9.4)
Rollins 6.4 (Vizquel 8.3)
Victorino 4.9 (Giles 11.3)
McLouth -10.5 (Chavez 10.8)
Beltran 6.7 (Hermida 11.5)

Neither of those teams in Post 10 are exactly perfect. Hermida? Chipper?

Link's fixed.

-- MWE

It's weird that this guy is getting near quasi-star status.

Maui No Ka Oi.

Before there was a Clark Kent
There was a Hawaiian Sup'pa Man!

Neither of those teams in Post 10 are exactly perfect. Hermida? Chipper?

Hey, take it up with Dial.

I'm definitely not going to make an argument for Adrian Gonzalez as the GG winner, but I'm surprised at his poor rankings on the defensive metrics being developed. He's a wonderful fielder, good hands, good feet and an excellent and aggressive arm. I can imagine his range is limited, but that doesn't seem like it should be a huge factor for a corner IF. I wonder if he's getting a fair shake or if there are factors impacting how he rates out in things like =/-, UZR, PMR, etc.

"I don't know what the Brewers fed him..."

A completely different pitching staff?

I can imagine his range is limited, but that doesn't seem like it should be a huge factor for a corner IF.

Except for range is what makes Pujols so tremendous at 1b.

He plays 1b like an infielder---that is, he's all about his positioning, with less regard for where he is relative to the bag, and he's extremely aggressive about chasing down balls to his right, and he's outstanding at making tough throws from awkward positions to the pitcher covering 1b. He plays 1b like he's the only defender on the diamond to the 2b's left, and it's his job to stop anything hit in that direction.

The one advantage Gonzalez has is that he played in 161 games and spent 17% more innings at 1b than did Pujols. Despite that he had fewer assists than Pujols and just 0.7% more putouts.

well, maybe if el hombre is getting jobbed out of the gg, it means things will right themselves and he'll get the MVP.

Despite that he had fewer assists than Pujols and just 0.7% more putouts

How important are 1B assists and putouts? Isn't it largely a discretionary play to throw it to the pitcher at 1B or take it himself? Aren't assists to bases other than 1B more revealing? Aren't putouts just a measure of how much of a ground ball staff is on the team?

Wright was averagish at third base last year and the first half of last season. He played a legitimately Gold-Glove calibre of defense in the second half.

Beltran was his typical amazing self defensively.

Aren't putouts just a measure of how much of a ground ball staff is on the team?

Maybe, but I checked, just for fun, on balls put in play by lefthanded batters against both the Cardinals' and the Padres' staff (I was trying to see if the Cardinals low number of strikeouts may have contributed to having more balls in play, but I didn't look for GB data), and the LH batters put 1919 balls in play against the Cardinals and 1916 vs. the Padres.

Maybe someone smarter than me can determine if Pujols' higher rate of assists and putouts is due to having more opportunities, or due to an ability to make more plays.

McLouth? Really? I guess I should be happy that it's the first Pirates GG in forever (since Jay Bell, I think?), but wow...

Here's the issue that we run into with defensive metrics:

Three of Dial's four highly ranked infielders - Pujols, Utley, and Chipper - come from teams with ground-ball pitching staffs. (Vizquel, FWIW, comes from the team with the most extreme fly ball staff in the majors). Two of the three outfielders (Giles and Hermida) come from teams with fly-ball pitching staffs.

Of the GG infielders, all but Rollins play on teams with fly-ball staffs. Of the GG outfielders, McLouth and Beltran play on teams with relatively neutral staffs (Pittsburgh slight ground-ball, Mets moderate fly-ball), and Victorino plays on a team with a ground ball staff.

As I have said before: players who play behind pitching staffs that give them more opportunities to make plays tend to fare better in the zone-based metrics than players who play behind pitching staffs that give them fewer opportunities. Primarily for that reason, we still need to be careful when we make judgments using PBP-based metrics; we cannot be certain enough, in my judgment, that we're distinguishing between fielding skill and fielding opportunity.

EDIT: We should consider the possibility that the GG voters have picked up on fielding skill that is masked in Dial's ratings, and other zone-based ratings, by the opportunity factor.

EDIT 2: Although I personally doubt that's the case WRT McLouth.

-- MWE

Raphael Palmeiro won a GG after playing all of what, 28 games at 1B for Texas? Just goes to show that the system isn't infallible.

I live in a AL city, and ESPN and Fox seem to only show the Cubs, Mets, Phillies, or Dodgers when they show an NL game. I haven't seen enough of McLouth to have an opinion one way or the other (about all I know is that Strat-O-Matic rated him a "3", which is average, last year), but many people are calling this a horrible GG pick. Could someone who's actually seen him extensively give me an idea of his defense?

McLouth is a classic "good hands, no range" type of player. He catches just about everything he can get, but he can't get to a good number of balls he should catch.

-- MWE

Thanks, Mike.

McLouth is a classic "good hands, no range" type of player. He catches just about everything he can get, but he can't get to a good number of balls he should catch.

Well, maybe that's why he won the Gold Glove. Gold Fly Tracking, on the other hand...

He runs fairly well (better at speed than acceleration), and takes good routes, but doesn't react quickly, which limits his range.

A lot of people seem to automatically equate stolen bases with outfield fielding ability. Since McLouth stole 23 bases at an 88% clip AND hit well, this is hardly surprising.

This could make things awkward for McCutchen next year.

So this got me wondering, when the Pirates front office hears that Nate McLouth won a gold glove... do they are just laugh? Or do they get pissed because this will be leverage in arbitration hearings? I mean, they must realize he is barely passible in CF.

Jumping the gun on announcing the AL Awards?

2008 Gold Glove Winners

AMERICAN LEAGUE

P - MIKE MUSSINA - YANKEES
C - JOE MAUER - TWINS
1ST - CARLOS PENA - RAYS
2ND - DUSTIN PEDROIA - RED SOX
3RD - ADRIAN BELTRE - MARINERS
SS - MICHAEL YOUNG - RANGERS
OF - TORII HUNTER - ANGELS
OF - GRADY SIZEMORE - INDIANS
OF - ICHIRO SUZUKI - MARINERS

If Michael Young gets a GG tomorrow, don't say I didn't warn you!

As I have said before: players who play behind pitching staffs that give them more opportunities to make plays tend to fare better in the zone-based metrics than players who play behind pitching staffs that give them fewer opportunities. Primarily for that reason, we still need to be careful when we make judgments using PBP-based metrics; we cannot be certain enough, in my judgment, that we're distinguishing between fielding skill and fielding opportunity.

Can you provide some demonstration for this? ANd I think I am distinguishing between fielding value.

I took a look at seasons 1987 to 2007, and the weighted correlation between an infielder's ZR and his team's groundball rate (as GB/BIP) is .055. GB/PA nets us a correlation of -0.006. So if there is such an effect, it seems very modest at first blush.

Simply correlating CH to ZR gives a correlation of .127, which shouldn't surprise us much since better players tend to get more playing time.

Mike is correct that GB pitchers leads to higher out rates per GB. (And vice-versa.) That's why UZR includes an adjustment for that, as noted in MGL's Primer article introducing UZR.

With my WOWY, I include the identity of the pitcher, so that takes care of that problem and more.

Fielding Bible +/-

1.) Beltran +24
2.) Young +23
3.) Ross +15
4.) Gerut +12
5.) Victorino +10

Mclouth -40 (35th)

THT RZR

1.) Ross .952
2.) Young .947
3.) Rowand .945
4.) Cameron .943
5.) Beltran .925

Mclouth .867 (Dead Last)

THT OOZ

1. Beltran 111
2. Young 92
3. Mclouth 87
4. Victorino 83
5. Bourn 82


Stats Inc. Zone Rating,

1.) Patterson .901
2.) Victorino .899
3.) Beltran .899
4.) Cameron .892
5.) Young .889

Mclouth .852 (2nd from the bottom)


Baseball Prospectus

FRAR FRAA
Young 34 9
Victorino 27 5
Ross 23 4
Beltran 25 -1
Gerut 16 4
Rowand 23 -1
Cameron 20 1
Bourn 20 1

McLouth 7 -17