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Friday, March 08, 2013

Rawlings Gold Glove Award adds new sabermetric component with SABR

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As part of the multi-year collaboration beginning with the 2013 season, SABR will develop an expanded statistical resource guide that will accompany the Rawlings Gold Glove Award ballots sent to major league-level managers and coaches each year. In addition, SABR will immediately establish a new Fielding Research Committee tasked to develop a proprietary new defensive analytic called the SABR Defensive Index™, or SDI™. The SDI will serve as an “apples-to-apples” metric to help determine the best defensive players in baseball exclusively for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award selection processes. The collaboration also installs SABR as the presenting sponsor of the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award.

“The Rawlings Gold Glove Award is one of the most iconic awards in all of sports, and has continued to evolve throughout its storied history,” said Kurt Hunzeker, senior director of brand marketing for St. Louis-based Rawlings. “By marrying the ‘art of fielding’ with the ‘science of baseball,’ our new collaboration with SABR only cements the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award as the industry standards honoring defensive excellence at the highest level of baseball.”

Since its inception in 1957, the Rawlings Gold Glove Award voting process has included national sportswriters, a secret players-only ballot, and the current system where each manager and up to six (6) coaches on his staff vote from a pool of qualified players in their respective league, but not for players on their own team.

Beginning in 2013, the managers/coaches vote will constitute a majority of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners’ selection tally, with the new SDI comprising the remainder of the overall total. The exact breakdown of the selection criteria will be announced once the SDI is created later this summer.

“SABR has a long history of being at the forefront of the sabermetrics movement,” said Vince Gennaro, president of SABR. “We are proud to bring our expertise to bear in the selection of future Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners, and to be a driving force behind the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award.”

Mike Emeigh Posted: March 08, 2013 at 04:59 PM | 20 comment(s)
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1. KJOK Posted: March 08, 2013 at 05:38 PM (#4384380)

new Fielding Research Committee tasked to develop a proprietary new defensive analytic called the SABR Defensive Index™, or SDI™.

So Mike, are you on this committee?

An by proprietary they mean the members of SABR won't have access to how the defensive metric is calculated?

2. Mike Emeigh

Posted: March 08, 2013 at 05:52 PM (#4384407)

Where to start...

This is exactly what I've been concerned about with the direction that the organization has been headed, in trying to get a closer relationship with MLB. A proprietary metric? For an organization whose primary purpose is supposed to be to disseminate baseball information? How can SABR justify doing anything that isn't open source, available to all, in alignment with its mission?

How will the "proprietary" metric be validated? Against whose standards? How will the broader research community know that it makes sense? Just because SABR and MLB say so?

And what happens when the next wave of research comes along and renders much of what we currently know obsolete or less relevant? Will SABR and MLB show a willingness to incorporate breakthrough research initiated outside of SABR/MLB sponsorship into the "proprietary" metric?

This is just wrong, on so many levels. Not wrong for the powers that be in SABR, mind you - but wrong for the baseball research community as a whole.

-- MWE

3. Mike Emeigh

Posted: March 08, 2013 at 05:55 PM (#4384413)

So Mike, are you on this committee?

I am not, and I won't be.

If my comment above wasn't specific - I think this is a clear violation of SABR's mission statement.

-- MWE

4. Foghorn Leghorn Posted: March 08, 2013 at 06:31 PM (#4384487)

I think this is a clear violation of SABR's mission statement.

Since nothing is being withheld (yet), it isn't a clear violation.

It could easily be meaning "SABR's official calculation", which doesn't mean it is secretive *necessarily*. Like all things - let's wait and see.

5. KJOK Posted: March 08, 2013 at 06:37 PM (#4384504)

I don't think we should have to 'wait and see.' Someone should be able to say what the proprietary adjective is supposed to be describing.

6. Jack Carter, calling Beleaguered Castle Posted: March 08, 2013 at 06:45 PM (#4384518)

Range Factor?

7. Nineto Lezcano hits the pinata for the candy (CW) Posted: March 08, 2013 at 07:22 PM (#4384559)

Well if KJOK, MWE and Foghorn all don't know specifics, which SABR members *ARE* involved with this committee?

8. Foghorn Leghorn Posted: March 08, 2013 at 08:47 PM (#4384621)

Well if KJOK, MWE and Foghorn all don't know specifics, which SABR members *ARE* involved with this committee?

I read the press release as "this is *starting*" So the committee is being formed.

KJOK, I just meant the info isn't presented *yet*. I think it will be. Its just a press release, and I wouldn't expect every detail to be out yet. From what I know about SABR is that this will evolve.

9. SteveF Posted: March 08, 2013 at 10:25 PM (#4384678)

Hopefully SDI will track balls in play a bit better than it tracked missiles in flight.

10. TomH Posted: March 08, 2013 at 11:32 PM (#4384731)

Ha ha. But ya know, the "SDI" that knocked out scuds in 1991 worked pretty well.

11. TomH Posted: March 08, 2013 at 11:37 PM (#4384735)

yes, there are two "WILLS" in the announcement. As a SABR member and statistical analysis committee (SAC) member, I received the exact same announcement today, no more and no less. I have asked the chair of the SAC what he knows.

******

edit: Phil B writes back, he has heard nothing; he saw it first on Tango's blog.

12. TomH Posted: March 08, 2013 at 11:38 PM (#4384737)

One (at a minimum) good thing will come of this; the fact that the voters will actually have Information in front of them to Inform their voting. Maybe it will be better than a picture of Jeter diving into the stands or flipping a relay throw to a catcher....

13. Jim Furtado

Posted: March 09, 2013 at 08:22 AM (#4384870)

I don't understand the need for a proprietary metric. Hopefully, they will present as much publicly available defensive data along with whatever new thingy they come up with. The idea isn't necessarily horrible if the arrangement include access to some proprietary MLB data that SABR researchers can work with.

14. JE (Jason Epstein)

Posted: March 09, 2013 at 08:52 AM (#4384875)

It seems like Rawlings was starting to see the Fielding Bible Awards as a threat. The response seems gimmicky though. Will more than a handful of managers and coaches really care about this new component in the "selection process?"

15. AROM Posted: March 09, 2013 at 11:15 AM (#4384907)

They'll probably look at the -30 or so number next to Jeter's name, declare the whole process useless, and vote him another gold glove.

16. TomH Posted: March 09, 2013 at 11:40 AM (#4384919)

I smell an impt sideshow at the SABR43 Philly convention this summer....

17. GuyM Posted: March 09, 2013 at 02:22 PM (#4385015)

They'll probably look at the -30 or so number next to Jeter's name, declare the whole process useless, and vote him another gold glove.

You think at age 39, and coming off a broken ankle, Jeter can maintain his usual fielding performance? Seems optimistic.... :)

18. SteveF Posted: March 10, 2013 at 12:42 AM (#4385319)

I'm fairly confident voters will see that he's lost at least 2-3 inches of vertical on his jump tosses to first and realize he's become a below average fielder.

19. Fred Garvin is dead and Joe Biden is alive Posted: March 11, 2013 at 01:14 PM (#4386332)

I'm with Mike in Post #2, but let's see how this plays out. Everything I've read so far leads me to believe that it may be somewhat in flux.

20. jacksone (AKA It's OK...) Posted: March 11, 2013 at 02:31 PM (#4386396)

I'm fairly confident voters will see that he's lost at least 2-3 inches of vertical on his jump tosses to first and realize he's become a below average fielder.

Yeah, but he is starting to go gray, so think of all the raw MAN-NESS, to say nothing of Mystique & Aura, that is oozing out of him. No way he can be sub-par at anything. It's clearly the Rod's fault for not getting to that ball in the hole. And Cano doesn't hustle, so all those balls up the middle are his fault.

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Friday, March 08, 2013

Rawlings Gold Glove Award adds new sabermetric component with SABR

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