Derek Jeter Won The Gold Glove Because He’s Old
Derek Jeter is not the best defensive shortstop in the American League. That is not really a controversial statement, and you don’t have to be a believer in UZR to agree with the sentiment. So, why does he keep winning the Gold Glove award?
There is one easy answer and it does contain truth to some degree: he’s been one of the best offensive shortstops in the game for a long time. By and large, voters have tended to use the award to reward good hitters, likely because their abilities with the bat make them the most prominent. The average wRC+ for all Gold Glove winners is 123 (100 is average), showing a strong preference for good offensive performers. Even just looking at shortstops, the average wRC+ is 103, and it isn’t like middle infielders who are better than average hitters are easy to find.
But Jeter didn’t hit all that well this year, and as the Carl Crawford and Franklin Gutierrez votes show, the voters are taking these things a bit more seriously now, giving trophies to guys who have never won before but certainly should have.
So, while there is probably just some “this is what I do every year” phenomenon in Jeter voting, I would suggest that his wins each of the last two years have less to do with him and more to do with the guy who probably is the best defensive SS in the American League: Elvis Andrus. He’s just too young to win.
Since the Gold Gloves came into being in 1957, they have given out 956 trophies. Of those, just 13 have gone to players in their second year in the big leagues. Only one player has ever won in their first Major League season – Ichiro Suzuki – and he wasn’t a traditional rookie, having come over from Japan as an established player in the prime of his career. The managers who vote for these awards simply don’t cast their ballots for young players, and since the guy who probably should be taking home the trophy is just 22 years old, the voters have a built in excuse for just defaulting to the guy that everyone knows.
The list of young players to win the award is actually pretty interesting. Evan Longoria won his first gold glove last year, and was actually the first third baseman to win in just his second year. Russell Martin was given the NL Catcher award in 2006 in just his second trip through the big leagues, but before that (excluding Ichiro), you have to go back to 1996 to find a second year guy who took home the trophy. That guy was Rey Ordonez, who was perhaps the most hyped defensive prospect of his generation, and is the only shortstop to ever win the award in his second year.
Before Ordonez, no infielder had won in his second year since George Scott in 1967. A few outfielders and catchers had been noted for their glove work in between, but traditionally, infielders have had to spend years putting on a show before they got any recognition for their work.
Andrus will probably start winning the award next year, and there’s a good chance that he wins a bunch of them in a row. He won’t be any better defensively, of course, but he’ll have had more time to make an impression on those who cast their ballots. And, based on history, it takes at least three years of work to make enough of an impact to actually take home the hardware.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
You realize the “voters” you keep referring to are managers right? Not one WRITER voted Jeter as a gold glove winner – the managers VOTE on this award.
Managers who are old, generally speaking, don’t vote the guy who’s just getting wet. Whether he’s better or not, old vote for old, young vote for young. It’s an unfortunate part of life.
Well, I don’t necessarily agree with this, just because there aren’t many managers who are in their 30’s, so there’s really no one in the same age range that they can vote for, especially these managers who are in their 50’s and 60’s. But I do bet that when it comes down to voting for either a younger player or an older player, they’re probably thinking “that young kid will have his time. I’m gonna vote for the older player.”
And? On the field baseball personnel is probably more in the dark about advanced metrics than the BBWAA is.
Just because someone works in a field does not mean they have a better understanding of the best of their professions over someone else.
This is the kind of crap statements that drive me crazy. Do you REALLY think that it’s only advanced metrics that illustrate a player like Jeter or Palmeiro not being gold glove quality?
I’m betting ALL of the team’s scouting departments show Jeter as an average to below shortstop.
I’m guessing that basic stats bear this out as well.
Advanced metrics has little to do with it.
What?!?!?!? Actually most times it does. The only reason why I can think of for someone to make a comment like that is becaquse they enjoy speaking authoritively on topics they are not qualified to speak on.
I understand that the only people that know how to run a company are those that don’t actually do it, and the people that really know how to be President are those that will never be, and those that well … you get the idea. In our country, there are actually critics that have never performed the duties they critiqued. That seems screwed up to me … like buying the book “How to be a Millionaire” written by a homeless guy.
I completely agree….people seem to think that if they can throw around wOBA and FIP they somehow know more than everyone else. I’m not talking about the author, I’m talking about the commenters.
Circlechange, what basic stats do you have in mind? Specifics might help.
paragraph 5 –
“The managers who vote for these awards simply don’t cast their ballots for young players, …”
he doesn’t talk about the writers anywhere.
Your analysis makes sense… sadly, what it means is that the voting for the Gold Glove is fatally flawed. Clearly, players are winning who have no business even being in the discussion, as is the case with Jeter this year.
It should be a serious, prestigious award. As a long-time Orioles fan, I can only hope that the voting was done by people who actually watched baseball back when Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair and Mark Belanger were winning boat loads of them. Otherwise, what a generation of O’s fans took great pride in was actually no more meaningful than… Derek Jeter winning a Gold Glove when he’s not even in the top 10 (as Rob Neyer pointed out).
And, yes, I admit Adam Jones probably didn’t deserve to win last year.
Someday, baseball may get its act together….
Well, you can rest assured that Belanger never won a Gold Glove based on his offensive ability.
Pennington and Ramirez both had much better seasons than Andrus.
This. Andrus is as overrated as a 20 year old can be, and didnt really have a good year. Pennington and Ramirez were much better overall SS than Andrus and obviously Jeter.
“Andrus is as overrated as a 20 year old can be.”
Just give me 3 1/2 years…I’ll show them ALL.
Today I’m dissappointed in the readership at fangraphs.com, because someone here took the time to find out Bieber’s age.
It was either that, or do some (productive) work. And who wants to do that??
In fact, I get to be lots of different personae on these here message boards – little Biebs, Joe Morgan, Rocky Balboa, Elaine Benes, you name it.
but you wouldn’t say pennington and ramirez are better defensively, would you?
Yes, I think they would.
Ramirez: 11 UZR, 16 DRS, 12 FANS, 12.67 AVG
Pennington: 10 UZR, 9 DRS, 9 FANS, 9.33 AVG
Andrus: -2 UZR, 1 DRS, 11 FANS, 3.33 AVG
Absolutely. Range factors alone put them both in their own class.
Schu, I think Range Factor can be a bit misleading, especially for fielders who have to deal with strikeout pitchers. Same for infielders who have to deal with fly ball pitchers, and for outfielders who have to deal with groundball pitchers.
And you can’t say that all evens out, because it doesn’t.
I would. In addition to the metrics already mentioned. Add in BP’s RAA
Alexei 48
Elvis 14
While I agree Andrus is mitghtly talanted and has a bright future still ahead of him, I disagree in the fact that he is at the moment the best SS in the AL. IMO it should have been Alexei Ramirez. If going by UZR/150 alone,Ramirez blows Andrus out of the water at 10.1 comprared to a .3 rating. Ramirez also beats out Andrus in a handful of other sabermetric fielding stats such as; ErrR, RngR, and DPR. The only case I see that could be made for Andrus is that Andrus had 4 less errors and the only case I can see made for Jeter is his 6 errors compared to Ramirez 20. Outside of errors though, I think Alexei should have won this hands down
i am 50/50 on UZR and the other advanced defensive metrics, so i dont think they should be the be all and end all of the GG, but i think it should be a consideration. having said that, i just don’t feel right giving a GG to someone with 20 errors, especially when the league leader had only 6. i mean sure ramirez has excellent tools defensively, but he needs to cut down on the errors to have a legit shot at the award.
MGL said over at Tango’s site a while back that UZR may be understating the run impact of errors.
There is something to be said for handling balls cleanly. That said, I am not sure Jeters low error total was not the result of some scorer bias. Kind of like at SAFECO, anytime an IF’er misplays a GB that Ichiro beats out, it is ALWAYS a hit, and never an error.
Yes, 20 does seem like a lot of errors, but there are a few things to remember. We have to consdier how much more action SS gets then any other position, therefore more oppurtunties, hence more chances for failure. We must also take into consideration that about 14-16 errors seems about average for the position, so 20 isn’t as bad as it seems.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to see each of those 20 errors. Were they on balls that Jeter wouldn’t have gotten close too? Were they the fault of the first baseman or a questionable scoring decision?
Old guys have fewer errors because they can’t *get* to the close plays to get called with an error. Jeter in 2010 has no where near the range that Andrus has.
If the managers can’t take the GG vote seriously, either a different group should be found to vote on it, or they should just retire the award altogether as a meaningless anachronism that no longer lives up to its former glory.
20 errors could (without looking at the data) be simply routine dropped balls or balls that go for doubles if Jeter was the fielder (over the head line drives through the gap, so forth). 20 errors means didly (sp?) without context. I’m a White Sox fan, but I’ll defer to someone more knowledgable on this, but 20 errors tells nothing as a stat.
Dave, I have to disagree with you here. Not because your analysis is implausible or unconvincing, but simply because Occam’s razor dictates that there is a simpler solution.
Derek Jeter won the gold glove because he led all AL shortstops in both fewest errors and highest fielding percentage. These managers and coaches do look at stats, and in fact that’s just about all they look at. The problem is that they look at the wrong stats. Derek Jeter is not one of those guys who wins every year, so he’s not winning because he’s old. He’s winning because he has a gaudy fielding percentage and few errors this particular year
To be honest, I think it is that^ PLUS the fact that the even SABR community lauded defensive improvements for him in 08 and 09. When it comes to appreciating those who were actually valuable, the GG awards are often a year behind (eg. Guti).
your blog’s pretty funny, nice work man
Tell this to 2006 Mark Ellis (2 errors, .997 fielding percentage). But then again, I’m just a bitter A’s fan who just watched the best infield defense in baseball in 2010 go gold gloveless.
Just goes to show that not even the managers go to Oakland to watch baseball games.
I think polanco had even fewer errors that season.
No, Polanco had less the following year.
II AGRY WHIT YOU MARK IS ONE OF THE BEST FIELDING SECONDBASEMEN THAT MY NOT WIN A GOLD GLOVE
Was disappointed to see that Alexei had not won the award this year.
After seeing that they had decided to not give Hunter the Gold Glove this year I felt that maybe they would come to their senses and not give the award to Jeter.
Despite how strongly I felt that Alexei should have won this year I would have been happy with most players other than Jeter.
You maybe need to watch more A’s games, they had the best INF defense of any team in a very very long time. Barton, Ellis, Pennington & Kouzmanoff were all incredible and deserved credit.
Jeter did lead the league in fielding percentage. At the very least there is something to be said for consistently making the plays you get to. That being said this is obviously a complete travesty of justice.
Poor Mark Ellis. Continues to get screwed over. This year, by a poor fielder in Cano.
cano is not a poor fielder in any way, shape or form. maybe he’s not the best, and maybe his offensive stats contributed to his winning, but saying he is a poor fielder is completely unjustified.
Mark Ellis has zero gold gloves and he should have 4 or 5.
How is Cano a poor fielder? People say Gold Gloves should go to guys with great range and all. Cano had more assits, more putouts and tied for the fewest errors (3) amongst all 2B in the league.
Jeter’s GG is a complete joke, but Cano’s is well earned. I got nothing against Mark Ellis though, he could have won in previous years of course. But you can’t say Cano is a poor fielder and him winning it was wrong.
Jeter, different story lol
Correction, I meant amongst AL not all
You do not make errors if you just let the ball go past you for a single. Errors are the worst stat to base defense on. They reward the lazy players as well as those who just don’t have the range. Cano was completely awful at 2B and Ellis was outstanding (as usual). He had the most assists and putouts just because he played the most, it doesn’t mean he was good at all.
They really have to fix this, hitting should NEVER be thought about when it comes to defense awards, it seems whoever votes for these is not thinking that way.
Trust me, Cano is FAR from awful at 2B. I think you look at UZR a bit too much. It doesn’t tell you everything, but then again, no stat does. You obviously have never seen him play if you think he’s awful.
He wasn’t great last year, but he was arguably one of the best this year, even Rob Neyer agrees he was one of the best and had nothing against Cano winning it although Hudson I think he said would have been his top pick.
Just because he played the most doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to make the most plays.
TC/Game
Hudson- 5.17
Cano- 4.91
Ellis- 4.73
If I had to pick other than Cano, it probably would be Hudson. I’d have nothing against Ellis winning it though.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the 3 Yankees to win Gold Gloves this year all had UZRs that were below average? I’ll acknowledge that 1 year UZRs are not the be-all, end-all of defense but they’re not irrelevant either.
Cano was completely awful at 2B
Hey, I can just say things too!!
Ellis: 10 UZR, 8 DRS, 8 FANS, 8.67 AVG
Cano: -1 UZR, 7 DRS, 10 FANS, 5.33 AVG
Now probably Yankees have the most issues with Fans Scouting Reports due to having the largest fanbase (as far as inflating their numbers), but it doesn’t appear that Cano was awful at fielding by any measure. There are certainly bigger gold glove tragedy than AL 2B this year.
Fred Lynn won the GG in his rookie year (1975).
although, to jeter’s credit, he had the best fielding percentage of any SS and the fewest errors, leading me to believe its based on both the “well known guy” syndrome and that the only stats the voters look at is fielding percentage and number of errors. basically only the hard and traditional stats. that’s kind of like wins and ERA determining the cy young or avg and homers (plus RBIs) determining the MVP: they don’t look under the hood at all.
now i don’t think that jeter had any business at all winning the gold glove, but his league leading (and career best) sure hands and lack of errors have to be given some credit.
side note for yankees fans: try telling him to move off SS now! guarantee yanks brass was none too happy with this turn of events!
Was voting Jeter another GG a conspiracy by the other 13 managers to royally eff the Yankees?!
Don’t think Managers/GMs care too much about Gold Glove voting, given Michael Young winning and then shortly being sent to third base due to horrible defense.
Does this mean you don’t actually put much stock in UZR year-by-year, even though it’s the stat used for your WAR calculations? Because Andrus was the definition of average by UZR.
Like a few commenters have already mentioned, it seems like Alexei should have won. He lead in AL SS in UZR, TZ, and Fielding Bible voting.
I’m a Yankees fan, and this is a complete travesty. You want to say that Jeter deserves to win because he had the best fielding percentage? Well, that’s not a very good reason, but ok. Tell me why, then, Brett Gardner DIDN’T win over Crawford, when he had a better fielding percentage and almost twice as many outfield assists? The fact that the player who had the highest UZR/150 in baseball, at almost twice that of the second place player, didn’t win a Gold Glove tells you how flawed this voting is. It’s a popularity contest, and nothing more. Jeter should give his GG to Gardner, because he didn’t deserve his, but Gardner should have won one.
agreed. but look at what the article says about young players not winning the award. gardner wasn’t a rookie, but this was his first full time year. he will win some in the future, no worries!
Left Fielders really shouldn’t be winning outfielder gold gloves anyway, but if one deserved it, probably was Gardner (and in all fairness, Gardner would probably be a good center fielder).
I think ‘not making errors’ is a big deal to managers–rightly or wrongly. In their defense, it’s an open question as to whether defensive metrics actually measure range (or whether they actually measure anything at all), and there’s something to be said for making the play on balls that a fielder DOES get to.
It’s also possible that managers put a lot of emphasis on things not measured by defensive metrics–taking cutoffs, being in the correct position when a fielding play is put on (the ‘wheel play’ for example), holding runners, making the ‘quick’ throw, etc.
IMO it’s sloppy and presumptive to just dismiss the opinions of major league managers based on, well, the opinions of bloggers.
You’re right in that there are things may not be evaluated in the metrics, and it is possible that Derek Jeter is good at all of those things – making him more appreciated by the managers.
However even if the managers voted for him based on that other stuff, we must realize that they are human and are prone to bias. No one remembers where someone is on every single play – it is almost impossible to judge whether a player is correctly positioned all the time, especially when that player plays for another team. Managers don’t have the time or resources to accurately judge the unmeasured attributes. It is far more likely that they use anecdotal evidence instead of watching and tracking all the game film for the whole season.
I don’t think major league managers have to ‘remember where someone is on every single play.’ They would have a pretty good idea about those things by exception…they would notice if someone was OUT of position, and they’d notice those things a very high percentage of the time.
Of course this would all be anecdotal, but if a manager sees a player 16 or 17 times a season, say, and notices the SS in the wrong position to take a cutoff, or lazily jogging into cutoff position, on several occasions, he’s going to be able to form a pretty accurate opinion about that particular thing, simply because those things stand out like a sore thumb. Every player boots a ball now and then, and everyone understands shit happens. But failing to be in the proper position is an error by choice…a shortstop, for example, should NEVER be in the wrong cutoff position, and it’s only by ignorance or laziness that it happens, so again, those things stick out to managers.
Managers and coaches know a lot more about baseball than bloggers, but I don’t think they take the Gold Glove Awards very seriously. Jim Leyland admitted a couple of years ago that some managers don’t like to vote for players that can’t hit. And don’t forget that Palmeiro won the Gold Glove in 1999 when he was a DH most of the year.
I am a believer that the defensive metrics tell us something over the course of time. If you look at multiple metrics over multiple years, I think you can at least distinguish between the good, average and poor fielders. If someone truly is the best fielder in the league in five different years, big positive numbers are going to show up in the data frequently.
“Managers and coaches know a lot more about baseball than bloggers.”
That’s what I keep tellin’ those eggheads!!! I *PLAYED* the game, I don’t need to read a freakin’ book…
Gold Glove awards aren’t even worth my time…
Three Yankee infielders with GG’s, all of whom had negative UZR/150’s… That’s theft right there. And Jeter/Cano as a DP combo… you’ve gotta be kidding me. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take them at the top of the order, though.
Do you really think UZR tells us everything we needed to know?
From what I heard, for AL 1B, it doesn’t include scoops out of dirt, which happens quite often
I also am unsure how Cano got a negative UZR when he made the most out of zone plays than any other 2B, fewest errors most putouts and most assists. How is that negative defensively?
Cano is awesome at turning DP’s. .
Other “advanced” fielding metrics like Cano’s defense.
UZR is a great guide, but it’s not a FACT.
Managers and coaches (and broadcasters and players) know that range is important yet difficult to quantify, but when push comes to shove the only “number” they know of that suggests a fielder’s (infielder, not outfielder – baseball people realize that fielding percentage in the OF is largely meaningless) defensive performance is fielding percentage.
That is one reason why Jeter wins the award a lot – not the only reason, but one of the primary reasons. Had he had a pedestrian FP this year, he probably would not have won it.
Most infielders who win the award have excellent FP’s. If they don’t, they have to be known as wizards with the glove.
It really is as simple as that, although, as I and others have said, there are other considerations, such as offensive prowess (which merely puts a player in the spotlight or brands him as a “good” player overall – although obviously there are plenty of good offensive players who would never win a GG).
For infielders, I would say that FP is the number one criteria and that offensive performance is far behind that. For Jeter, it is mostly the FP and his reputation, and not necessarily his bat (especially this year of course).
As others have said, managers and coaches do not take this award too seriously or at least they don’t take the time to be able to take it seriously. Plus, how many awards do the managers and coaches vote on? Are there any others? If managers and coaches voted on other awards, there would be some ridiculous winners for those too. That is the nature of the way managers and coaches evaluate their own players – in a Neanderthal manner. These are the same guys who say all those idiotic things about baseball and baseball teams and players 10 years later when they become TV and radio commentators and “analyst.” And those are the smarter, more eloquent ones!
Ducks in a barrel…
Perhaps UZR underrates the impact of an error, and managers overrate the impact.
How does a SS that makes 20 errors become +1 RAA on errors. Among qualified SS the mean number of errors was 17. Are we saying the league average error rate for a league average SS is 22-23 with the same number of chances?
I don’t know who MGL does his runs in UZR, but I can tell you that of Ramirez’s 20 erros, only 7 put a man on base. His rate of getting an out on an infield grounder was the highest in MLB in 2010, and Jeter (despite the best FldPct) was only 22 of 30 on infield gb. (treating infield hits and reached on error the same, so we don’t have to account for scoring bias).
Ramirez was +1 despite the 20 errors because he had more opportunities than everybody else in the league by a considerable margin. Due to his range and playing time, he had 768 chances. Pennington was the only other AL SS with over 700 chances (739). Despite playing in only 5 more games, Ramirez had 215 more chances than Jeter (553).
Gutierrez and Crawford were also bad choices (not as bad as Jeter though)
Bourbon was significantly better (both UZR and UZR/150 ) than Guti. And Gardner was better than Crawford. Both are winning based on last year’s performance…..
Of course the Bourbon having a UZR/150 nearly 50% higher than Guti is apparently “getting it right”…
What about Peter Bourjos? He had the highest UZR and the 2nd highest DRS in center despite only playing 450 innings.
Seeing as UZR needs about 3 seasons worth of data to yield a reliable measure of defense, basing any award on one season’s number is silly. Statistically speaking, it’s difficult to justify giving a gold glove to a first-year (or first full year) player. We’re just not that good at measuring it yet.
I’ll be interested to see what happens once fielding f/x gets around the league, hopefully that will be accurate enough to yield conclusive measures in a just one season. We probably won’t have access to it, but managers will. I doubt it will inform their votes, but who knows?
Crawford was at least awesome though, unlike Jeter, Teixeira & Cano. I agree Gardner deserved better and dislike how they pick it by OF position and it should be just general OF. The 3 best defensive OFs this year were Gardner, Crawford & Ichiro. Those 3 should have been the winners. Here’s the rest of the UZR leader list by position
1B: D. Barton
2B: M. Ellis
SS: A. Ramirez (C. Pennington was a close 2nd)
3B: K. Kouzmanoff
The A’s got hosed so badly on this. They had one of the best defensive INF in recent history, yet the Yankees get awarded for being straight up horrible. Such a travesty….
If you want to give the outfield spots to the three best fielders I hope you plan to give +10 UZR/DRS to all the CF out there, considering how much easier it is to play a corner.
That would put Span, Gutierrez, and Borbon all in the range of the other guys, making it a tougher decision.
Barton, Ellis, Kouzmanoff and Ramirez not winning is a worse thing than those PT CF’s you listed. They were actually outstanding and were beaten by legitimately bad defenders. Gardner losing to Crawford isnt that big a deal comparatively.
I wouldn’t say Kouzmanoff exactly got robbed, Longoria is a pretty good choice and has been a consistently excellent fielder, both this year and in the past.
Yeah his UZR is lower than Kouzmanoff’s this year, but there’s definitely an error bar in there. The Fan Scouting Report, for example, gave Longoria a much better rating.
They were actually outstanding and were beaten by legitimately bad defenders.
Cano is not a “legitimately bad defender”. Your insistence on this point over and over in this thread is making you look like a fool.
Bourbon doesn’t even play so he doesn’t qualify but Frankie G is damn good and is overshadowed due to Ichiro in right. Barton should win this too!
You can write this exact same article and replace “Derek Jeter” with “Mark Teixeira” because there was no way no how that Tex was even on the same planet as Daric Barton defensively in 2010. It might as big a travesty as Jeter if you really want to delve into it (I dont, for my own sanity’s sake).
Dude, we get it.
You’re an A’s fan who thinks their infield defense is a gift from God.
Gold Gloves really don’t mean all that much. Maybe you got spoiled from Chavez’s streak.
I’m not saying the you’re wrong, just calm down.
Gold Gloves (and other post season awards) mean a whole lot when players retire and become hall of fame eligible. At that point it becomes a talking point amongst the media and writers responsible for voting those players in and becomes a contributing factor to their candidacy.
The worst part is that it’s a compounding bias, players in larger markets get more awards and then come retirement get more consideration for post-career awards. While it’s not such a big deal in the short run long term lack of recognition or successful stories can certainly have an effect on a teams fan base, particularly with the casual fan.
Does UZR take into consideration the JumpThrow?
How else do you think I won it?
Not that was funny!
I think the idea that people who crunch baseball numbers in their free time know more than players and managers who have spent their entire life around the diamond is absurd. Did any of you stat geeks predict that Cody Ross would be a beast in the post season? I think not. The bottom line is this: in baseball your projections, UZRS WAR etc. are interesting and have their place. I just don’t believe in the certiantity of these stats.
Nobody predicted Cody Ross having a beast of a postseason because it was unlikely. On the other hand, did anyone say it was simply impossible for Cody Ross to have a great postseason? Equally, no.
That being said, nobody would deny that Cody Ross simply had a great postseason now that it is over. Why? The numbers say so. Similarly, no one should deny Derek Jeter had a down offensive year. Why? The numbers say so.
“I just don’t believe in the certiantity (sic) of these stats.”
No one *using the stats properly* believes in their certainty either. (Granted there are folks who wield them improperly from time to time, be it the message board commenters or a column writer from time to time.)
One-year UZR’s and WAR’s tell us *something* but should only be a starting point in a debate or argument, or a single point shading us in favor or against a particular position, not the “be-all, end-all” of the argument, particularly when the numbers are close. The calculation of WAR has enough issues that there isn’t any real difference between a 5.2 WAR season and a 5.1.
Poor troll.
“Did any of you stat geeks predict that Cody Ross would be a beast in the post season?”
Did any managers? The only reason Ross even made a postseason starting lineup is because Jose Guillen, who had been the starting right fielder down the stretch, got caught with hgh shipments.
Russell Martin’s first Gold Glove was in 2007, not 2006, his second year in the majors.
oh please all you have here is a whole bunch of ny haters jeter desrve it he’s the best short stop
I’m a huge Yankee fan and I love Jeter. I think he’s much better defensively then he gets credit for and I don’t really care for UZR, which I think has many flaws.
That being said, this award obviously has nothing to do with defensive ability. Jeter was clearly not the best defensive Shortstop in the league. He was not 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 5th, etc… it’s crazy!
But it does make us Yankee fans happy, that’s for sure.
Jeter winning the Gold Glove really brings a smile to my face, especially as I watch the blogosphere hyperventilate. Here’s hoping The Captain wins it straight through to age 40 — though, by then, most of his internet critics probably will have developed carpal tunnel syndrome.
Why does everyone seem to think Gardner should have won it over Crawford? Crawford was the best outfielder in the AL sans Gardner, so it makes more sense he should have one it over Gutierrez (or even Ichiro for that matter). Everyone seems to have forgotten that you can have any combination of outfielders win the award. You don’t need a left fielder, center fielder and right fielder.
Good point. I think most people are looking at the “positions” and deciding Gardner should have won for “LF”, but you’re right.
Ummm… Crawford is a LF too…
I don’t understand what you are trying to say (unless for some reason you think Crawford plays center?)
He’s saying Crawford AND Gardner should have won, at the expense of one of the other two.
Great article. Jeter must remember to send a Christmas card or gift to every manager and coach every year. Possibly even a birthday card.
How can you say Derek Jeter didn’t deserve the gold glove. he had his best statistical season of his career! He had 6 errors this year, the lowest of any short stop in the league. He had a fielding % of .974! I mean this is statistically the best short stop in the league. Do you know anything about baseball??
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If you watch a ball go into LF, you dont get an error.
If you dive and get it, but fumble it or throw the ball over 1B’s head, you get an error.
Whats so hard to understand here? Jeter makes no errors because he doesnt/cant play SS very well and cant even get to the ball to make an error.
If you dive and fumble a ball, you do not get an error. Errors are by far not the greatest way to judge someone’s defense, but they aren’t as bad as a lot of you are making them out to be. If I knew nothing of defense and baseball and read this page, I think I’d come away thinking that whoever makes the most errors is the best defensively.
I agree with PL, if you bobble the ball, the yeahh error. Jeter doesn’t contest the plays as frequent.
Looks like nobody caught the sarcasm.
do we know the vote breakdown?
Like, is it possible that it was all really close, like say…
jeter 11/30
alexei 10/30
pennington 9/30
because it really seems like you’re assuming all 30 managers voted for jeter, which certainly need not be the case
I was actually saying the other day basically the same thing as this article: there’s a huge lag in GG voting because people take years before they recognize solid defense. As near as I can tell the formula is this:
1. Player was good defensively for a few years (not best, but good)
2. Player had a good offensive season in voting year.
3. Player didn’t do poorly on traditional metrics (errors, etc)
4. Add +1 for major markets, -1 for small markets.
Using this formula, I think we can effectively predict the GG winners each year… needless to say, it basically excludes all young players even though you would expect them to be the most nimble and defensively savvy.
Mark Ellis has been the best defensive 2B since 2005 though. This is supported by numbers and by watching him. He’s incredible there.
I’m not a Yankees fan but would you have really given the GG to Ramon Santiago or Cliff Pennington? Btw, Jeter uses a Rawlings glove. It’s good business.
Errors is nothing man. Ellis is better than Cano as is Andrus> Jeter. If you cannot get to the ball, you won’t get charged with an error, just like a contested lay-up with a TO. Jeter is old and plays for Yankees. He SUCKS!
Errors is nothing? Bill Buckner would like a word with you.
Does anyone else think that the unbalanced schedule makes GG even more ridiculous? I mean, you’re asking managers to vote on who is the best at a position when they’ve only seen most players in the league play no more than 9 times.
You know from watching every Sox game this year my recollection is that a bulk of the errors Ramirez made were of the throwing variety (I have to go back and look at them again). One fact that I don’t believe is being stated enough is the fact that Ramirez had 200 more attempts than Jeter did, this simply points out the fact that he GETS TO MORE BALLS than Jeter does. If Jeter had an additional 200 attempts, you can rest assured that the error total would’ve been higher than 6. The detractors will certainly say that fielding percentage balances this argument out, but an aging shortstop with decreasing range says otherwise.
Certainly I mean normally distributed over a season, each of the starting positions should be exposed to the same # of balls played and yeah, Jeter CANNOT reach them!
They should let the scouts vote on the Gold Gloves. They are the baseball people who have to watch the players every day, evaluating them on defense. Andrus has the most defensive talent of any shortstop in the AL, but he still has lapses on a regular basis which will go away as he matures. Alexei Ramirez was clearly the best fielding shortstop in the AL this year. Jeter winning the award shows how little thought and attention is being paid to the voting process.
Managers are supposed to be the ones voting, but they often relegate the Gold Glove voting to a bench coach.
FYI……
Ichiro was not the only one to win a Gold Glove in his first year in the big leagues. Sandy Alomar Jr won the AL Rookie of the Year and Gold Glove as a catcher in 1990 for the Indians.
I’m actually more annoyed with Carl Crawford winning the Gold Glove than Jeter. Crawford isn’t even the best defensive OFer ON HIS OWN TEAM, let alone top 3 in the AL.
Crawford played CF some when he was younger….and was horrible. He has to play LF because he doesn’t have the range to play CF. He’s not one of the 3 best all-around defensive OFers in the AL. Not even top 10, probably not even top 20.
Giving a GG to a LFer is almost as bad as giving a guy who mostly DHes a GG for 1B (see Palmerio).
Typical FanGraphs. Slough off any contra-consensus judgement to “age” or “payroll” or “ignorance of elegant, glistening defensive axioms”.
Could it be that coaches (ahem “field personnel”) elected Jeter as a more or less united gesture toward the eminent preponderance of fielding metrics? Could it be that the aforementioned gesture resembled a certain genus of airborne, egg-laying, warm-blooded vertebrate?
Better yet, has anyone yet calculated, in your loftiest equations, that the “field personnel” are putting themselves out there for Jeter in his last big-money contract year, a de facto endorsement of one of the league’s most storied professionals? And that this endorsement, in one fell swoop, nulls and voids the arguments against Jeter’s game, namely, the aforementioned eminent preponderances?
Elvis Andrus was hyped from the minors on upward and veteran Michael Young bit the bullet and moved over to third for this rookie to come up and play. Michael Young, a legit star and a legit vet and not too far past his prime, did not have to bite that bullet. Derek Jeter was never hyped, and never had a path cleared for him to the bigs. One opened and he pushed through it. Fast forward to the seventh inning of 2010 ALCS Game 5, and here is Jeter running daylight on Andrus. You guys should know that term, “daylight”, and what it means on the field to the “field personnel”. And I think that play right there exemplifies the Gold Glove chase, if any play could.
“a more or less united gesture toward the eminent preponderance of fielding metrics?”
I would agree with the notion (and the point was already well made earlier) that many voters are looking at the old-school metrics – fielding percentages (so high!) and errors (so few!) – and going from there. I don’t know that those are an “eminent preponderance” of fielding metrics by any means. They are two very flawed ones, another point which is well made by the posters here.
“putting themselves out there for Jeter in his last big-money contract year, a de facto endorsement of one of the league’s most storied professionals”
That’s speculative at best. One could study whether other established, well-paid players tend to get a disproportionate share of these awards in their walk years. My strong guess would be not; they’re going to do just fine (generally), and Jeter will make out just fine in his contract negotiations (in this specific instance), Gold Gloves or no. As Dave showed, solid offensive contributors tend to get most of the Gold Glove glory as well, and solid offensive contributors are going to get paid regardless, usually on their offensive merits.
You give yourself too little credit, “new school” metrics are appearing in contracts and money is changing hands over what they would predict. This is what I meant by eminence. Forgive my passion.
Yes, this is all speculative, FanGraphs and every baseball blog out there is a giant snake-orgy of speculation. The invention of sophisticated mathematical tools to aid speculation yields simply more elaborated speculations. Elaboration does not make a thing real. I just makes a more interesting fiction. What is never admitted to is that Black Swans do exist and Derek Jeter is one of them. You, collectively, are not qualifying a whole host of factors – contractual, professional, labor relations, market forces – but instead sloughing the whole award off to coaches not being hip. I know it’s not the purpose of fangraphs to seek a more mathematical blah blah blah but really, at least acknowledge and qualify meaningful factors in a given event even when they are unquantifiable.
Is this some sort of parody? The only elegant glistening defensiveness here can be found in your prose. I understand that two times two equals four is not life, but even the beginning of death, but really, get over it.
In spite of all this honestly bizarre roundabout rhetorical questioning and cleverness, the fact that managers and coaches don’t really care about the Gold Glove voting they’re responsible for and thus sometimes do a bad job by no means “nulls and voids the arguments against Jeter’s game, namely, the aforementioned eminent preponderances.” Nor is one play–even an important play in the playoffs!–somehow a metaphor for everything intangible.
Right, coaches are just dumb jocks and you know what, they make their livelihoods traveling far from home working 12-hour days 9 months out of the year so that they can be deferential about their one voice in industry awards, in an industry that they’ve spent most of their lives aspiring to. Thanks for the mature insights, kiddo. Yeah coaches don’t care about the Gold Glove. You’re a genius.
Derek Jeter actually did have a path cleared to the majors. The Yankees originally projected Jorge Posada as a potential future shortstop. Once they drafted Jeter, the Yankees basically told Posada he’d have to find a new position if he wanted to remain with the team. This is why Posada is not as fundamentally-sound as most catchers: he learned the position on-the-fly at a relatively late stage of his development. It’s probably why he has held-up so long, as he never actually caught full-time until around 2000.
I don’t know exactly how many things are wrong with this comment, but it’s a big number.
GG bitching is second only (though, admittedly, a poor second) to HoF bitching*: it reveals the sort of otherwise-smart baseball fan to appear to love the game largely because they can bitch (as opposed to “debate” and thereby “learn”).
I, and this only sounds odd IF you think about it, do not believe that most annual awards should be awarded purely on that season’s performance UNLESS that season’s performance is without doubt exceptional (for example, Guti really should have won on such a basis last year), and for the same reason a hot- or slow- first half doesn’t necessarily earn anyone a place at the All Star game.
As bad a choice as Jeter is this year, or three other years (or even four), awards based on even very accurately evaluating fielding stats (which we clearly do NOT have yet) would throw up, regularly, a set of names that. both immediately and even more five years later would make no sense, except as numbers.
I’ve learned a LOT from the Stats-crowd – which is why I’m here – but the game is NOT about the stats, at least for me, any more than a being a millionaire would prove the quality of my life.
*All Star Game bitching runs thord in my book, and a poor third at that.
Hey Im still gay
While you Internet stat heads are on here whining about me once again being the ultimate winner, I’m pounding the hottest babes in NYC. I even got a stat for it called STUD I’m a +100000000000 while you stat heads dont even register. Keep dreaming bout gettin on my level
I do think UZR is overrated and unreliable, but there’s no way Derek Jeter was the best-fielding shortstop in the American League in 2010. I’ve seen years where Jeter looked better in the field this year and received a bad UZR rating. This year, however, Jeter’s lack of range was apparent, and was made more apparent by A-Rod’s considerable decline stemming from his hip problems.
These awards are virtually meaningless. I have no clue how anyone could watch baseball the entire season and arrive at the conclusion that Jeter is the best-fielding shortstop in the AL.
Captain.
jeter may not have great range but he consistently does all things well, no one with 20 errors should even be considered for the award, the managers know more about the game than john Dewan or any blogger ever has. UZR is bogus its just a tool some guy invented because he wasnt good enough to you know actually play the game…… The fact is every team is different some have strikeout staffs, some have groundball staffs, the things Managers know that idiot bloggers dont is that is who consistently wins. The A’s despite their defense was a .500 team playing in an extreme pitchers park
pure jealousy is all this is ramirez got to 200 more balls but had 3 times more errors, at that error rate ramirez would need to have had 1100 more chances to excuse that many errors
Comparing error totals is to determine who’s a better fielder is like saying Jose Bautista was the best hitter in baseball last year because he hit the most homers. Errors have a high level of objectivity from scorer to scorer around the league. So saying becasue he only had 6 errors Jeter was the best SS is a weak argument.
It’s not a weak argument if it’s the measurement on which managers are basing their vote.
I think we can all agree on one very simple sentiment:
Gold Gloves are completely meaningless.
I know, thumbs down.
Elvis Andrus had a 0.1 Fld in 2010 according to fangraphs. He also made 23 errors. Regardless of whether or not Jeter deserved it in 2010, it’s hard to argue that Andrus did.
Also, there is a correlation between MLB experience and Gold Glove awards — but correlation does not imply causality! Most players get better both offensively and defensively as they mature physically and gain MLB experience. Voters may not be awarding gold gloves to rookies and second year players because they, on the whole, play worse defense.
“correlation does not imply causality”
Finally, reason.
I have always felt the game needs a best all round player at each position award, AND a gold glove. It always seems the gold glove goes to the best all round player at each position, whereas it should be a pure defensive award. If voters had a way of saying they thought Jeter was the best allround SS in the AL then other guys who were pure glovemen might get the GG more often.
@Vode
I should’ve clarified, I think there are plenty of people out there who legitimately argue that Jeter was the best shortstop in the AL because he only made 6 errors, which is the weak argument I was eluding to. I understand that is really the sole evaluative criteria the managers use to determine the award.
This thread article and comment thread is quite cute. The premise is that Jeter wins the award because of bias in the voters (the AL managers). The irony is that the reason you think Jeter shouldn’t win the award is because of your own personal bias against Jeter and against “traditional” baseball people. You guys are absolutely sure that you know the truth that is demonstrated by your favored statistics that Jeter is a lousy player. Your faith in your measurements is really nothing but bias.
I’m a scientist in real life and consequently applaud the attempt at objective measurement of baseball proficiency. However, I am often dismayed at the way the measurements are abused or misunderstood.
For example, have you ever looked down a player’s UZR column and noticed the year to year variance in the statistic? For any given player, UZR of year X is not a good predictor of year Y. What accounts for all this variance? Is it measurement error? Is the player’s ability really changing that much on a year to year basis? Are things that are outside a player’s control impacting the measurement (e.g. the make-up of the pitching staff, etc.)?
How can you have any confidence in a statistic when so much of the variance is unexplained? If you can’t predict a player year to year how can you compare between players?! It is pure faith because it tells you what you want to hear (your bias).
….meanwhile, the really clever baseball people that put too much stock in the faith-based statistics (e.g. Mariners, A’s) consistently put together awful baseball teams. Why is that? What are they missing? Do the “traditional” baseball people just keep getting lucky by winning all the time?
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