2009 NL Gold Gloves & The Cardinals
Greetings.
Let’s get to a discussion of the NL Gold Glove voting from a (mostly) St. Louis perspective:
* Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina deserved to win the NL Gold Glove for the second consecutive season. And this should be Molina’s 4th in a row, but at least the NL managers and coaches who do the GG voting have finally caught on to Yadi’s brilliance. The most compelling statistic is this: Molina caught 1,176 innings this season, the second-highest total by an NL catcher. But teams attempted to steal on Molina only 48 times, which was the lowest number of attempts against regular catchers (100-game minimum). Molina shuts down the running game because teams are very reluctant to run on him. He intimidates runners (and managers) into staying parked on first. Molina’s caught-stealing rate (32.7%) was the highest in the NL among starting catchers. He also picked off 8 runners at first base; no other NL catcher had more than two. A no-brainer here.
* No disrespect, but I’m not sure about Adam Wainwright as the Gold Glove winner among NL pitchers. He’s a good fielder. I just don’t know if Waino is the best fielding pitcher in the NL. The panel that gives out the annual “Fielding Bible” defensive awards — which were established by Bill James and John Dewan – didn’t pay much attention to Wainwright; he finished 17th in the voting among all MLB pitchers. The metrics don’t tell us a lot, but Wainwright’s Range Factor per nine innings (2.2) and Range Factor per game (1.6) weren’t as snazzy as several other NL pitchers including teammate Joel Pineiro. Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez and Pineiro finished tied for first among NL pitchers in RF/9 (2.4) and RF per game (1.8). Wainwright didn’t make an error on 56 chances; Pineiro made only one error in 59 chances. Pineiro particpated in 3 double plays, or more than Wainwright. Pineiro and Wainwright were tied for the NL lead among pitchers with 27 putouts, but that’s more of a reflection on the range that Albert Pujols flashed at first base. Cardinals pitchers had to be on the move to receive the throw when Pujols ranged far to his left or right to snatch a grounder. Pineiro finished 5th among NL pitchers with 2.48 total chances per nine innings; Wainwright was 14th (2.18 total chances per nine innings.) That wasn’t surprising given Pineiro’s league-high ground ball percentage of 73.1 percent. In theory, Pineiro would have a few more chances than Waino, who had a ground-ball rate of 65.5 percent. Honest, I thought Pineiro was the more impressive fielder of the two. And according to Dewan’s plus-minus system, only one NL pitcher (San Diego’s Josh Geer) saved more runs than Pineiro, who was credited with saving five. Rockies fans could make a case that this award should have gone to Jimenez. The Colorado RH led NL pitchers with 47 assists and had only two errors. Pineiro had 31 assists; Wainwright 29. But I’m happy for Wainwright. It’s not as if this was some outrageous mistake by the voters. Wainwright is smooth with the glove.
Thursday morning update: Interesting to note that Wainwright has said, in numerous interviews, that Pineiro deserved to win. Also, Post-Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel pointed out today that Pineiro, who does an outstanding job of holding runners on, allowed only one stolen base this season compared to 12 given up by Wainwright.
* Albert Pujols loses again. It’s odd that Pujols has only one GG so far in his nine-season career. Pujols made 13 errors this season, and that likely cost him the award. The irony is, Pujols probably would have won the Gold Glove had he chose to play a safer, less daring, less mobile style at first base. Many of Pujols’ errors occured because of his aggressive approach; he took chances and risks that other first baseman wave off. And consider this: did Pujols turn off some voters – NL managers and coaches — by receiving throws on the foul-ground side of first base, which may have been viewed as a showboating move by irritated opponents? I wonder. Anyway …. fielding percentage is an outdated model for evaluating defense. Pujols was rated a +14 in the John Dewan plus-minus system; that was tied for first among MLB first basemen. The Dewan system also credited Pujols with saving 12 runs; that was the best among all MLB first basemen. Pujols won the “Fielding Bible” award as top MLB first baseman for 2009. If you prefer Ultimate Zone Rating, Pujols didn’t score nearly as well. He finished tied for third at his position in the NL, trailing the actual Gold Glove winner, San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez, who had an UZR of 3.8. And Gonzalez is very good. But the UZR has been under fire this season, and the 2009 ratings of the NL first baseman offers an ideal example of why that is. Pujols and Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard had the same UZR (1.3) which is laughably absurd. I’m in the Dewan Fielding Bible and plus/minus camp, so I believe Pujols was the best 1B in the NL this season.
* I can’t fault the voters for not going with the Cardinals’ Brendan Ryan at shortstop. When Ryan played, he was often spectacular. And he graded out exceptionally well in the Dewan system, ranking second to Pittsburgh/Seattle shortstop Jack Wilson in runs saved (19) and in plus minus (+24). But the problem was a substantial disparity in the number of innings played. Ryan logged 830 innings this season; 12 NL shortstops played more. And some –including the winner, Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins — played around 500 more innings at SS this season than Ryan did. That’s a lot. Ryan needed to play more than 105 games at shortstop to resonate with the voters. Besides, the coaches and managers tend to lean to the veterans in these awards; Ryan is relatively new on the scene. And that’s a factor. Frankly, I have no crystal-clear idea as to who should have won this award in the NL. I don’t think Rollins is the best defensive shortstop. Not at all. Wilson probably was, but he got traded out of the NL (and to Seattle) after appearing in only 75 games with the Pirates. The Dodgers’ Rafael Furcal had the best UZR among regular NL shortstops. Based on what I saw — and I watch a lot of baseball on satellite during the season — Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki seemed deserving of the honor, but he didn’t do as well as I would have expected in the metric evaluations. Which surprised me. Guys like JJ Hardy and Ryan Theriot came out better than Tulo. I would have went with Tulowitzki.
Other NL comments: Philadelphia 2B Chase Utley didn’t win the award, and that’s a disgrace. He’s been the league’s best second baseman for the last four or five seasons and doesn’t have a single Gold Glove to show for it… I don’t understand why the voters gave Gold Gloves to outfielders Matt Kemp (Dodgers) and Shane Victorino (Philly). They were nothing special. One of the outfield Gold Gloves had to go to Nyjer Morgan (Pittsburgh-Washington) who compiled astoundingly high ratings for his range. Another overlooked outfielder this season was San Francisco’s Randy Winn… the voters absolutely got two of the positions right: Molina at catcher and Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman at 3B.
Thanks for reading…
-Bernie
Well its not as bad as when the voters selected Rafael Palmeiro in 1999 despite his lack of a body of work that year (28 games at first base). My personal opinion is that Albert should win everything he’s nominated for…especially with his knack for saving other fielders from errors(now that would be an interesting stat)
Agree on Pineiro. He is one of the best fielding pitchers I have ever seen. And that goes back to Bob Lemon who started as an infielder.
Joel’s play last year on stopping that liner with his foot, plucking it out of mid air and whirling to fire it for the out was absolutely incredible. And he had at least one other this year that was jaw dropping. Unbelievable agility and quickness.
Totally agree about Pineiro, he impressed me far more than Adam. He would compare favorably with Gibby in his athleticism on the mound. To me it was a no brainer that he should win, but it just goes to show how political the process is, just like with position players where offense seems to play a role despite this being a defensive award, I suspect Adam’s success on the mound helped his cause. If you look back at the Gold Glove winners over the years most have been top of the rotation guys, a coincidence, I think not.
Right on: Utley has been robbed once again. I don’t get it. He must not get votes out of spite is all I can figure. I’ve never felt Victorino was a gold glove CFer. I just don’t get that, either. The Happy Hawaiian is solid, but not Gold Glove great out there. True GG defensive quality in CF has unquestionably been down in the NL ever since Edmonds best days were behind him. And Matt Kemp? Puh-lease. At 1B, I may be biased, but agree Pujols is the best fielder at his position when considering his range and aggressiveness. While the 13 errors may have cost him the hardware, he’s been jipped out of other major hardware more than once before. Just imagine all the MVP and GG’s he SHOULD have been awarded fair and square so far in his career! Pujols I WOULD pay Borass Buck to. Not Holliday.
I agree Bernie, I was stumped by Waino’s GG. I thought Pinero absolutely deserved it. I don’t have a prob with Albert not getting it though. Yes he plays aggressive and has had tons of young and rookie players to deal with, but sometime like his baserunning, his straying off of 1st is unnecessary and causes errors. I am glad they finally got Yadi right, my theory is if a player changes they way your team plays then he should win. The awards tend to be more political and popular vote these days anyway, until they decide them (at least the ones that can be)based on stats alone, they will be given poorly.
I’ve always thought that Albert Pujols is way too aggressive at first base. How does it help the team when he ranges w-a-y to his right to field a ground ball headed directly to the second baseman? He just converts an easy, routine play into a difficult one, requiring that he toss the ball to a moving pitcher in order to get the put out. Just ask Don Denkinger how difficult such a play can be. Albert plays the field like he runs the bases. He’s w-a-y too aggressive and makes occasional overtly bonehead plays because of his aggressiveness. Sorry, Tony, I hope this comment doesn’t come across as an insult which makes you want to throw up. Incidentally, Yadi is incredibly slow and usually doesn’t hustle down the base path.
So, why is there no tab for Division 1 SIUe?
TLR is still holding back Ryan, let him play. I’m sick and tired of you Hungo fans getting on Molina. All the innings he catches his knees has to hurt, after being in crouch posotion so much it has to be hard to run. If needed him to run out a ground ball he would.
Regarding the GG for pitcher, I think what happened was they submitted their choice, then at the last minute they had to quickly vote again.
See, they had forgotten that Greg Maddux had retired, so they had to come up with someone else.