Just when you thought it was safe to feel good about Michael Bourn's Gold Glove
by Evan Hochschild on Nov 13, 2009 6:00 AM CST
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PrintAstros fans probably aren't going to have all that much to cheer about in the coming seasons. We've come to accept that. Accept the losing, accept the fact that Drayton McLane, Jr. is still pulling the strings. It comes with the territory.
This week's announcement that our own Michael Bourn has won a Gold Glove sort of gave us a jolt of life. It was good news after a season of poor play and a botched hiring process for a manager. A week's vacation of sorts.
Damn it all, I was feeling good. I knew Bourn had a nice season, but this gave him and the team some positive national recognition. There were a ton of sketchy choices for the award (as there always is) but Bourn seemed like a legitimate choice.
Not so fast. Good 'ol Joe Sheehan weighed in on the situation, and per usual didn't mince words when talking about an Astro:
The NL awards were marked by a lot of turnover, unusual for an award of this nature. The turnover was unnecessary. Michael Bourn wasn't a better defender than Mike Cameron was, and Matt Kemp and Shane Victorino certainly weren't.
That may be true. Cameron was statistically the best centerfielder in the NL in 2009, at least going by one measure. Advanced defensive metrics are still in their relative infancy, and nobody can seem to decide on which one is the best at ascertaining true defensive ability and skill. Yes, by both measures linked by me Cameron was better than Bourn...barely. Better by such an small amount that you could hardly criticize Bourn's selection over Cameron.
If this isn't the ultimate picking of nits and splitting of hairs, I don't know what is. I understand that the apparent theme of his article "I know more about baseball than most everyone on earth, especially the simpletons who dole out the Gold Glove Award" mandated that he denigrate most every selection, but come on. This act of telling people how smart you are and how much information you have to bestow on us is getting old.
Maybe I'm the one splitting hairs and am being overly sensitive. Yes, Sheehan does say you can make a case for Bourn winning (thanks for throwing us a bone, Joe). From the general tenor of his articles, to his nearly constant implicit reminders that: 1) we're not as smart as he is, and 2) we need to be taught on a near daily basis that we aren't, I am beginning to grow weary of that website. Yea, yea, yea: I know a lot of people love BPro, and they don't need Evan Hochschild's readership to get by. I understand. The simple fact that the great majority of Sheehan's articles are negative and quasi condescending frustrates/angers/befuddles me. Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get this off my chest.
(Yes, I saw he said something positive about Jason Castro...within a thinly veiled pot shot at the Astros' having selected him over Justin Smoak.)
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A couple of notes on defensive metrics linked....
First, RZR does not include Out of Zone plays (which favors Bourn). HT shows OOZ separately because (1) OOZ should be given greater weight than other plays; (2) HT leaves it you to decide how much weight to give to it.
Second, Bourn is first on the +/- system (Fielding BIble) which is on the BillJamesOnline web site. Bourn is 11 runs saved vs. 3 runs saved for Cameron on that metric.
There is no reason to say that UZR is better than +/-. If anything Fielding Bible’s +/- is more accurate, but it’s probably best to look at both metrics. Differences in rankings between the two metrics is not unusual.
For a sabermetric analyst, I don’t see how Sheehan can complain about a gold glove for Bourn when Bourn ranked first on one of the two main systems and well above average on the other. That is, unless he just prefers to complain.
Cameron is very good defender, and he always has been. Sure, nobody would complain if he had gotten a gold glove….but it shouldn’t be at the expense of Bourn. And it probably shouldn’t have been at the expense of Kemp.
There is no reason to say that UZR is better than +/-
I totally agree, but I suspect Sheehan isn’t actually referring to UZR. He makes mention of it once in the article, but it seems more likely to me that he’s using BPro’s proprietary defensive stat (the name of which I can’t recall right now). And I think the general consensus is that BPro’s defensive stats are way behind the curve right now.
FRAA
And they"re widely revered as “primitive.”
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Nov 13, 2009 10:08 AM CST up reply actions
We need a nickname for Bourn since apparently if you have a nickname like “Flyin Hawaiian” you’re almost guaranteed a gold glove for the nickname alone.
by Timothy De Block on Nov 13, 2009 7:21 AM CST reply actions
Silver Sluggers are announced.
Not surprised that the Astros don’t have a silver slugger winner. I momentarily wondered if Hunter Pence should have been chosen over Andre Ethier. But after look at their stats, the answer is probably “no.” Actually Pence and Ethier are projected to be the same player by Bill James, but here are the actual stats from 2009.
(wOBA and OPS)
Pence .351, .818
Ethier .370, .869
Ethier basically achieved his projections, while Pence undershot his projections.
In all seriousness Gold Gloves are the biggest joke award in the game.
I’m not saying that Bourn doesn’t deserve it because I think he does. Especially considering the vast amount of territory he has to roam compared to other CF-ers, but seriously the fact that Derek Jeter has 4 Gold Gloves tells you all you need to know. Gold Gloves are weighed mainly through fielding percentage with popularity, offensive stats and several other things mixed in whether you want to admit it or not. I’m not going to go back and look at the stats of every Jeter GG year but I’d be willing to put a couple hundred bucks on it that he didn’t truly deserve one of those GG (well except that year he made that cool catch diving into the stands rolling eyes). I think the fact Bourn won right after having one of the worst years of any OF-er in baseball and having several people on his case (including us) speaks volumes. The Astros have had another couple players in Ausmus and Everett the past decade who should have won one at one point but their lack of popularity and offensive production hurt them. About 3 of the players who are selected each year don’t deserve them. Crazy that there’s someone saying I know more than everything when you can critique a third of the players who are given the award.
yeah, Gold Glove voting has been spotty over the years, to put it kindly.
The NL GGs weren’t too bad this year, though. Rollins over Tulo is weak, as is Hudson over Utley. But neither Rollins or Hudson are terrible choices (they are both competent defenders).
Jeter isn’t as bad a choice for GG this year, unlike previous years. Jeter was a good defender at SS this year, based on both UZR and +/-. However, the numerous past gold gloves for Jeter were not deserved.
Yeah, for once, Jeter actually earned his Gold Glove. But yes, they are somewhat off of popularity, in that you have to be damn close to perfect (Hello, Yadi) to win one, if you’re not a ‘big name’ player.
"He walked 18."
"New league record!"
"Struck out 18."
"Another new league record! In addition he hit the sportswriter, the public address announcer, the bull mascot twice...also new league records! But, Joe, this guy's got some serious shit."
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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Cincinnati
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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Houston
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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Milwaukee
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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Pittsburgh
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
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St. Louis
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0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
(updated 2.3.2012 at 11:55 PM CST)
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