Left Field Gold Gloves
Posted: September 3rd, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 37 Comments »
Deep in my post last night I went off on an asterisk tangent about the Kansas City Royals doomed effort to win a Gold Glove for left-fielder David DeJesus. I’ll reprint it here because there’s another point to be made:
Not to bring the Royals back into this … but apparently the Royals have gone on a full-fledged assault to try and win left fielder David DeJesus a Gold Glove. I mean, my friend and Royals TV announcer Ryan Lefebvre talks about this EVERY NIGHT now. They actually had a text poll asking Royals fans who is the best Royals outfielder this decade — DeJesus, Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye or Johnny Damon (and in one of the sadder moments in Royals fan history, DeJesus won). Royals PR guy Mike Swanson is sending out fliers to managers and coaches pushing David as a Gold Glove candidate. Dick Kaegel at MLB.com is writing about it.
I don’t know: This whole thing just makes me sad. I would say that David DeJesus is a good left fielder. He makes a lot of nice plays. And he doesn’t have an error, which is nice. Yes, the Dewan plus/minus has him at exactly 0 and ranks him the 15th best left fielder in baseball, making him as average as average can be. But his UZR is quite good — plus-11.8 run — and ranks him third in the league. From my own observation (not that my own observation means much), the UZR tells a fair story; he’s a good left fielder. And anyway, managers and coaches don’t look at all that Dewan and UZR stuff. And when you compare him to every other fielder on the worst-fielding team in baseball, yes, he looks positively Yaz-like out there.
But we all know that:
1. Left fielders almost never win Gold Gloves. Nor should they in the current system — left fielders are there almost exclusively because they aren’t as good defensively as the center fielder and can’t throw as well as the right fielder. The last American League left fielder to win a Gold Glove was Rickey Henderson in the strike year of 1981. That would be 1981. That would be when David DeJesus was 2.
2. He’s in left field because he wasn’t good enough to play center.
3. He’s unquestionably not even the best left fielder in the league — NOBODY would rank him ahead of Carl Crawford. Nobody. I mean NOBODY. Please. NOBODY could watch those two guys play and say “Oh yeah, DeJesus is better.” NOBODY. I mean it. And Carl Crawford has NEVER WON A GOLD GLOVE. OK? The defense rests. Court is adjourned. Thanks for coming.
So, how in the heck is he going to win a Gold Glove? If they gave out TEN American League Gold Gloves to outfielders, he wouldn’t get one. And he wouldn’t deserve one. I do appreciate that we’re in the dwindling days of a lost Kansas City season. And I like David DeJesus. And look, there’s no harm in trying to win a likable player an award. But this just seems about as productive as mowing your driveway. Focus all your energies and Greinke and the Cy Young — that’s the one thing that should happen and could bring some brightness to this dark season.
The new point is this: I think there SHOULD be a separate left-fielder Gold Glove. As longtime Brilliant Reader Paul White points out, there is a separate Gold Glove for first base. And first base is the easiest position to play on the defensive spectrum. If a left fielder can’t play defense — he gets old or he just can’t adapt to the position — he can (and fairly often does) go to first base.
But the question in the DeJesus case is not what SHOULD be reality but what IS reality. In the SHOULD be category, DeJesus would be measured against other left fielders. And because he really is having a good defensive season and he’s a very solid player, you could make the case for him to win a Gold Glove. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for him — not with Carl Crawford in the same league — but I see the case.
But this has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. The reality is that the Gold Glove these days is set up to reward the three best defensive outfielders in the league regardless of position. And that almost never includes a left fielder.* Last year, in the American League two center fielders and Ichiro won. Same the year before that. And the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that. That’s eight straight years if I have my “year before thats” lined up. From 1988 to 1998 the only non-center fielder to win a Gold Glove in the American League was Jay Buhner. He was a right fielder. As mentioned, no left-fielder has won an A.L. Gold Glove in 28 years.
*Barry Bonds was an exception to this rule … he won eight Gold Gloves in left field. In fact, the National League managers and coaches have clearly had a more well-rounded view when it comes to the Gold Glove. In 1990 and ‘91 the Gold Gloves went to a left fielder (Bonds), a center fielder (Andy Van Slyke) and a right fielder (Tony Gwynn). And from 1986-2002, they picked at least one corner outfielder every year but one. But lately, the NL has gone to picking three center fielders too … last year the managers and coaches picked Nate McLouth, Carlos Beltran and Shane Victorino, all center fielders.
I understand the way managers and coaches feel about the award. You put your best defensive outfielder in center field, and if you are told “OK, we want to give the three best outfielders rewards for their defense,” those should probably go to center fielders. Heck, one of the compliments people will sometimes give left fielders is to say “He’s like a centerfielder playing left.” I mean, this is the structure of the game.
This year, there is absolutely no doubt that Seattle center fielder Franklin Gutierrez should win a Gold Glove. He might be the best overall defender in the AL, any position. Ichiro will win a Gold Glove because Ichiro ALWAYS wins a Gold Glove — and he really is a great defensive player. Then you have all the A.L. centerfielders — B.J. Upton, Curtis Granderson, Torii Hunter (don’t know if he has played enough games — the voters LOVE Torii), Grady Sizemore (same thing — voters love him, but he has been hurt), Carlos Gomez and so on.
I do think it would make the Gold Gloves much more interesting if they picked a trio made up of a left fielder, centerfielder and right fielder. I’m glad that John Dewan does this with the Fielding Bible Award.
Of course, one more time, if the coaches and managers DID pick a left fielder, then Carl Crawford would and should be the overwhelming choice. And the Royals know this better than anyone … for three years now they have thought DeJesus was killing them in center field. They traded for Joey Gathright and put his non-bat in the lineup just so they could have him play defense in center. They traded for Coco Crisp and paid the guy a lot of money so he could help them out defensively in center field even though he could not throw the ball from one end of a dinner table to the other. They put Mitch Maier and Josh Anderson and Willie Bloomquist in center rather than move DeJesus back. As far as I know, none of these guys has won a Gold Glove.
And now, they’re stumping for DeJesus to win a Gold Glove. I really do appreciate the effort of promoting a player you think is performing well. But, you know, it’s kind of familiar: I remember back in 2005 the Royals made a PR push to win left fielder Terrence Long a Gold Glove. No, really, it’s true, they did that. I guess pushing for your left fielder to win a Gold Glove is one of those weird things you do during a lost season.
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The fact that Mclouth won a gold glove last year should tell you all you need to know about offseason awards, and why they shouldn’t matter to anyone.
I don’t have the stats to back this up, and I’m going just on personal observation (which means I’m wrong), but I’d consider Jacoby Ellsbury as a possible Gold Glover for the Red Sox. He’s made some unreal plays this year.
1B is a more important defensive position than LF. there are quite a few first basemen who, i’m sure, would be average-or-better at other defensive positions. (youk, teixeira, pujols, votto, derrek lee come to mind as guys who i think would play a good 3B or OF.) but they play 1B very well, and their teams recognize them as assets at those positions.
I have never understood why the outfield gold gloves are mixed together, they should have separate gold gloves for left, right, and center. I like DeJesus a lot as a player, but I don’t get the gold glove push.
Torii Hunter (don’t know if he has played enough games — the voters LOVE Torii)
28 games should be enough.
That’s all it took for Rafael Palmeiro to win a GG in 1999. And that should say all that needs to be said as to what a sham the GG voting is…
To be fair, Adam Dunn mangles it at 1st base about the same way he did in LF.
FRAA dislikes Dunn. I think Dunn possibly banged UZR’s wife.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Yeah, there’s a GG for 1B and 1B is easy, but it also requires a unique set of skills (skills that any Major Leaguer could more or less pick up with a couple weeks of practice, but whatever). It would feel weird to just give out Gold Gloves to four shortstops, because whole it’s probably true that the best shortstops in the league would also make the best third basemen, second basemen and first basemen in the league, they really are different positions with different responsibilities.
Not so in the outfield. If you can play center field well, discounting any odd ballpark quirks, you can play left or right field even better. Giving a GG to a corner outfielder really is like rewarding the best of the Not Good Enough, in almost every case (exceptions being Crawford and Ichiro, who are like second center fielders). I’d rather just see it go to the three best outfielders, regardless of where they stand out there.
I think they should be pushing Zack for gold glove pitcher. With Moose retired, this is probably the only shot in a decade to win the award, because once the managers decide who the gold glove pitcher is, the award will be his until he retires. So getting Zack the award this year will probably be a ten for one deal also, since he will win the award a bunch of times if he wins this year.
How many of those will be with the Royals, well, time will tell.
And, he is a very good defensive pitcher, and this is not nearly the stretch for Greinke as it is for DeJesus.
DeJesus deserves it over Johnny Damon.
Joe:
I like it better as a post about Royals PR than DeJEsus himself. For the record, here is how bad DDJ “killed” the Royals in CF fron 2005-2008, according to the probably best defensive stat around: UZR. This is in UZR/150 (runs above/below average per 150 games, not actual runs above/below average):
2005: 19.9
2006: 19.6
2007: 5.6
2008: -23.5
Those aren’t the actual runs he was worth, and with defensive stats there are bigger sample size issues — you need at least three seasons to equal the “reliability” of the relationship of one year of offensive stats. But the only year that DDJ was actually terrible in CF was 2008. And in a very small sample. Most projections had him as average going into 2009.
NOw, I do think that his range has declined, as you’d expect with age (defense declines very early, generally), and also with his injuries. And Crisp is a better center fielder. But the idea that Moore was right to start trying to move him off of CF already in 2006 with the Howell-for-Gathright trade (boy, that sure worked out well! Dayton Moore knows pitching!) is just baloney from a statistical standpoint.
Naturally, we need to take scouting into account. And who are we to doubt the scouts who brought us Yuniesky Betancourt?
DDJ shouldn’t get a Gold Glove, not even for left field. It would be nice, however, if some local writers would acknowledge that he continues to be a good player, even if Moore should have traded him already.
I agree that they should push for Zack to get a GG. He’s been really solid this year, and this year there is an opening for a new pitcher to win one in the AL.
He’s made 1 error, has 30 assists, 10 put outs, started 3 DP’s… been really consistent (unlike some other Royals pitchers in the field)
Kenny Rogers won the 2006 AL Gold Glove with 5 errors. Wow.
More on DDJ:
I know that Dewan’s is a bit harder on him recently, and we need to take mutiple stats into account. I don’t have the Dewan’s numbers in front of me at the moment, I know they hated him in 2008.
But for another dataset, let’s look at the the previous version of UZR. The one at FanGrapohs uses BIS data (hence, “bUZR”), the other version, which wasn’t public after 2007, uses STATS inc. data (“sUZR”). Here are DDJ’s UZR/150s in CF according to sUZR, 2005-2007:
2005: +21
2006: +15
2007: +13 (straight number, not UZR/150)
Again, I agree that it was probably time for DDJ to move off, although he wasn’t as bad as people (particularly the Moore front office) thought in the early years. The Fans Scouting Report tends to agree he couldn’t hack it in CF so well anymore… of course, those Fans also think Yuniesky Betancourt is horrible, so they’re obviously way off.
Keep up the good work. I only comment here because I visit daily and love your stuff.
The funny thing is, as you mentioned in the earlier post, the Royals have something much more worthy to push for, and much more easily under their own control: the Cy Young candidacy for Zack Grienke.
The Giants were obviously stumping for Lincecum last year, having him pitch deep into games that he didn’t need to be in and things like that. It worked (though you’d hope that something like that wasn’t necessary). Grienke is in the same boat, pitching for a crap team and having a possibly-too-small wins total because of it. But when Timmy won the Cy last year, it did a lot to help the Giants’ image, throughout baseball and with their fans. The same needs to happen for Zack because, honestly, no one is going to care that David Dejesus won a Gold Glove. They will care, though, that Zack Grienke won a Cy.
Maybe it’s just another example of Royals’ management not knowing what to do. It really shouldn’t be hard to figure out that, with the best pitcher in the league on your team, you should be making a big deal out of him…
Well, you’re stumping for disadvantaged teams to do something unconventional in recent posts. Wouldn’t a marginal left fielder winning the gold glove be unconventional? Maybe this is the first step in a shift to an unconventional philosophy.
Thanks for the thread, Joe. To be clear, yeah, I agree there’s no hope of any left fielder getting the award anytime soon unless he happens to be in a Willie Wilson in 1980 situation…a great defensive center fielder who is playing mostly in left for a year or two until the old standby on his team retires. And even if there was hope, DeJesus really isn’t the guy who should get it.
What I find maddening about this is that it wasn’t always so. Through 1960, the awards went to a LF, CF and RF. That’s how Minnie Minoso got three Gold Gloves and Norm Siebern got one. Anyone know why they changed it?
“skills that any Major Leaguer could more or less pick up with a couple weeks of practice, but whatever”
Well, those of us who have watched BB on 1B know this isn’t quite true…….or he isn’t a Major Leaguer.
One more obvious point:
In terms of absurdity, pushing David DeJesus for a Gold Glove has nothing on giving the guy who is clearly one of the worst 2 or 3 General Mangers in baseball an extension through 2014.
A fish stinks from the head down.
Advertising DDJs defensive skills won’t win him a gold glove, but maybe it will boost his perceived value in case his name comes up in trade conversations this off-season. Not sure if that was intentional or accidental, but I’ll take it.
On the subject of the Royals not stumping for Greinke for Cy Young: do you think that this could be tied into the professionalism thing? It seems like any honest case for him would entail saying something like “Yes, we know he doesn’t have many wins, but that’s because the team is letting him down.” You know it’s true, I know it’s true, and I’d imagine that the Royals are plenty aware of it too, but even saying it implicitly is taking a swipe at the ballclub they’ve built. It seems like this might be a case where they’d rather forfeit the Cy Young than have to admit that the rest of the team is (potentially) costing Greinke an award he probably deserves.
@ Paul White: well, I don’t know why they changed it, but I think I gave one good reason above–it just doesn’t make sense to reward people for doing the exact same thing that center fielders do, only (almost by definition) not as well.
An odd thought; depending on how attentive managers are, Zack may very well win the GG via the “Well, he’s going to get screwed out of the Cy, may as well reward him somehow” theory.
And to think someone said the Royals should think unconventionally. Does promoting your average left fielder (this year or in 2005) qualify as thinking unconventionally?
As much as Joe loves to rip on JP Ricciardi, he DID try to experiment with a 4 man rotation a few years ago. It didn’t get too far primarily because the pitchers and their agents were very much against it and also the media (national media not just Toronto media) was very hostile to the idea by in large.
Seems like if you were going to implement a 4 man rotation you would need a bunch of scrubs without much leverage and an owner that didn’t care about media criticism.
I wonder if there’s been a study about how much a 4 man rotation would really help different teams, how much effectiveness loss could we epect, how many more injures how many wins on average would you get by starting your better pitchers more?
I think the large ballpark has more potential. It would be interesting in a ballpark like that, could pitchers relax more and “pitch in the pinch” as Mathewson said?
It would definitely change the game and give the right kind of team a huge home field advantage.
I was hoping SafeCo,PetCo and Comerica would start a trend of bigger ballpark construction because I like pitching and defense. I was hoping these teams would be successful to encourage more teams to build parks like this. So far it is a mixed bag but at least CitiField seems to be continuing the trend.
You would have to overpay for hitters to come to such a park as free agents but pitchers may give you a discount and I would argue that an ace free agent pitcher is almost always a better FA pickup than any hitter not named Pujols or Mauer.
‘
Also a few knuckleballers on a staff would be interesting. When I look at what Wakefield has done for the Red Sox I don’t know why a low budget franchise doesn’t specialize in developing knucklers.
I definitely think the Red Sox need James. He has helped them a lot to think outside the box and not just continually try and fail to beat the Evil Empire at its own game.
Many don’t realize that the difference in Payroll between the Yankees and the Red Sox is higher than the difference between the Red Sox and the Royals.
The Yankees are the ONLY big market team. everyone else is medium or small market.
@21 Jon: That’s exactly what I was thinking they might do for Zack — here’s your consolation award since you play for a sucky team.
Hey, maybe the Royals are taking your “think outside the box thing to heart.” The Cardinals are the franchise that teaches great pitcher fielding, the A’s stock up on college pitchers, and the Royals pimp their left-fielders for gold gloves. You’ve been complaining about the KC’s refusal to think unconventionally, and there it is staring you right in the face the whole time.
Whoops, should read the other comments first.
/slaps head
“… think I gave one good reason above–it just doesn’t make sense to reward people for doing the exact same thing that center fielders do, only (almost by definition) not as well.”
And yet, we give third basemen and second basemen Gold Gloves despite the fact that they do the same things as shortstops, only (almost by definition), not as well.
It’s the same argument, no? Michael Young couldn’t play shortstop, so they moved him to third. Alfonso Soriano couldn’t play shortstop, so they moved him to second (then LF). The people at those positions are there because they can’t passably play shortstop anymore, as they all certainly did at one point, at least in legion ball or high school or the minors. So why award them instead of the three best shortstops? And why give GG’s to first basemen and pitchers at all?
According the mlb.com article on stumping for DeJesus’s Gold Glove, they are also stumping for Zack to get the Gold Glove and the Cy. Of course, how a front office with apparently zero regard for sabermetrics is going to do this successfully, I have no idea. Are they putting together game footage and press clippings? A huge part of the argument depends on placing all pitchers in a neutralized defense/offense/bullpen environment, which means the Royals would have to cop to being absolutely awful at all those things.
I do think the managers and coaches may well give Zack a GG as a sympathy vote for his possibly being screwed out of the Cy Young. They gave Mussina one as a reward for his 20 win season last year, even though he didn’t play better or worse defense than the year before when he was a terrible pitcher. And they gave Johan Santana a GG in a year when he didn’t get the Cy. They want to reward a good pitcher, and Felix, CC, Doc Halladay et al aren’t exactly the most agile guys in the world. GG for pitchers are kind of silly, though no sillier than pitcher Silver Sluggers.
Ryan gets on these tangents and has his favorite players- David probably seems like a gold glover watching the Royals because the other guys are so bad. Greinke actually deserves one.
The complete sham that is the gold glove award has been well documented (with some examples mentioned here). Perhaps the Dewan and UZR ratings becoming more mainstream will slowly bring the uninformed media around.
And yet, we give third basemen and second basemen Gold Gloves despite the fact that they do the same things as shortstops, only (almost by definition), not as well.
I’ll just repost what I said to begin with:
I don’t know if I agree with this. Yeah, there’s a GG for 1B and 1B is easy, but it also requires a unique set of skills (skills that any Major Leaguer could more or less pick up with a couple weeks of practice, but whatever). It would feel weird to just give out Gold Gloves to four shortstops, because whole it’s probably true that the best shortstops in the league would also make the best third basemen, second basemen and first basemen in the league, they really are different positions with different responsibilities.
Not so in the outfield. If you can play center field well, discounting any odd ballpark quirks, you can play left or right field even better. Giving a GG to a corner outfielder really is like rewarding the best of the Not Good Enough, in almost every case (exceptions being Crawford and Ichiro, who are like second center fielders). I’d rather just see it go to the three best outfielders, regardless of where they stand out there.
I think this argument is missing an analogy from the pitching side of the annual awards. Breaking out left fielders and right fielders for the Gold Glove would be very similar to breaking out relievers and starters for the Cy Young. Relief pitchers are relief pitchers because they aren’t good enough to start. Left fielders are left fielders because they aren’t good enough to play center field.
Joe, I think you are generally on board with not rewarding a reliever with the Cy Young since that job is measurably harder than starting. So why would you want to reward a left fielder for the same sort of thing?
I can’t take credit for this one but it was from one of Joe’s brilliant readers a week or so ago…”It should be called the ‘Brown Glove’ now.” Winning the award nowadays is no where near what it once meant…Willie Mays should have sent all of his back to Rawlings when McLouth won last year in NL!
Sort of reminds me when/if a school like the Univ of Akron starts promoting their best football player to be considered for the Heisman. Charlie Frye for instance….
“But his UZR is quite good — plus-11.8 run — and ranks him third in the league. From my own observation (not that my own observation means much), the UZR tells a fair story; he’s a good left fielder.”
Not sure if anyone mentioned it or not (I imagine someone had to), but UZR is based off an average of your peers.
Being +11.8 might look great, as if you are an absolute stud in the field. But the problem is, it doesnt work that way. All it means is you are +11.8 over the average. That is the key here – the average LF is rather horrendous. So where a +11.8 would normally look fantastic, it doesnt actually mean you are that great; just great compared to what you are up against. When you are up against the worst, your seemingly great looking +11.8 looses much of its weight.
‘2: StringerBell said at 8:12 am on September 3rd, 2009:
I don’t have the stats to back this up, and I’m going just on personal observation (which means I’m wrong), but I’d consider Jacoby Ellsbury as a possible Gold Glover for the Red Sox. He’s made some unreal plays this year.’
I don’t have the stats to back this up, oh wait yes I do – he’s only played Center Field this year. And I agree with Joe Pos 100% here..LF’s should not win a gold glove, they are usually stuck there because its the easiest place to play in the OF and 1b is taken. The fact that Bobby Abreu has won this award just says that the Gold Glove is really a joke anyway…
Guess I am going to have to change my habit of looking in on your blog 1-2 times a week or maybe just read all the new ones before commenting
Cause I argued on your initial italicized GG diatribe that DeJesus indeed didn’t deserve a GG but that it should go to an actual LF 
As for the 1B being so easy a position that anyone could play it, I must take at least a mild issue. Talented defenders at 1B save errors for all the rest of the infield. If they have an arm like Keith Hernandez had (and a manager smart enough to use it) they can work as cutoff on hits to RF and result in more putouts at home or even 3B.
While it may be easy to pick up 1B at a replacement level, I’d wager that the best are far more important to the overall IF defense than currently viewed. I wish someone would actually study that rather than consign 1B into the trash heap of defense.
I beg to differ. Third basemen need to be quick (great reflexes). Shortstops need to be fast (great speed and range). Both benefit from being quick and fast, but the best fielder at those positions requires different skills. And second basemen need to turn the double play, first baseman have some third baseman skills plus catching balls in the dirt. They are all different.
There is no substantive difference in fielding left field, center field, or right field. Bonds and Rickey played left field to make it easier on them so they’d be available offensively more often, and because neither had a great throwing arm. I’m quite sure both could have been great center fielders, but that would have been likelier to lead to leg injuries, and above all else, they needed those two healthy. Going further back, I think Carl Furillo was a great outfielder, but his arm (and Snider in center) dictated he play left. And sometimes ball park matters; in Yankee Stadium, Rickey’s speed was a big positive with the huge left field area. But I can think of no left fielder in baseball today who is good enough to be considered for a gold glove.