Ryan Braun a Finalist for NL Left Field Gold Glove
Breaking: Gold Glove awards are just as bad as ever, except now even before the winners are announced
7 months ago
Noah Jarosh
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Can we at least all agree that Braun's better than Holliday?
Or is that too much to ask too?
"fortunate, but also lucky"
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on Oct 31, 2011 3:34 PM CDT reply actions
Might be too much to ask
Holliday’s UZR/150 this season was 1.0, while Braun’s was -4.7.
Career numbers seem to indicate the same… Holliday’s UZR/150 over the past three seasons: 4.2, 6.8 and 1.0. Braun’s: -11.7, -9.0 and -4.7.
Pujols is the Barack Obama of baseball.
I think the defensive metrics are good enough that they should be looked at....
… but I’m not willing to ignore what my eyes tell me based on them alone. At least not yet. I know Braun isn’t a great left fielder, but I’ll go to my grave saying he’s as good or better than Holliday.
"fortunate, but also lucky"
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on Oct 31, 2011 3:49 PM CDT up reply actions 4 recs
They can only measure so much
but rangewise, Braun still doesn’t take a great route to balls. He’s getting better, but he’s not good. UZR is heavily range-based and that’s also Braun’s weakest defensive skill at this point.
His throws have gotten noticeably better over the years and I imagine 3rd base coaches aren’t going to be sending runners much against him next year. UZR doesn’t handle this implicit run-saving well (if at all).
If Holliday takes better routes to balls, he could have a better UZR without being as athletic and you can argue that makes him a better defender. Holliday’s arm is a wet noodle compared to Braun’s.
That makes sense. Thanks.
"fortunate, but also lucky"
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on Oct 31, 2011 4:06 PM CDT up reply actions
Braun would be penalized by gomez, wouldn't he?
anything in the gap will be gomez, so braun doesn’t get the bonus for plays out of zone and gets penalized when gomez takes a ball that by zone is the left fielders. May not happen a ton over the course of a season but given the small sample size issues with uzr out doesn’t have to.
When there is a scuffle in Ireland, there’s no need to specifically mention in the news story that alcohol was involved
by Getting Yosted on Oct 31, 2011 9:58 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
I think it helps him
Because a good amount of those ones Gomez “steals” are actually going to drop and hurt the LF.
IMO, too many variables come into play for UZR for corner OF
Not all line drives are created equally and come off the bat a thousand different ways. It can’t account for wind or sun at the ball park. It can’t account for the 30 different OF walls that players navigate to make plays, play bounces off of, hold runners on.
UZR seems to work a lot better for infielders because there are less variables when the ball is rolling on the ground.
There always seems to be bigger year to year swings in UZR for corner OF, party because I think UZR struggles to accurately asses them.
Get a ife broseph
That comes pretty close to entirely invalidating UZR.
TotalZone has already been totally debunked based on the 20+ TZ numbers it gave Scott Podsednik in ‘03-’04. Unacceptable.
(I’m kidding but I’m also not kidding)
"We’re here to win, man. All that fighting stuff, that’s for the birds." - Prince Fielder
Yuni was one of the better hitters at shortstop over about 100 PAs after the all-star break
Lee started 80 games in left field, it’s a similar amount of data
E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).
Half a season
is the same as 100 PAs? I’m confused.
"Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a — it’s not our business" - Tony Larussa
Something like that
3 years of UZR= 1 Year of hitting, approximately. Or roughly 200 PAs. So half a year, yeah, 100 PAs to give it some sense of context. To further complicate it, you’re comparing to averages, so it’d be like if all hitting metrics were in terms of average. So it’s like saying that if a major league average wOBA for shortstops was .300 in the 25 games after the All-Star break, and Yuni’s wOBA was .330, Yuni was, say, +5 runs or so. Same concept goes for Carlos Lee. You’re comparing to an average of left fielders, who are all pretty bad, and you’re looking at a pretty small number of total plays.
E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).
See, here's where I have a problem with UZR
If the only acceptable sample size is at least 3 years (and even that is relatively small) there is no way to control for all the other variables that will affect players over such a long period of time (injury, age, team/ballpark, etc.) and it becomes practically worthless.
"Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a — it’s not our business" - Tony Larussa
Then that's true for all defensive metrics.
The sample size problem is there because how many chances a player gets is variable. A healthy player is assured of around 600 PA a year. They aren’t assured of a decent sample of defensive chances.
Oh yeah, I definitely agree it applies to defensive metrics in general
I feel that as baseball fans, we are desperate to quantify everything. But I’m still not convinced defense can ever be quantified based on the reasons above.
I mean, if 3 years of defense = 1 year of hitting, then evaluating the defense of a guy in the middle of his career with 5 years experience is like looking at less than two seasons of hitting. That’s worthless.
"Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a — it’s not our business" - Tony Larussa
It's the best we have
Not a great answer, but the best answer. See above comments from Supertramp on UZR making more sense for IF than OF, anyway.
Sample size?
Lee split his time between LF and 1B this season. Is 645.1 innings in LF enough to measure how well a guy played a certain position?
Pujols is the Barack Obama of baseball.
Braun isn't a very good left fielder.
By position, the pickings are pretty slim at LF, though. If you want to reserve the award for players playing the position full time in the NL, which I’ll randomly define as about 900 Innings, it’s an underwhelming lineup to choose from according to Fangraphs.
Ryan Braun
Raul Ibanez
Jason Bay
Logan Morrison
Gerardo Parra
Alfonso Soriano
Ryan Ludwick
Matt Holliday
Of those, the only ones with a positive UZR are Gerardo Parra, Alfonso Soriano, and Matt Holliday. By UZR, Soriano was the 2nd best LF in the NL this year. LF are horrible defensively.
Parra shouldn’t have any trouble picking up a Gold Glove this year.
This is why naming finalists is a bad idea.
If they’d just given it to Parra I’d have nodded my head in agreement and that would have been it, and there’s no way in hell I’m watching a Gold Glove award show, no matter who’s on the list.
"fortunate, but also lucky"
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on Oct 31, 2011 3:50 PM CDT up reply actions
Without basketball
ESPN is struggling to come up with content. I doubt they thought they would be all but giddy they picked up the broadcast rights to the Breeder’s Cup this year.
Did they change the way the award is given out
In the past sometimes 2 CF’s will win the award and a RF with a great arm. I didnt rrealize they now have a LF, CF and RF component to it.
I was thinking the same thing
It must be a change this year and it’s about damn time. LF is a position unto its own. You wouldn’t give a SS the 3B’s Gold Glove so why would a CF get the LF’s Gold Glove?
Only for two more weeks
Then college basketball starts and they will just pick up more college games.
Contributor on Brew Crew Ball, Commissioner of Prognostikeggers, Owner of a broken sarcasm detector
Both Parra and Holliday played less than Braun this year
Parra started 117 games, Holliday 114, Braun 146
Get a ife broseph
How is Greinke not on the pitchers finalists?
Grillax people
by jmeks23 on Oct 31, 2011 10:25 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
How do you even judge whether a starting pitcher is a good defender?
They get, like, three plays all year.
Fielding Bible Awards are out
Here and Peter Gammons reckons Ryan Braun is the second best left-fielder out there.
Good to see our pitchers getting some credit for their fielding too.
"I love it when any team called 'The Brew Crew' wins": Tad Kubler
"LOLOL I LOVE YUNI!!!!": ThroughBeingCool
Nitpick
Actually 3rd, behind Parra and Carlos Gonzalez.
I cant quite remember how that is calculated, is it voted just like GG is? or is it based on different metrics?
According to the page I saw
His votes go Gardner, Braun and Gwynn? Unless I’m looking at something else?
Anyway, its done by voting but is slightly different to GGs. More info here…
"I love it when any team called 'The Brew Crew' wins": Tad Kubler
"LOLOL I LOVE YUNI!!!!": ThroughBeingCool
But the methodology!
"Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a — it’s not our business" - Tony Larussa
I don't know if you can technically call Gonzalez a left fielder.
Yes, it is the position he started the most games at, but it is still less than half his total games started. His starts in center plus right field are greater than left field.
"People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."- Rogers Hornsby
Does this encourage Braun to improve his defense in order to win a Gold Glove in the future?
Or cause him to think that his defense is good enough as it is, making him complacent?
He must be talking about Pujols
"Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a — it’s not our business" - Tony Larussa
We are not going to get into these debates on a baseball thread!
(Yarrrrr)
FanGraphs should consider a venue for a Gallery Night... they could even serve a cake with a Win Expectancy Chart of the 7/7/11 Brewers' game etched in the frosting, and 7-up. Oh, yeah - and t-shirts that say "SABR-Friday." I'm totally there.
by Jess'HittheBall on Nov 2, 2011 12:32 AM CDT up reply actions
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