Gold gloves are completely gay
Dig this. AL gold gloves were awarded today. Derek Jeter won his fourth gold glove at SS, for a season in which he was worth eleven runs fewer than an average shortstop. That’s right: Baseball Prospectus has Derek Sanderson Jeter at -11 FRAA on the year. And the award for being the best-fielding shortstop in the American League. You need any more proof that gold gloves are stupid? Don’t need to look far. Let’s check the rest of the list. Here they are in all their glory, player name and 2009 FRAA and UZR.
1B: Mark Teixeira, NYY (-2 FRAA, -3.7 UZR)
2B: Placido Polanco, DET (13 FRAA, 11.4 UZR)
SS: Derek Jeter, NYY (-11 FRAA, 6.6 UZR)
3B: Evan Longoria, TBR (16 FRAA, 18.5 UZR)
OF: Adam Jones, BAL (6 FRAA, -4.7 UZR)
OF: Ichiro Suzuki, SEA (6 FRAA, 10.5 UZR)
OF: Torii Hunter, LAA (1 FRAA, -1.4 UZR)
C: Joe Mauer, MIN (4 FRAA)
P: Mark Buehrle, CHS (5 FRAA)
Looks like Polanco and Longoria were good choices, but the rest? Yikes! Here’s a corrected list of winners. I’ve picked the leaders in FRAA and UZR for each position to try to get a bit of variety instead of just going for straight FRAA; I figure that makes the case stronger, yeah?
1B: Kendry Morales, LAA (3 FRAA, 4.9 UZR)
2B: Placido Polanco, DET (13 FRAA, 11.4 UZR)
SS: Cesar Izturis, BAL (8 FRAA, 10.8 UZR)
3B: Evan Longoria, TBR (16 FRAA, 18.5 UZR)
OF: Franklin Gutierrez, SEA (23 FRAA, 29.1 UZR) (!!)
OF: David DeJesus, KCR (18 FRAA, 15.1 UZR)
OF: Ryan Sweeney, OAK (8 FRAA, 24 UZR)
C: Gerald Laird, DET (17 FRAA)
P: Mark Buehrle, CHS (5 FRAA)
So. What have we learned today? We’ve learned that the gold glove voters hit the mark 33% of the time. We’ve learned that 22% of the time they awarded their award for best defense in the league to a below-average defender. We’ve learned that they committed a crime by leaving Franklin Gutierrez out in favour of the stunningly average Torii Hunter. A hate crime, probably. They hate the truth.
