Award-Winning Baseball Players of 2010

AL Gold Gloves

P Mark Buehrle (CHW-2nd)
C Joe Mauer (MIN-3rd)
1B Mark Teixeira (NYY-4th)
2B Robinson Cano (NYY-1st)
3B Evan Longoria (TBR-2nd)
SS Derek Jeter (NYY-5th)
OF Ichiro Suzuki (SEA-9th)
OF Fr. Gutierrez (SEA-1st)
OF Carl Crawford (TBR-1st)

Fielding Bible Winners
http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbible/the-winners.asp

well at least jeter winning disproves that your offensive production is tied to winning a gg.. he sucked at all aspects of the game but found a way to win. god bless him.

what, no all yankees infield? haters

Jerry Crasnick: "Derek Jeter could have won a Nobel Peace Prize, and it would have been greeted more receptively than this Gold Glove award."

hey at least he was 26th among AL SSs in advanced fielding...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2010-specialpos_ss-fielding.shtml#players_standard_fielding::13

CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Representing the Colorado Rockies, your players' choice award-winner for top MLB player, Carlos Gonzalez.

http://www.denverpost.com/motorsports/ci_16472830

Peter Gammons pgammo
Somehow the misanthropic bloggos will find a way to blame Jeter for the Carnival Cruise Ship's lack of range

OldHossRadbourn
I, for one, prefer my bloggos to be misanthropic.

they should just keep voting jeter every year so the yankees stay pressured to keep him at SS even though he can't play it anymore

lol, cruise ships move way faster than Captain Monument

how come no one here is complaining about Gardner not getting one?

(fingers crossed for Jimmy Rollins at 3:30)

because he's a Yankee, duh.

he did make the Fielding Bible selection tho.

because the OF picks are all actually top defensive players this time around, no cruising-on-reputation torii hunter anymore so not much to complain about if one good player wins it over another

Internet Baseball Awards results (no one seems to know where the totals are):

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=12404

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=12428

http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/pics/pastadivingjeter.jpg

weirdest thing is that you can actually make a case for jeter winning silver slugger this year

NL West doesnt seem very offensive to me.. I guess Rolen over Zimmerman is the only beef people may have..

NL West wtf am I thinking? The NL GG announcement today..

How deserving was Carlos Gonzalez--did he get it mostly for his bat? I don't know a thing about how well he fields...Truthfully, I barely knew a thing about him period until he jumped into the Triple Crown race this year.

He was pretty bad in terms of UZR.

Ultimate Zone Rating? Uber-Zone Rating? Don't forget, you're dealing with Mr. Philistine here...I take it that the main point is that he doesn't cover a lot of ground.

Ultimate Zone Rating. Yeah he doesn't cover a lot of ground in CF apparently. He does have a very good arm from what I've seen.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=uzr

Carlos Gonzalez doesn't cover much ground but he has veteran instincts which allow him to cheat to the side of the ball.

veteran instincts?

Thanks for the UZR links. This one looks especially helpful--will read:

http://www.blessyouboys.com/2010/1/9/1240320/saber-101-ultimate-zone-rating

basically it estimates defensive runs saved by dividing the field into a bunch of small zones and using stringers to record the zone and batted ball profile (line drive vs fly ball etc) for every batted ball. then it looks at the number of plays each fielder makes in each zone and compares to the league average for that player's position

Gonzalez is a fantastically good outfielder, excellent in the corners and more than competent in the middle. He's not perfect, but he's young, he's quick, he's got a cannon arm and he's improving. And Coors' outfield massacres UZR for some reason - Dexter Fowler may be the fastest and most spectacular CF in the majors but if you look at his UZR rating you'd think he was a liability.

Posey, Feliz

Posey and Heyward were both left off of one ballot each.

unreal

hmmm, interesting and unexpected, at least in the NL.

Neyer:

And of course the playing time argument is silly. Heyward started 136 games. Posey started 105 games, and here's a dirty little secret that Giants fans don't want you to know ... Of Posey's 105 starts, only 75 were behind the plate. His argument is largely built on his performance as the Giants' catcher ... but he was the Giants' catcher for less than half the season.

Does Posey still deserve credit for catching 75 games (and playing first base in 30 more) while Heyward was playing right field? Of course. Any reasonable system used to evaluate a player's value gives Posey extra credit for catcher. Still, even with the extra credit he winds up somewhere between one and two wins behind Heyward.

john jaso got robbed kinda

hmmm, not sure he was even the 3rd-best rook in the league, so no.

catcher with .370 obp is at least better than a reliever imo

He started 80 games at catcher.

so only five more than Posey.

okay, wanna be upset over Heyward not winning but it's kinda hard, even if Neyer agrees. Posey had a damn great year.

heyward will make up for it with some mvps later on imo

not sure he's more likely to be an MVP than Posey (both might be, of course)

I thought there might have been a parallel in the ROY votes won by Bench, Munson, Fisk, or Piazza, but no. Bench's vote was very close, but he edged out a pitcher (Koosman); the other three won unanimously or near-unanimously.

glad how that one turned out

Jayson Stark tweet: "Only voter to omit Heyward was Dejan Kovacevic of Pitts Post-Gazette. He had Posey first, and two Pirates (Walker, Tabata)." lol

and an LA voter left Posey off.

passive-aggressiveness

someone had gaby sanchez first?

Feliz is an outstanding candidate. He's just not as outstanding as Austin Jackson, who started 140 games in center field, played (by most measure) truly brilliant defense, and scored 103 runs. Granted, he was just decent with the bat. But a Gold Glove-quality center fielder with league-average hitting stats? Yes please.

Gotta say I agree with Neyer here.

Posey, promoted to majors in late May, was left off the ballot by Yasushi Kikuchi of Kyodo News from the Los Angeles-Anaheim chapter.

they got to come up with a hollywood foreign press golden globes type solution.

the Sanchez voters were the 2 dingalings named by Stark

wtf Dejan Kovacevic

i hope he voted andrew mccutchen for MVP and evan meek for CY too

I would rather have ten Murray Chasses than one Plaschke.

― macaroni rascal (polyphonic), Friday, November 19, 2010 2:14 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

OTM. At least with Chass you get the feeling that he's evolving and struggling to understand something. When you say that someone is best pitcher in the AL and still doesn't deserve the Cy Young, then something doesn't add up, and I think he knows it. Plaschke, OTOH, is completely clueless.

One thing I wonder: does Hernandez mean that a corner has been turned for good, or is it just a perfect storm that doesn't really mean a whole lot long-term? On one side, the Cys given to Lincecum and Greinke with low win totals indicate that the change was already well underway, and that wins have permanently dropped a few notches down the list of things voters look at. On the other hand, Hernandez's poor run support was such an extreme case that maybe it takes that much to get noticed, and that under normal circumstances--i.e., more moderately poor run support left him with a record of, I don't know, 17-8 or something--he wouldn't have won. I'm pretty sure the answer is that the corner's been turned for good, but I'm not totally sure.

to be fair there is a difference between being the best pitcher talent-wise and having the best pitching season, not sure which one chass meant there though

like, zack greinke hasn't ever been a better pitcher than roy halladay but he still deserved the CY last year over halladay, etc etc

xp i think the corner's been turned, though there are still enough oldschoolers out there that with the right random draw of ballots we might still see an award given out based on wins or RBIs over the next few years

btw anyone framing the felix pick as a victory for advanced statistics is full of shit, fangraphs WAR even has him almost a win behind cliff lee. runs allowed and innings pitched are not advanced stats, it's a victory for common sense if anything.

fangraphs WAR even has him almost a win behind cliff lee.

Whoa dude, the fangraphs pitcher WAR model is very controversial and you can't use it as some catchall proof of ANYTHING. Cliff Lee did have a pretty underrated season though.

Don't see the point in arguing whether it's a victory for 'advanced statistics' or common sense - though I'd also argue that a victory for common sense is more important - the point is that the thinking has changed.

anyone framing the felix pick as a victory for advanced statistics is full of shit

Neyer made the same point yesterday--that Hernandez vs. everyone else wasn't traditional vs. advanced, it was traditional (wins) vs. slightly-less-traditional (ERA, hits-per-nine).

yes, the near-universal derision for Jeter's Gold Glove is closer to a nu-stat triumph (even tho any ppl w/ eyes should be able to tell he's not good)

He doesn't devolve into flippancy or sarcasm

you don't find his repeated references to "the dark side" to be in this mode?

Maybe a little. Not much--not the kind of flippancy or sarcasm you'd get...here.

James addressed the AL Cy today. I'd like to quote the whole thing, but a couple of weeks ago a reader asked him what his wishes were when it came to quoting from the site, and he said something like "sparingly." So I'll try to honor that.

Anyway, he saw it as a close call between Hernandez and Sabathia, giving Hernandez the edge--a WAR of about 8 for C.C., and 9+ for Felix. And he finished by imagining what Hernandez should say when he accepts the award:

"I appreciate this award, and I accept it on behalf of my family, my teammates and my organization, but I accept it as well on behalf of Mike Norris in 1980, of Dave Stieb in 1983, and Jim Bunning in 1960, and Bert Blyleven in 1973, and all the other pitchers over the years who were deprived of the recognition that was due to them because sportswriters confused what was done by the individual with what was done by the team. Your time has come; we no longer live in the darkness of the past, and the shadows now are lifting from your memories."

didn't realize this was Pujols' first year as NL RBI leader

Votto is going to win fairly easily because of Reds in first place and Pujols fatigue, so the Dark Ages aren't gone yet.

Lol only you could spin a Votto win as a victory for the 'dark ages'... I know plenty of hardcore stat nerd types - guys who run influential stat nerd blogs that you might read - who would be perfectly happy with Votto winning... there's nothing wrong with taking into consideration what the best storyline is when the race is THIS close... and it's certainly a lot closer than you're making it sound. print the legend bro!

You are misreading me. If it was done on the virtual merits, Pujols-Votto would be a virtual tie. Instead, I imagine Votto is going to get about 2/3 of the 1st-place votes, for the 2 reasons i listed.

I'm well aware Votto had a great year, and isn't a crappy choice like Rollins, Pendleton or Morneau.

(btw who did u usta be, Princess TamTam?)

Oh, I see. Well, we don't know yet, it may be a virtual tie!

TamTam = Shasta sockpuppet?

i think he's a new guy, have caught him crossposting stuff from another forum

Puh-leeze, PTT isn't fit to lick my toe jam, get with the program Morbius, you're radar is janky.

k, i'm relieved

and my spelling is janky, i need coffee. <3

You are misreading me. If it was done on the virtual merits, Pujols-Votto would be a virtual tie. Instead, I imagine Votto is going to get about 2/3 of the 1st-place votes, for the 2 reasons i listed.

FWIW, I don't agree with your math. Your logic seems to imply that if the MVP was contested between a four-win player and an eight-win player, then in a "fair" vote, the latter should get 2/3 of the first place votes.

If a guy is better, then he's better, it doesn't mean that the voting breakdown needs to be a probability distribution based on WAR (or some other stat/metric). If the voters decide, for more or less the same reasons, that Votto was a shade better than Pujols this year, then Votto will deservedly earn a lot more than half of the first place votes.

the point is that because votto and pujols are virtually tied in value, the voters will likely reward votto for having better teammates, which is unfair to pujols

Your logic seems to imply that if the MVP was contested between a four-win player and an eight-win player, then in a "fair" vote, the latter should get 2/3 of the first place votes.

I don't think I was implying that, but I didn't mean to.

xpost

Then what's the tiebreaker? When it's this close, then I have no issue with giving it to the guy on the winning team.

Anyway, I think Pujols Burnout is going to affect the voting a lot more than the Reds' and Cards' places in the standings. A five game difference is nothing really -- Votto shouldn't be a huge favourite based on standings because it's not like the Reds won the division by 15 games or Pujols' team finished last.

tiebreaker is anything you want as long as it's an individual metric/accomplishment imo. team record is not one of these obv

the point is that because votto and pujols are virtually tied in value, the voters will likely reward votto for having better teammates, which is unfair to pujols

― ciderpress, Monday, November 22, 2010 11:38 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeesh, you're really stretching the meaning of the word 'unfair'

tiebreaker is anything you want as long as it's an individual metric/accomplishment imo. team record is not one of these obv

― ciderpress, Monday, November 22, 2010 12:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

tiebreaker is anything you want as long as it's (part of a narrow set of things i approve of)

TBH, that's way more arbitrary and illogical than picking the guy whose team won the division. So I can just pick any stat that I happen to feel is the most significant and important indicator? So I can break the tie by voting for the guy with the higher OBP? Or the guy who plays better defense?

xpost thank you PTT

basically i just dont like seeing writers falling back on the 'mvp should be a winner' trope even though in this case it's not leading to a poor choice

So I can break the tie by voting for the guy with the higher OBP? Or the guy who plays better defense?

Is defense random? It is an individual asset, presumably being factored in before it has to be used as a 'tiebreaker.'

basically i just dont like seeing writers falling back on the 'mvp should be a winner' trope even though in this case it's not leading to a poor choice

― ciderpress, Monday, November 22, 2010 12:20 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

why not? the MVP's about storylines, it's in the spirit of the award.

yes that's why Jimmy Rollins won for predicting victory

tho not the Mets totally pissing away the division in 3 weeks

I'm not saying that should be the excuse used to give the award to subpar candidates, but I think it's a reasonable tiebreaker in a case like this. It'll be fun to see a young new star like Votto get recognized. I don't think it's worth harumphing over.

votto wins big

31 of 32 first-place votes and 443 points

sorry, I smell "narrative" groupthink.

harumph

Alex in SF and I had this extended argument a month ago. I said that I found both NL races interesting because:

1) Halladay/Wainwright and Votto/Pujols were virtual ties on the merits;
2) most of the tiny advantantages fell in one direction;
3) creating an unusual situation where one player was likely to win unanimously.

Alex said it was "narrrative"--nothing special.

Yes, narrative was one of the many tiny advantages that fell in one direction (winning team, Pujols fatigue, etc.). But I still say it was a unique situation, and I still would like to hear about all these other years that produced a similar result (which is why, according to Alex, I shouldn't have found this year so interesting).

"Narrative" technically only has two r's. But I was hearing the word so often, I decided to add a third.

like a pirate would say it!

I wonder what city Ryan Howard's 2nd and 3rd place votes came from?

also where did Zimmerman finish? out of the top 10 I know.

[i]like a pirate would say it![i]

Danny Murtaugh, probably; Manny Sanguillen, no.

hamilton

good showing for bautista

WHAT IS WRONG W/ SITES LIKE ESPN NOT SHOWING THE ENTIRE TABULATIONS? links, plz, for the NL too.

the bbwaa site lists all that stuff in detail:

http://bbwaa.com/

Longoria as low as 6th ridic

"I didn't think it would be so conclusive," Votto said of his victory margin. "I think it was a tossup. I beat him[Pujols] in batting average, but we all kind of know batting average is an overrated statistic."

Reads differently in the Yahoo article I just read: "I don't know — I think it was a tossup. I think that it was as close as it can get. I'm not going to go on a limb and say, 'Oh, yeah, I played a heck of a lot better than him because I beat him in batting average, but we all know that batting average is kind of an overrated statistic.'"

huh - the quote i read on the fox news site was a little different still: " `Oh, yeah, I played a heck of a lot better than him' according to the commie foreigner, Votto."