Kuzul

Derek Jeter winning his fifth Gold Glove in recognition of his play at shortstop on Tuesday has caused quite the firestorm on both sides of the issue this week, with objective baseball fans lashing out at the notion that a bad defensive player would win a Gold Glove, and New York Yankees fans, predictably but understandably, fighting back in defense of their hero.

In response to some of my own smarmy comments on the subject, a commenter made the following astute comment (the proverbial “rare valid point”), and it stopped me in my tracks:

“It’s also hard for me to believe that anyone can criticize Jeter.”

The reason this comment stopped me dead in my tracks is that I realized that he had a point: I was, and am, criticizing a player who, in actuality, is one of the all-time greats, who is a no doubt Hall of Famer, and who frankly is a classy guy.

So I had to ask myself, “Why am I being so critical of an admittedly likable and commendable baseball player?”

Here is my response: 

Let me be clear:

There is a phenomenon in this country, and that phenomenon is misconception by almost all baseball fans, Yankees fans and non-Yankees fans alike, of the career accomplishments of Derek Jeter.

Frankly, I like Derek Jeter as a player.  I think he’s had an incredible career, and while I wish he had moved to center field or second base or some other position a long time ago, because he is a bad fielder, whatever. Playing a less-than-stellar defender at a crucial defensive position is the Yankees‘ problem, not mine, and if they think the pros outweigh the cons on that one, that is for them to decide.

His performance in the postseason is, simply put, undeniable.

His abilities as a hitter are, simply put, undeniable.

And his image, frankly, is impeccable. It would take me an hour to list all of the professional athletes who have made me blush in my lifetime, but Jeter is not one of them.

Let me reiterate these points, because I want people to understand where I am coming from: I like and respect Derek Jeter, and I think he has been a no-doubt star in the postseason, he is a terrific hitter, and he is a classy professional athlete in an industry inundated by the exact opposite.

The problem people like me have with Derek Jeter, though, whether they realize it or not, is the need of the New York media and fans to make him out to be an even better player than he actually is, better even than his teammates who outperform him, and the more than a little obnoxious way they go about it.

There are three primary evils that the New York media and fans are guilty of that drive me and people like me insane:

a) Dismissing as egg-head stat-nerds who know nothing about baseball the people who say Jeter is a bad defensive player in order to create the myth that Jeter is an amazing defensive shortstop.

b) Overstating the value of Jeter’s intangibles in order to explain away the gap between Jeter’s offensive accomplishments and the offensive accomplishments of similar players around the league and even on his own team.

c) Ignoring or simply dismissing impact of the New York Yankees payroll on the success of the New York Yankees in order to overstate the importance of Jeter’s contribution to the success of the Yankees over the last 15 years.

Let’s focus on Jeter’s defense for a moment. The proposition that Derek Jeter is a bad defensive player is not sensational. It is the conclusion that has been reached by every objective baseball mind that has attempted to rate players by their defense.  This isn’t an agenda thing.

Let me draw a comparison to the analysis of another New York Yankee legend: Babe Ruth.

We all know what Babe Ruth did during his career: he hit home runs.  Tons of them. More of them than any other player. And there was a time when, based purely on the prodigious nature of his home runs, we judged Babe Ruth to be the greatest ballplayer of all time.

But then something funny happened. We started to develop other statistics to measure player performance, because frankly judging a player just on his home runs is absurd (a proposition few of us would argue with).

So we moved on, to RBI and runs scored, to batting average and total bases. Those statistics gave way to on-base percentage and slugging percentage, to OPS and OPS+. Then those statistics gave way to linear weights and adjusted batting runs and adjusted batting wins and so on and so forth. The latest stat du jour is WAR, and there are more, and others, will continue to be more, and others.

The statistics kept getting more and more complex, and more intricate and more idiosyncratic, until we got to a point where the common baseball fan really couldn’t relate to what he was seeing or reading.

But do you know whose name kept coming out on top as the most valuable player of all time?

Babe Ruth.

Somehow, as statistics evolved from their most simplistic to their most complex, Babe Ruth remained the standard by which all players would be compared.

And trust me: if the baseball statistical community was going to try to snuff out Babe Ruth, and make the case that some other player was actually the greatest player of all time, they would have been pleased as punch with the result. Swimming upstream, going against the grain, defying conventional wisdom is what baseball “stat-heads” do best, and they enjoy nothing more.

I promise you, the stat-geeks amongst us would like nothing more than to tell you that Willie Mays’ defense, or Ted Williams’ missed war years, or the value of Albert Pujols’ competition, or Honus Wagner’s position, or Ty Cobb’s era actually makes one of them the greatest player of all-time.

But stat-geeks didn’t make that argument. Why? Because they could not make that argument, because the stats didn’t support it.

But this hasn’t been the case with Derek Jeter and defensive statistics.

While we’ve all seen Jeter’s jump-and-throw routine and been impressed, and we’ve all seen The Flip and the dive into the stands, the evolution of baseball’s defensive statistics, still in its relative youth, has nevertheless demonstrated Jeter’s defense to be lacking.

One after another, defensive statistics have been developed that consistently arrive at the same conclusion: The guy is just not a good defensive player.

And make no mistake about it: Jeter isn’t the reason that stat-geeks come up with new stats.

John Dewan and Baseball Info Solutions didn’t start watching every play in every baseball game five years ago (or whenever it was) to undermine the perception that Jeter is a good defensive player. Bill James didn’t set out to undermine Jeter, and Sean Forman doesn’t publish defensive stats on his website to draw out Derek Jeter’s inadequacies. Rob Neyer doesn’t write articles about baseball simply to undercut Derek Jeter’s legacy.

Baseball minds develop baseball stats to try to learn more about baseball and, in an ideal world, try to make baseball better. They didn’t set out to make people think that Adam Everett is twice the defensive player that Jeter is. That’s just the conclusion they reached. Over and over. And over.

At the end of the day, trying to find new and better ways to value defense, every single one of these people, and other people like them, has reached the same conclusion.

Derek Jeter is a bad defensive player.

But I have a question for all you New York Yankees’ fans:

So what?

We didn’t need to pretend that Bo Jackson was a great pass catcher to acknowledge that he was a great running back. We didn’t need to pretend that Dennis Rodman was a great shooter to acknowledge he was as tremendous a basketball player as he was. And we didn’t need to pretend that Babe Ruth was a great fielder in order to acknowledge that he was the greatest player of all time.

And in the same vein, we don’t need to pretend that Derek Jeter was an elite defensive shortstop in order to acknowledge that he has been a great shortstop.

And we don’t need to pretend that Derek Jeter has had once-in-a-lifetime intangibles in order to appreciate his leadership.

And we certainly don’t need to pretend that the New York Yankees were just another team playing on an even financial playing field in order to appreciate what Derek Jeter has accomplished during his career.

And yet, doing these things seem to be the raison d’etre of the New York media, specifically the New York Daily News and the New York Post, but even the New York Times to a lesser extent, and it infuriates people like me, who try to approach baseball from an objective and even-handed perspective in order to place players, managers, teams, leagues and eras into proper perspective.

That Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of the game’s finest players does not bother me, and I am proud to have watched his career.

That Derek Jeter has won five Gold Gloves at shortstop and, as such, will go down in history as one of the game’s finest defensive shortstops bothers me tremendously.

That Derek Jeter would go down in history as the greatest hitter, greatest Yankee, greatest clutch-hitter, greatest postseason performer, or, absurdly, the greatest player of all-time would simply be, in my mind, a baseball apocalypse, and an affront to every player to have ever played the game.

In my ideal world, we would all appreciate Derek Jeter for everything he has accomplished as a New York Yankee, as a shortstop, and as a World Champion. And that has been tremendous; in fact, as recently as 2009 I ranked him as the 75th greatest player of all time.

Nevertheless, this ideal world also requires us to not engage in the sort of myth-making that comes from the need to portray Jeter as a great defensive shortstop, a once-in-a-lifetime leader, or even the greatest player we’ve ever seen.

And yet for all that has been great about Derek Jeter, it is the tendency of the New York media and fan-base to do precisely that which is to blame for all of the venom that is directed towards this player, who frankly has done nothing to deserve the harsh treatment he receives from those of us who see him not for what the New York media and fan-base would have us believe him to be, but rather for what he is.

Merely one of the best baseball players of our lifetime.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, for years one of the worst defensive shortstops in all of Major League Baseball, somehow managed to win his fifth Gold Glove on Tuesday afternoon despite having a truly horrendous season with the glove.

As if the anecdotes regarding Gold Glove misses in recent years—Mike Young 2008, Nate McLouth 2008, Rafael Palmeiro 1999—had not yet killed the reputation of the Gold Glove and any utility to be derived from the meaning of having won the award, we now have evidence at the most fundamental of levels that the Gold Glove is a laughable award.

Which is a shame, because there are certainly Gold Glovers who regularly deserve the award, such as other 2010 winners Scott Rolen, Shane Victorino, Michael Bourn and Brandon Phillips, each of whom was announced as a 2010 Gold Glover in the National League on Wednesday.

In order to properly honor Derek Jeter and all his achievements with the glove, BaseballEvolution.com has decided to start its own set of fielding awards: the Derek Jeter Awards.

From this point forward, the Derek Jeter Awards will be given to the worst fielding big name player at each position in both the National League and the American League. In this way, we can take time to honor all of baseball’s biggest stars who, oh by the way, are terrible fielders.

In 2010, the American League Jeter for shortstop will go to Derek Jeter–even though technically it belongs to Yuniesky Betancourt–and hopefully we’ll never again see any overlap between the Gold Gloves and the Derek Jeters.

Let’s have a look.

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After another fine season and trip to the postseason in 2010, Derek Jeter got a little more good news on Tuesday afternoon when it was announced that he’d received his fifth American League Gold Glove award in honor of his tremendous defensive play at shortstop.

This award could not have come at a better time for the shortstop, as Jeter is a free agent and will soon be negotiating his latest, and potentially last, contract with the New York Yankees.

And while there will be those who say that Jeter had a down year in 2010, and that he may be at the beginning of the downside of his career, to this we say “hogwash.”

Derek Jeter proved once again in 2010 with not only his play but with his leadership and gamesmanship that he remains one of the elite players in Major League Baseball on both sides of the ball, and deserves to be paid like it.

With this in mind, we present: Eight Reasons Why Derek Jeter Deserves To Be Amongst the Highest-Paid Players in Baseball.

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We’re about to present a slideshow in which we analyze the voting for the 2010 American League Cy Young Award. We’re going to look at 10 Cy Young Award candidates and analyze them along several lines, i.e. how much run support each one got, how well each player kept the ball in the yard, how hurt by his home park each one was.

But at the end of the day, none of this matters, because really all we want to know is the answer to this one question: Is this the year? Will this be the historic year in which the Baseball Writers Association of America does the correct thing and gives the Cy Young Award to the best pitcher in his league, without regard for his win-loss record?

Put another way: Will Felix Hernandez win the 2010 American League Cy Young Award?

Let’s have a look.

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With the announcement of the National League Rookie of the Year due on Monday, baseball fans find themselves in a place they did not expect to be.

In spring training, prior to the 2010 season, two rookies commanded the attention of the baseball world. One was a 20-year-old man-child in Atlanta, the next Ken Griffey Jr. or perhaps even Frank Robinson, whose five tools were already self-evident and whose place in the starting lineup on opening day was all but guaranteed.

The other rookie phenom was slated to be, perhaps, the greatest pitching prospect we’ve ever seen, and while he was not due to make his team out of spring training, there were those who thought that once he did join his team, he would be the best pitcher in the National League.

Remarkably, surprisingly, unbelievably, neither Jason Heyward nor Stephen Strasburg will be announced as the National League Rookie of the Year tomorrow. While they both enjoyed very good seasons, and both matched the hype surrounding their emergence, the best rookie in the National League was nevertheless a World Series winning catcher from San Francisco named Buster.

Buster Posey, that is.

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The Boston Red Sox have made undoubtedly the most surprising pre-free-agency move in the league today. They exercised their $12.5 million option on David Ortiz, an option that contained no buyout clause.

Ortiz turns 35 this month, and has an RSL of .257/.356/.498 over the past three seasons, averaging 28 homers and 97 RBI per year. The move was likely made based on Papi’s popularity and the fact that he went .286/.385/.558 this season after April ended.

In a free-agent class that will include Lance Berkman, Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, Derrek Lee, Troy Glaus, Vladamir Guerrero, Hideki Matsui, Pat Burrell, Marcus Thames, Aubrey Huff, Russell Branyan, Adam LaRoche, Lyle Overbay, Carlos Pena, Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome among first base/designated hitter types, it is very odd that the Red Sox would pay such a premium to keep a player who is barely in the upper echelon of that group.

There will be some fantastic designated hitter bargains come January, and while the Sox certainly aren’t penny-pinchers, they do need to spend money to fill other voids on their team.

For more on David Ortiz and the 2010-2011 Major League Baseball offseason, check out BaseballEvolution.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When Gus Zernial of the Chicago White Sox and Roy Smalley of the Chicago Cubs won the inaugural Dave Kingman Award way back in 1950, the level of analysis that went into the award was pretty primitive. 

Did they guy hit a lot of home runs? If so, did he have a really low batting average and also a strangely low RBI total? 

Okay, good. Here’s your Dave Kingman Award. 

As baseball enjoyed its statistical revolution of the last 30 years, the Kingman analysis became greatly enhanced. To home runs and on-base percentage we were able to add runs created, OPS, OPS+, adjusted batting runs, WAR, and a host of other offensive statistics, to say nothing of the tacitly present defensive factor, measured by fielding runs, plus/minus, ultimate zone rating, and defensive WAR. 

Indeed, the statistical revolution has brought us into a new era of Dave Kingman analysis, which is really great, because there have certainly been season in which the Kingman candidates have abounded, and simple reference to home runs and on-base percentage haven’t given us the necessary information we’ve needed to parse the Pedro Felizes and the Chris Youngs. 

Where we’ve needed more, we’ve gotten it. 

And so it is, then, that we turn our attention to the 2010 Dave Kingman Award, with an eye towards determining, once again, who in Major League Baseball more than any other player was truly doing the least with the most. 

Let’s have a look: 

Mark Reynolds, Arizona Diamondbacks 

Reynolds will perpetually be a Kingman candidate because of his traditionally high home run and strikeout rates, combined with his traditionally low batting average. This season was no different for the Diamondbacks third baseman, as he hit 32 home runs, but managed only a .198 batting average with 211 strikeouts. 

After becoming the first player ever to strike out 200 times in 2008, he became the first player ever to do it twice in 2009, and in 2010 became the first player ever to do it three times. 

Reynolds was particularly bad in 2010, however. After driving in 102 RBI and scoring 98 runs in 2009, those numbers dropped to 85 and 79. He also had a 150 hits in 2009, and that number dropped to a shocking 99 hits in 596 plate appearances in 2010. The adage regarding strikeouts being just as detrimental to a player as any other out does not apply, it would seem, to Mark Reynolds. 

Brother needs to put some bat on some balls. 

Nevertheless, Reynolds remains just outside of being considered a Kingman clone for a simple reason: in 145 games, Reynolds took 83 walks in 2010, which raised his OBP a surprising 122 points above his batting average. 

There is value there, and while it is not great, it is enough to keep him out of the inner Kingman circle. 

Carlos Pena, Tampa Bay Rays 

Everything we just said about Mark Reynolds pretty much goes for Carlos Pena. He had the same curious combination of below .200 average and above .300 OBP, he hit a shocking number of home runs for a guy who doesn’t seem to make contact with the ball all that often, and he finished with fewer than 100 hits in 144 games. 

Pena is also a pretty bad defensive player, though this is not his reputation. Nevertheless, in this season, he is too good to win the Kingman. 

Adam Lind, Toronto Blue Jays 

It is simply unbelievable that Adam Lind could have consecutive seasons as disparate as the ones he had in 2009 and 2010. Lind went from 35 home runs, 114 RBI, and a .305/.370/.562 to 23 home runs, 72 RBI, and a .237/.287/.425 without even seeing a significant decrease in playing time. He scored almost 40 fewer runs in 2010 (93 vs. 57) and had 44 fewer base hits. 

I mean, what in the name of Jonny Gomes 2006 is going on here? 

In any other season, Lind would likely have walked away with the Dave Kingman Award handily with 23 home runs and a .287 on-base percentage. Throw in his -8.65 adjusted batting runs (second worst for any major leaguer with over 20 home runs) and his 0.1 WAR (wow), and he’d be a shoo-in. 

As it is, he isn’t even the best Kingman candidate in the American League, nor is he the best candidate (spoiler alert) on his own team…

Ty Wigginton, Baltimore Orioles 

There are certain things that baseball fans never understand, certain pieces of conventional wisdom that all baseball insiders follow but baseball outsiders can’t comprehend. 

For me, this is that thing: why is it that from time to time a team with no hope of making the playoffs will have a veteran player drastically over-achieve their career performance during the first half of the season and not immediately sell high on that player. 

This year we saw that with two players: when Carlos Silva came out of the gate lights out for the Chicago Cubs, winning his first eight games, the Cubs sat idly by patting themselves on the back for having found such a diamond in the rough. 

Even when it became clear that the Cubs season was going to be a train-wreck (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say mid-May even though, for me, it was mid-March) and they were going to be dealing some players, they held on to Carlos Silva like he was found money. 

Had it been me, as soon as he got to 5-0 and I would have been on the horn with every general manager in baseball offering to give him up to any team willing to take his salary off my hands. When a guy like Silva (career WHIP: 1.397) comes out and looks like the next Derek Lowe for two months, you Sell Sell Sell!!! 

The other player we saw that with in 2010 was Ty Wigginton. Hey look, what do I know? There is a chance that when the 30 year old Wigginton came out and hit .288 with a .934 OPS over the first two months of the season with 13 home runs, 32 RBI, and 23 runs scored on the worst offensive team in baseball, it meant that he had finally figured things out. 

Had it been me, though, again I would have been on the horn with every team in baseball that needed a corner infielder for the fourth, fifth, or sixth spot in their lineup. If you think the Orioles couldn’t have gotten a tasty Double-A pitching prospect, or even a middle infield defensive specialist, in return for the hot hitting Wigginton from a desperate playoff-cusp team, you’re crazy. 

And what, possibly, were the Orioles holding him for? Was the 2011 season going to be built around this guy? 

As it was, the Orioles held on to Wigginton, and enjoyed the business end of a four month stretch from June 1st to the end of the season in which he hit .231 with a .640 OPS and nine home runs the rest of the way. Well play, Mr. Angelos, well played. 

Not only did the Orioles not get anything in return for two months of Wigginton hotness, they also found themselves in possession of a Kingman candidate. 

Aramis Ramirez, Chicago Cubs 

The 2010 National League Dave Kingman Award, and 2010 Major League Baseball Kingman Finalist, must be Aramis Ramirez of the Chicago Cubs. 

Not only did this guy suck on both sides of the ball, but he also $16.75 million to do it. 

As they say in melodramatic action movies when either an infectious disease or an object from space threatens to kill everyone on the planet: 

My. God. 

That Aramis Ramirez didn’t suffer one of the worst full seasons of all time is a testament to his second half. We here at BaseballEvolution.com have an Alex Gonzalez of the Marlins Award for the player who tails off the most after a great first half; in 2010, Ramirez was the bizarro Alex Gonzalez. 

On July 8 of this season, just days before the All Star Break, Ramirez had a .195 batting average with a .254 OBP and a .350 slugging percentage. To that point, through 59 games, A-Ram had nine home runs, 30 RBI, 18 walks and 52 strikeouts. 

Aramis was downright respectable in the second half, though, hitting 16 home runs, 13 doubles, and a triple while batting .285 with an .880 OPS the rest of the way. 

Imagine: despite that performance, he was still our Dave Kingman Award Finalist for the National League. The reason why is simple enough: on the season as a whole, Ramirez finished with the third fewest adjusted batting runs of any player with over 20 home runs in baseball, and fewest in the National League, with -7.93. He enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) a negative WAR at -0.7, and his .294 on-base percentage was still terrible. 

Indeed, it was a year of which Dave Kingman would have been proud. 

Aaron Hill, Toronto Blue Jays 

Ah, Aaron Hill. I hate to dog an LSU Tiger like this, but Aaron Hill’s 2010 season was a historic one from a “doing the least with the most perspective.” 

Hill’s conventional stats are bad enough on their own to justify giving him the 2010 Kingman Award. Combined with his 26 home runs, Hill had 70 runs, 68 RBI, 22 doubles, 108 hits, and 41 walks. His batting average was a ridiculous .205, and his on-base percentage followed suit at .271. His OPS was a terrible .665, good for a 79 OPS+. 

His more advanced stats were also terrible: 0.8 WAR, -17.5 adjusted batting runs, and 56 runs created. 

But when you go deeper, you realize how terrible these numbers truly are for two reasons. 

First, in 2010 Hill became the sixth player ever to hit more than 25 home runs and have less than -15 batting runs (Hill went 26/-17.5). The other five were Tony Armas (1983), Vinny Castilla (1999), Tony Batista (2003 and 2004), and Jeff Francoeur (2006). 

Important, Armas and Bastista (twice) both won the Kingman Award in their respective years, while Francoeur was the runner-up, to Pedro Feliz, in the controversial 2006 voting. 

But wait… there’s more. 

In 2010, Aaron Hill also became the second player in the history of baseball to hit more than 25 home runs and have an OPS+ under 80, joining only Batista in 2003 (who somehow managed to go 26/73 in 670 plate appearances). 

And there it is: the essence of what it means to win the Dave Kingman Award. A rare combination of home run power and overall valuelessness. At least by this standard, Aaron Hill had the second best Kingman-clone season of all time. 

And for this reason, Aaron Hill is the 2010 Major League Baseball Dave Kingman Award Winner.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, the 2010 Major League Baseball champions.

By wiping out the Texas Rangers, the Giants won their sixth World Series and first since moving to San Francisco in 1958.

It has been a long time coming for the San Francisco Giants. Just how long has it been?

Let’s have a look.

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Few things have been more certain that Cliff Lee’s dominance in the playoffs over the last two seasons.

Sure, there’s the sunrise and, nearly as certain, sunset.

There’s Glenn Beck angering liberals and Jon Stewart offending conservatives. 

And there’s MTV killing the brain cells of children with Jersey Shore.

But other than those things, there are few things you could set your clock by with more certainty than Cliff Lee shutting down opponents in October. Going into last night’s Game 1 of the World Series, Lee had allowed only two postseason earned runs while striking out 35 and walking one.

Wow.

Nevertheless, Lee got shellacked last night. Courtesy of baseballreference.com blogger “Andy”, we now know that Lee’s performance is tied for the 13th-worst Game Score in World Series Game 1 history.

Wow again.

Never fear, though, Cliff Lee fans. The company he’s keeping on this list is actually pretty impressive. Here is a look at the top seven pitchers to have sucked as bad as Cliff Lee did in Game 1 of a World Series.

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Mark my words: Bengie Molina is going to get a World Series ring.

Impressed with the boldness of my prediction?  Don’t be: Bengie Molina is currently the catcher for the Texas Rangers, but he began the season as the catcher for the San Francisco Giants. Thus, by virtue of time served, he’ll get a World Series ring no matter which team wins.

Rest assured, though, he’d probably rather win the World Series and get the ring.

In anticipation of the Fall Classic match-up between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers, which begins tomorrow, here are some other World Series Fun Facts.

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