One day after handing out Gold Glove awards to 18 of the best defensive players the sport has to offer, Major League Baseball took time to honor the best of the best with the Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Unlike the Gold Glove awards, which MLB coaches and managers vote on, the Defensive Player of the Year Award has a specific criterion: Winners come from a formula that incorporates different metrics to determine the best glove magicians MLB had to offer in 2015.
With that criterion in mind, here is the list of winners at each position and the team winner:
Interestingly, only five of the nine names are duplicates from the Gold Glove awards. Atlanta Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who was also named the overall winner for Defensive Player of the Year, is one of the newbies. New York Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom, San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Toronto Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar were the other non-Gold Glovers to capture a trophy.
Of course, it’s not a surprise that Simmons captured this honor. It was more stunning that he was beat out by San Francisco’s Brandon Crawford, who is a fantastic defensive shortstop in his own right, for the Gold Glove.
Upon seeing that he was named Defensive Player of the Year at shortstop, Simmons took to Twitter to express his excitement in emoji form:
It can be easy to take Simmons’ defensive wizardry for granted, especially now that he is in his fourth season, but whether it is through the eye test or metrics, the 26-year-old remains in a class all by himself at shortstop thanks to gems like this, per MLB.com:
As great as Simmons is at shortstop, it’s hard to argue with the entirety of the winners’ list. The only real gripe to be had is Pillar beating the Tampa Bay Rays’ Kevin Kiermaier in center field.
Just using the criterion, Kiermaier was credited with an MLB-leading 42 defensive runs saved and five defensive wins above replacement.
Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated summed up Kiermaier’s credentials nicely on Twitter when a fan questioned how Pillar could lose the Gold Glove:
Pillar’s numbers certainly don’t make him an egregious choice—just an odd one when there was another defender at the same position who graded out as superior.
The most difficult call on paper had to be at third base between the Colorado Rockies’ Nolan Arenado, who won the award, and the Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado.
ESPN’s Mark Simon did post some numbers working in Arenado’s favor following Tuesday’s Gold Glove announcement:
Machado did finish slightly behind Arenado in defensive runs saved with 14 and defensive WAR with 1.9. Both players are elite defenders who would have made worthy winners, so there’s no argument against Arenado.
On the team side, the Arizona Diamondbacks rated as the best in baseball this season with 71 defensive runs saved and finished third in UZR (23.8). Six players with at least 500 defensive innings had positive defensive runs saved totals, including four with at least 13 runs saved.
Defensive metrics in Major League Baseball are still a work-in-progress, as any formula should be, but there’s no denying the power of glove work in the sport. Finding offense has become harder in MLB, so teams need to find ways to turn balls in play into outs.
The nine players who took home Defensive Player of the Year honors would certainly pack an offensive punch with hitters like Posey and Paul Goldschmidt, but it would take a perfectly placed ball from the opposition to even think of getting a hit.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.
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