2018 MLB Awards thread

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  • #71709
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    Here are the key dates ahead. (I dislike the misnamed “finalists” announcements as they are meaningless other than to divulge the top three finishers ahead of time.)

    I haven’t seen a date for Gold Glove Awards, but they also do the finalist thing first. Last year, they announced on November 7, ahead of the major awards listed below.

    Nov. 4, 2018 Gold Glove Award winners announced
    Nov. 5, 2018 BBWAA Awards Finalists announced
    Nov. 12, 2018 Rookies of the Year announced
    Nov. 13, 2018 Managers of the Year announced
    Nov. 14, 2018 Cy Young Awards announced
    Nov. 15, 2018 MVP Awards announced

    (Update: I added the Gold Glove date above.)

    #71710
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    Countless sources create their own awards each fall, including Yahoo, who at least poll 60 key MLB people in voting for their “All-MLB Team”. Matt Carpenter made it as their utility player.

    https://sports.yahoo.com/yahoo-sports-2018-mlb-team-mookie-betts-mike-trout-lead-way-130002743.html

    #72042
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    These are minor league awards, but I will include them here. No Cardinals received a minor league Gold Glove this year. Carson Kelly was the last Card to be recognized, in 2016.

    https://www.milb.com/milb/news/rawlings-minor-league-baseball-announce-2018-gold-glove-awards/c-297380768

    #72967
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    #72968
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    #73161
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    Both were expected, but at least they were not cheated…

    #73166
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    For those curious about all of the top three finishers…

    https://sabr.org/latest/2018-rawlings-gold-glove-award-finalists-announced

    #73167
    PugsleyAddams
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Jose Martinez must not have had enough appearances at 1st base to qualify.

    Wong is the one I have switched gears on. I was pretty much anti-Wong for the past few seasons, but his last 2 months of ’18 has turned me into a believer. I think it’s all finally coming together for Kolten.

    #73169
    gscottar
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Jon Jay a finalist in RF? I didn’t see that one coming.

    #73170
    stlcard25
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Even though Wong and LeMahieu are high on the index and Baez is nowhere to be found, there’s probably a very good chance that Baez wins.

    #73174
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    stlcard25, that is the subject of the article I writing to run in the morning.

    #73207
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    #73241
    Cardinals27
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    I wonder if these defensive metrics accurately depict good defense. No doubt I have bias, but there is no way Yadi would be the 6th best NL catcher defensively. That doesn’t pass my eye test, but neither does Posey winning a gold glove. To me, he is in the middle of the pack defensively. Another thing I noticed is that Baez played 107 games at 2nd. This does not seem like enough to qualify. If this was for a batting title he surely wouldn’t have qualified. Obviously it seems like a flawed process from start to finish.

    #73268
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    No offense to you, personally, C27, but it seems far easier to condemn the current system than it would be to come up with a better one. IMO, injecting metrics into the process is better than staying with a 100% manager/coach vote. Hopefully, over time, they will continue to refine it.

    P.S. If 107 games is not enough, what about Bader? He only started 66 games in CF (and entered mid-game eight other times), and yet Twitter is ablaze over the “snub” and “highway robbery” committed against him. Cited in support of Bader, “highlights” are also precisely why Baez is a “finalist,” in my estimation. So which way do people want it?

    IMO, this is an example of why fan voting would be a bad idea (yet that is what they do for Platinum Glove).

    #73280
    Cardinals27
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Bader should have his chance in 2019 if he stays healthy. And I do think a player should have to play 125-130 games at a position to qualify. As far as defensive statistics go, it isn’t always the player who made the least errors that is the best. How does one qualify varying degrees of a great catch? The little things that don’t equate to errors mean a lot, like a pitcher failing to cover first, or not backing up the right base, or the catcher not backing up first. Defense has so many intangibles that are difficult to measure. Perhaps along with the usual put outs and assists per game, plus perhaps bonus points for both above average plays and exceptional plays divided by games played minus points for errors, even maybe degree of difficulty on particular errors, less for a very difficult play. Phew, that was a very long post for me.

    #73394
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    Another perspective on the second base comparison was offered by none other than Comcast Chicago. They view Wong as the likely Gold Glove Award winner over Baez – because the latter was not a full-time second baseman, but was more of a utility player.

    “…it would be hard to see him (Baez) take home the 2B Gold Glove Award with nearly 200 fewer innings at the position than Wong.”

    #73396
    gscottar
    Participant

    Paid - Annual

    Brian Walton

    Keymaster
    Another perspective on the second base comparison was offered by none other than Comcast Chicago. They view Wong as the likely Gold Glove Award winner over Baez – because the latter was not a full-time second baseman, but was more of a utility player.

    “…it would be hard to see him (Baez) take home the 2B Gold Glove Award with nearly 200 fewer innings at the position than Wong.”

    A utility player who is most likely going to finish second in MVP voting….. I know what you meant since he played multiple positions but the term utility player has typically meant bench player.

    #73414
    Bob Reed
    Participant

    Free

    Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs had a terrific Bader article at the end of August. Not mere dry analysis, but good prose, and video highlights. In my biased opinion it was one of the better pieces of the year for Fangraphs — but after all they sorta owed it to Bader, having roundly ignored him up until that point, despite his leading all rookies, either league, in WAR for quite awhile. Link: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/harrison-bader-rookie-of-the-year/

    What you won’t find within that outstanding article is the final defensive values for Bader and the other N.L. centerfielders. So I’ll do that now.

    The runs values below reflect an average of Fangraphs, BPro, and B-Ref numbers. I have included just the 3 Gold Glove finalists, plus Harry B.

    Bader +13.5 runs
    Inciarte +13.3
    Cain +12.3
    Hamilton +6.4

    As you can see, one of these things is not like the others, and it ain’t Bader. Harrison may or may not deserve the Gold Glove this year; there’s no clear choice. But he surely belongs in the top 3. He passes the eye test, defensive metrics test, and Statcast test with flying feet.

    In a year when Redbird rookies produced more WAR than any other N.L. franchise, Bader was the best freshman on the team. It would have been nice for him to get some recognition.

    #73423
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    The real question should be whether a rookie with 66 games played of very good defense in CF should receive the same consideration from MLB coaches and managers as established also good-defending center fielders who played a full season. The voters may not assign as much weight to metrics as others, and like it or not, their opinion represents 75 percent of the scoring.

    Also, the numbers you quoted, which appear to be DRS, are only a part of the SABR Defensive Index, which makes up the other 25 percent of the Gold Glove Award scoring. Those final results will not be disclosed until the winners are announced next week. At this point, it is not clear if Bader met their minimum games/innings played threshold, which is not made public as far as I can tell. As of August 19, their final in-season update, he did not.

    FWIW, Bader was recognized by this site as St. Louis’ top first-year player in 2018.

    TCN 2018 St. Louis Cardinals Rookie of the Year

    #73443
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    #73445
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    In the nerd version of Gold Glove Awards, Harrison Bader scored fifth in the Fielding Bible Award for center field and came in second to Javier Baez in the multi-position scoring. (Baez was sixth at second base only.)

    Yadier Molina was 18th among catchers.

    Marcell Ozuna was seventh in left field. Same for Paul DeJong at SS.

    https://fieldingbible.com/complete-votetally.asp

    #73465
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual
    #73477
    Bob Reed
    Participant

    Free

    Thanks for all the updates, Brian! Good for Kolten.

    Also, the numbers you quoted, which appear to be DRS, are only a part of the SABR Defensive Index, which makes up the other 25 percent of the Gold Glove Award scoring.

    The Bader numbers I quoted (and those for the 3 GG finalists) were an average of three publicly available defensive analyses, and so I assumed they would indeed incorporate DRS of course, but also UZR and some other defensive yardstick(s). I wanted the maximum cross section of analytic views.

    And maybe I’m picking nits, but I don’t think I would describe Bader’s 2018 CF defense as “very good.” By my lights, other than Jason Heyward’s wonderful 2015 season, Harrison’s was the best defensive season by any Cardinal outfielder in 40+ years. I came along a touch too late for Curt Flood, but I think 2018 Bader beat the best of Van Slyke and McGee and Lankford and Brian Jordan and Edmonds, et. al..

    I would characterize Bader’s CF defense in 2018 as tremendous — but you may be right, Brian, that the mere 66 games in CF was overly held against him. I think the voters have taken volume much more seriously since the Palmeiro debacle of 1999. (For you youngsters, later-to-be-disgraced-PED-drug-cheat Rafael Palmeiro played DH back in 1999, and had his best year as a hitter. But he also sprinkled in a couple dozen games at first base. Somehow he won the Gold Glove for the position, flummoxing informed observers. The yoters rightly received plenty of ridicule for that one.)

    #73491
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

    Paid - Annual

    You can choose your adjectives, but it doesn’t change the result. 😉

    If they had a Gold Glove Award for best fielding Cardinal in 2018, Bader would win. However, in the Fielding Bible scoring for CF, Bader came in fifth, behind all three of the NL Gold Glove Award “finalists” – Cain, Inciarte and Hamilton. In other words, consistent with Gold Glove.

    On the other hand, as I mentioned, Bader came in second in the analysis of multi-position players. If he plays in one spot in 2019, he should get his chance at the top, but when all is said and done, I see no clear evidence that Bader was slighted by not being a GG “finalist” in CF this year.

    #73495
    Bob Reed
    Participant

    Free

    But I don’t want to choose my adjectives. I want to choose your adjectives.

    I see now — the Fielding Bible will only give him credit for the defense played while in CF, when they are comparing him directly to Inciarte, Hamilton, and Cain. Not unreasonable. But were I a Gold Glove voter, I still think that Bader was such a surpassing talent in 2018 even in limited CF duty, that he would have certainly made my top 3.

    Here’s an indication of how much Bader did, even in just 66 CF games. At Fangraphs they show how Inside Edge classifies catch difficulty, and how many of each type was made by MLB outfielders. In the “remote” category in 2018, the catches with only a scant 1-10% likelihood, the aforementioned N.L. centerfield quartet ranked as follows:

    1) Hamilton 3
    2) Bader 2
    3) Inciarte 1
    4) Cain 0

    In the category of “unlikely” (10%-40%) it was:

    1) Cain 3
    1) Hamilton 3
    3) Bader 2
    4) Inciarte 0

    And Bader was 183-for-183 at converting the likely catches (60% or better). I look forward to watching him in Center for the next 4 or 5 years.

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