Perrotto: A Somewhat Odd Way Ke’Bryan Hayes Can Increase Gold Glove Chances (+)
There has never been a greater appreciation of defense in baseball than at the present.
A wave of metrics over the past decade or so has changed the way people inside and outside the game view the value of fielding and measure the defensive prowess of individual players.
Defensive runs saved and zone rating have become two of the top advanced statistics to evaluate players. Defensive efficiency is generally considered a much better stat to determine how well a team fields than the traditional fielding percentage statistic.
All 30 major league teams also have proprietary defensive measures.
Rawlings even uses certain sabermetric elements in determining the winners of Major League Baseball’s Gold Glove awards, which are presented annually to the best defensive player at each position in both leagues.
However, there remains a human element to the Gold Glove voting. The managers and coaches for each major league team have a vote. Rawlings uses 75% of the aggregate vote and 25% of the statistical component to determine the winners.
And it is that human element that almost certainly cost Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes the opportunity to win his first Gold Glove earlier this week.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ Nolan Arenado wound up winning the National League Gold Glove for third basemen again.
It is hard to dispute that Arenado is a great fielder. He has won the NL Gold Glove each of his 10 seasons in the major leagues.
Anyone who has watched him play can attest that Arenado is a magician with the glove. His five Platinum Gloves are even further proof of his defensive prowess.
However, the advanced metrics show that Hayes was better than Arenado this season.
Hayes’ 24 defensive runs saved were the most of any player, regardless of position, in the major leagues. With 19 DRS, Arenado was second among MLB third baseman and fifth overall.
Another metric in which Hayes beat Arenado is outs above average by a total of 18-15. OAA is computed by MLB by using data from its Statcast system.
So why did Hayes lose out to Arenado? It goes back to the human element.
Errors are still part of MLB’s official statistics and continue to carry a lot of weight in many baseball people’s minds. In that category, Hayes and Arenado were even with 12 miscues apiece.
However, there is one other factor that can influence the Gold Glove voting, though it really makes no sense from either an analytical or common-sense standpoint.
The better hitter almost always wins whenever two players are close in defensive ability. In fact, it’s long been a joke in baseball circles that the best way for a player to improve his Gold Glove chances is to become better offensively.
Arenado helped lead the Cardinals to the National League Central title by hitting .293/.358/.533 with 30 home runs and 103 RBIs in 148 games. Meanwhile, Hayes batted just .244/.314/.345 with seven homers and 41 in 136 games for a 100-loss team.
So, Hayes is going to have to hit better, as incongruent as it seems, if he wants to end Arenado’s Gold Glove reign
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