Molina robbed in Gold Glove voting
November 6th, 2007Bernie Miklasz writes about the injustice of Yadier Molina not winning the Gold Glove.
This is one of the dumbest results in the history of Gold Glove voting, and it makes you wonder if managers and coaches actually pay attention to the games they’re involved in.
“I was floored,” said Joe Sheehan of The Baseball Prospectus, who was a guest Tuesday on our 1380-AM radio show. “We can nitpick some of the other Gold Glove choices, but this one isn’t even a debate. Yadier Molina is the best defensive catcher in Major League Baseball.”
Did I read that right when they said Pujols is the best defensive 1st baseman? Not even in his own division.
Molina is definitely better than Russell Martin. The Gold Gloves have a long, proud history of giving undue weight to (a) offensive numbers and (b) the player who won the previous year’s award that it’s hard to take them seriously or be outraged over any particular result.
According to Bill James’ fielding bible, (http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbible/2007-plus-minus-leaders.asp), Pujols is not only the best fielder in his division, he’s the best in baseball.
I wish there was a better way to award Gold Gloves. Reputation and winning before keeps you winning too often. I find it hard to believe that Coco Crisp wasn’t in the top three defensive outfielders in the AL.
Granted I only see him 20+ times a year and I see Lee over 100, but I have to say that Derrek Lee is a better defensive player.
Yadier Molina was robbed. Albert Pujols was robbed, also, but at least D. Lee is a comparable first baseman. (I still think Albert’s better.)
The other surprising result is David Wright - great young player, great bat, already a star, but not a gold glove in the field. Honestly thought Chipper was deserving this year. I’ve seen others list Adkins of the Rockies with Chipper on the list of best 3b gloves.
I’ve actually always kinda heard (and seen) Atkins to not be the most exceptional fielder, so whatever lists are including him on the gold glove suggestions, I wouldn’t use them as credible guides.
I would, however, speaking of Rockies, have voted Troy Tulowitski as the Gold Glover at short. He has great range and a cannon for an arm.
In Bill James’ rankings (linked to in a previous post), he has Atkins at the 2nd worst 3b, Tulo as the top SS.
From the AJC:
“Wright had the fifth-most errors (21) among NL third baseman, and his .954 fielding percentage was fifth-lowest among NL third baseman, far behind the top three of San Francisco’s Pedro Feliz (.973), Chicago’s Aramis Ramirez (.972) and Chipper (.971), who had nine errors in 126 games at third base.”
Man, talk about east coast (whiny and crying) bias. Russell Martin made some spectacular plays all season. many of you didn’t see it cause you were asleep when HIS highlights came on, and by next morning was “old news.”
Stop crying!
Martin is an awesome hitting catcher, but on defense, Martin has nothing on Molina. He is the best player behind the plate in both leagues. Making a few good plays doesn’t make you a gold glover; it’s about making them all the time. Molina is a weapon keeping speedy teams in check behind the plate. Teams have to change the strategy when they play St. Louis, just because of Molina. Yepiz, how about you spend some time watching some baseball. Also, when did St. Louis move to the east coast? One more thing, I love watching west coast baseball before I go to sleep, so don’t act like we have never seen him play before.
If you’re on the east coast and up awake during west coast games…then you either:
1. Don’t have a job
2. Isn’t married and has too much time for any person and that is just depressing.
And this whole “teams adjust to Molina” is…anyhow, as I recall, didn’t Russell Martin steal off Molina when they faced off? Hmmm….defense indeed.
BTW,
There is only a .3 difference in fielding percentage (Russell .988) vs. (Molina .991). Molina had more passed balls which technically are the “dumbest errors” a catcher can make. Also, you east coast bias guys fail to realize that the defensive stats that Martin put up were also done by playing nearly 40 more games than Molina. Maybe the fact that he played all the time and was still able to get runners out and play great defense had much weight in his winning.
First of all, I live in Midwest and I am a college student. This means I have tons of time to watch everything, including the Dodgers. In the game that Martin stole the base, Kip Wells was pitching, a slow delivery guy. Staying with the pitching, I guess that the terrible pitching that St. Louis has doesn’t have anything to do with the past balls. You can say that those count as wild pitches, but you still haft to think about who he’s catching.
Adam Wainwright: Crazy 12 to 6 curve that they like to bounce in the dirt.
Anthony Reyes: Terrible control
Braden Looper: Wild around the 6th inning
Brad Thompson: I don’t want to go there.
And so on,
Martin
SEASON
TEAM
POS
G
GS
INN
TC
PO
A
E
DP
PB
SB
CS
RF
FPCT
2007 Los Angeles Dodgers
C 145 143 1254.0 1164 1065 85 14 11 5 82 41 8.25 .988
Molina
SEASON
TEAM
POS
G
GS
INN
TC
PO
A
E
DP
PB
SB
CS
RF
FPCT
2007 St. Louis Cardinals
C 107 101 861.1 651 582 63 6 8 7 23 27 6.74 .991
It looks like they were running wild on Martin. If you want to say anything about the caught stealing amount for Martin vs. Molina, remember no one runs on Molina because they know he’s got a hose.