                            2006 Gold Glove Winners
                            -----------------------

By Tom Tippett
December 11, 2006


Welcome to our annual review of the Rawlings Gold Glove awards, which are given 
to the top fielders in each league as selected by a vote of the managers and 
coaches that is taken before the end of the regular season. 

Writing this article is a natural extension of the work we've been doing each 
winter since 1986 to develop fielding ratings for the annual Diamond Mind 
Baseball season disk.  To come up with accurate ratings, we:

- evaluate team defense using statistics such as the percentage of grounders and 
fly balls turned into outs

- look at range factors, which are assists and/or putouts per nine defensive 
innings, keeping in mind that range factors can be severely biased by the nature 
of a team's pitching staff:  the left/right mix, strikeout rates, and tendency 
to generate ground balls versus fly balls

- use play-by-play data licensed from STATS LLC, to compute adjusted range 
factors that take these potential biases into account and focus only on those 
putouts and assists that provide the best indication of fielding skill (catching 
a popup on the infield or taking a throw on a force play are examples of plays 
that generate assists and putouts without telling us much about fielding skill)

- use play-by-play data to compute the number of plays each player made above or 
below the norm for his position given the mix of balls hit his way; we call this 
our "net plays" analysis

- look at the STATS zone rating and our own zone rating to get another look at 
individual fielding performance, being careful not to be fooled by zone ratings 
that are significantly affected by error rates (our job is to come up with 
separate measures for range and error rates)

- assess the interaction between neighboring fielders, such as a third baseman 
cutting off grounders that might otherwise be handled by the shortstop, by 
examining the number of plays made by each fielder and by the team in the zones 
where the responsibility overlaps

- measure the percentage of batted balls turned into outs in home and road games 
to assess how each park influences measures of team and individual defense

- use play-by-play data to measure other skills that are specific to certain 
positions, such as the ability of middle infielders to turn double plays, the 
ability of pitchers and catchers to shut down the running game, and the ability 
of outfielders to prevent runners from taking extra bases on hits and fly balls

- cross-check individual players against our team defense measures to make sure 
they are consistent

- use the video clips on MLB.com to watch a large number of plays involving 
fielders for whom our analysis suggests a level of performance that is 
inconsistent with their reputations 

We believe very strongly that it is only through a combination of these methods 
that one can accurately evaluate defensive performance.

Do the Gold Glove voters have this information at their disposal when making 
their selections?  It's extremely doubtful.  More likely, their votes are based 
on traditional fielding statistics, reputations, and appearances.  That's not 
necessarily a bad thing.  In a meaningful number of cases each year, our 
analysis concurs with the Gold Glove selections, in part because the best 
fielders are going to look good no matter how you evaluate them. 

But there are some differences, so we'll go position by position, commenting on 
the Gold Glove winners (listed in the title for all positions other than 
outfield) and other candidates that we believe were deserving of serious 
consideration. 


Pitchers (Kenny Rogers, Greg Maddux)
------------------------------------

One important aspect of fielding performance is the ability to avoid making 
errors.  It's not the only aspect, or even the most important aspect, but it 
does matter.  In fact, this year's World Series was decided in large part 
because of a spate of errors by the Detroit hurlers.

The leaders among pitchers who fielded their position without making an error 
are Greg Maddux (66 error-free chances), Bronson Arroyo (62), Tim Hudson (47),  
Jeff Francis (42), and Kevin Millwood (42).  These numbers are a little lower 
than we've seen in recent years, as 2006 saw most of the busiest pitchers botch 
at least one chance.

If you can forgive an error in favor of a guy who makes a lot of plays, then 
your leading candidates are Jake Westbrook (1 errors in 74 chances), Zack Duke 
(1 in 61), Chien-Ming Wang (1 in 58), and Roy Halladay (1 in 57).

But this approach is simplistic, mainly because a pitcher's tendency to induce 
ground balls is a huge factor in the number of assists and putouts he gets.  
Fielding skill helps, of course, but you can pad your numbers if you can get 
batters to hit it back to you in the first place.

A group of pitchers emerges when you consider the relationship of plays made to 
opportunities.  Among the standouts in 2006 were the following pitchers who 
earned Diamond Mind's Excellent range rating:  Johan Santana, Paul Maholm, Jae 
Weong Seo, Javier Vazquez, Tom Glavine, and Kirk Saarloos.  

Kenny Rogers was my pick for the Gold Glove every year from 2002 to 2005, but 
he's not my pick for 2006.  He is still a good fielder, but we're supposed to be 
picking the BEST fielder THIS season.  Rogers continued to show very good (but 
not outstanding) range and shut down the running game (with help from catcher 
Ivan Rodriguez), but his five errors in 2006 should be enough to disqualify him.  
I'm surprised the voters didn't pick up on this given their normal tendency to 
focus on fielding percentage.

Javier Vazquez is not a ground-ball pitcher, so he doesn't generate nearly as 
many chances for himself as others who tend to get noticed more.  But he has 
long been among the leaders in our analysis of pitcher defense, having earned 
our Excellent rating three years in a row.  In 2006, he trailed only Johan 
Santana in turning batted balls into outs, and he did not commit an error all 
year.  

Santana is the other leading candidate in the AL, and based on 2006 alone, it's 
hard to choose between the two.  His range was slightly better than Vazquez, he 
handled a few more chances, was a little better holding runners, and made only 
one error.  If it was based on the last three years combined, my vote would go 
to Vazquez, but on 2006 alone, Santana's my choice.

Like Rogers, Greg Maddux is an aging ground-ball pitcher with a great reputation 
for defense.  Only more so.  Maddux is a more extreme ground-ball pitcher and 
has a record-tying 16 Gold Gloves in his trophy case.  In recent seasons, I've 
argued that Maddux has been good but not good enough to deserve the award each 
and every year.  Among others, Kirk Rueter and Tom Glavine have had one or more 
seasons that topped Maddux.  

But this time he deserved it.  Maddux led the majors in error-free chances, was 
among the leaders in our range analysis, was second to Jon Garland with 9 double 
plays.  Yes, he's very easy to run on, so if you consider steal prevention to be 
part of pitcher defense, you might want to look for other candidates.  But 
Maddux did enough to earn my vote.

Tom Glavine had another good year in the field, and youngsters Paul Maholm, Zack 
Duke, and Jae Weong Seo look like the early favorites to take over after Maddux 
retires, whenever that is.


Catchers (Ivan Rodriguez, Brad Ausmus)
--------------------------------------

It's not hard to make the case for Ivan Rodriguez.  His miscue total of 6 (two 
errors and four passed balls) was second in the league to Jason Varitek, but 
Pudge caught 230 more innings.  He led the league in caught stealing percentage 
and (along with Joe Mauer) was challenged less often than anyone else in the 
league.  It also doesn't hurt that he caught the league's best pitching staff.

Mauer served notice that his day is coming, too.  He was just a hair behind 
Rodriguez in every respect, and if his knees hold up, time is on his side.

In the NL, Brad Ausmus continues to amaze me.  Not with the bat in his hand, of 
course, as his sub-600 OPS was a serious liability for the Houston batting 
order.  Behind the plate, it was a different story.  There, Ausmus led the 
majors in fielding percentage, was charged with only one passed ball, and led 
the league in range.

The only chink in his armor was his subpar caught stealing percentage, but 
that's a little misleading.  Enemy runners succeeded almost 80% of the time, but 
they were reluctant to try in the first place.  As a result, Ausmus allowed 
successful steals a little less often than the average receiver.  

Damian Miller had a strong season, finishing just behind Ausmus in fielding 
percentage, being charged with only 3 passed balls, and throwing out a slightly 
higher percentage of runners than Ausmus.  But his range isn't nearly as good 
and he played in only 98 games.

Yadier Molina owns the league's best arm but falls short in other respects.  His 
4 errors and 7 passed balls were much higher than the other two candidates, and 
he's never been among the leaders in range.  So Ausmus gets my vote.


First basemen (Mark Teixeira, Albert Pujols)
--------------------------------------------

Doug Mientkiewicz would have been my choice if not for the back surgery that 
ended his season in late July.  Can you give the award to someone who was 
clearly the best at his position but only started 82 games?  That's the key 
question here.

For the second year in a row, Mark Teixeira was quite good, turning an above-
average number of batted balls into outs and leading the league in fielding 
percentage.  Justin Morneau was also above average in both categories.  But 
neither of these players starts as many double plays as their peers, so I view 
them as solid defenders who fall a little short of the Gold Glove standard.

But the rules say we have to pick someone, so I'll second the voters who chose 
Teixeira.  Mientkeiwicz was better, but not by a large enough margin to make up 
for a difference of 674 defensive innings.

I'm happy to say that I believe the voters got it right in the NL, too.  Albert 
Pujols was a very strong candidate in 2005 but made a few too many errors.  This 
year, he continued to post excellent range and double play numbers while cutting 
his error rate substantially.  

For the second year in a row, Sean Casey led the league in fielding percentage, 
but his range is nothing special and he started only 102 games, almost half of 
which were in the other league.  Todd Helton's .997 fielding percentage was 
ahead of Pujols but his range has declined in recent years.  Pujols, who is six 
years younger than Helton, is covering more ground these days.

 
Second basemen (Mark Grudzielanek, Orlando Hudson)
--------------------------------------------------

In 2005, the voters chose Orlando Hudson in the AL and Luis Castillo in the NL.  
Hudson switched leagues and was chosen again this year.  Castillo switched 
leagues in the other direction but failed to take home the prize.

I just took a moment to read what I wrote about this position a year ago, and it 
turned out to be an interesting forecast of this year's voting.  On the AL side, 
I endorsed Hudson's selection.  For the NL, I noted that Castillo's range had 
declined and suggested that Mark Grudzielanek and Craig Counsell were better 
candidates.  

Apart from Counsell, who wasn't eligible because he was a shortstop this year, 
the voters went with the Hudson and Grudzielanek, the two guys who I touted a 
year ago.  But that was a year ago.  We need to look at 2006 to see whether the 
voters got it right.

In the NL, Hudson had another strong season, combining very good range, a solid 
fielding percentage, and lots of playing time.  And he combined with Counsell to 
form one of the league's best double-play combos.

It would take a strong combination of attributes to top that, and I can't find 
another NL second sacker who rose to that level.  

Jose Valentin, who I've previously touted as a Gold Glove candidate at short, 
moved to the other side of the bag and posted terrific range and error numbers, 
but he played only a little more than half a season at the position.  Same with 
Jamey Carroll, who was also terrific on the double play.  Another former 
shortstop, Neifi Perez, looked great in a third of a season, some of which was 
in the AL.  Chase Utley had another strong year in the field but made too many 
errors.

By naming some other players who outperformed Hudson over a shorter stretch, I'm 
not suggesting that Hudson isn't a worthy choice.  He is.  He performed at a 
high level for an entire season, and nobody else did that.  I'm very comfortable 
with this selection for 2006.  I'm just saying that there are others who could 
challenge or surpass him in 2007 and beyond.

Oddly enough, I've been making positive comments about Grudzielanek's defense 
for several years, but in the one year when he finally gained recognition from 
the voters, I'm hesitant to say that he's the Gold Glover.  

It's not as if Grudzielanek did anything wrong.  His range was a little above 
average, he made only 4 errors in 130 starts, and he performed well on the 
double play.  None of this is new for him.  It's just that a couple of other 
guys were very good, too.

Mark Ellis led the majors with a .997 fielding percentage after making only 2 
errors in 121 starts.  His range was good but not great, his double-play numbers 
were mixed, and he didn't play a full season.  All in all, I'd say he was 
slightly better than Grudzielanek.

Aaron Hill had a very good year, too, covering a lot of ground, turning the 
double play well, and keeping his errors down.  But he only started 106 games at 
second, mainly because the Toronto shortstop situation was unsettled enough that 
they tried Hill at short for almost a third of the season.  (Hill's defensive 
performance at short did not look good.  I wouldn't hold his time at short 
against him if he'd been an average-or-better shortstop, but he wasn't.)

Placido Polanco, a long-time favorite, had another strong year in the field, 
delivering his usual combo of very good to excellent range, reliable hands, and 
strong double play ability.  I'd pick him without hesitation if not for the fact 
that he started only 107 games this year.

Grudzielanek isn't a bad choice.  Ellis would have been a slightly better one.  
Hill is someone to watch for the future.  Polanco was the best of the bunch but 
missed a third of the season.  

All things considered, my pick is Polanco despite the lack of playing time.  If 
Grudzielanek had started 150 games instead of 130, I might have considered the 
gap in playing time too great, but in a year when no AL second baseman combined 
top performance with lots of playing time, I'll go with performance.


Third basemen (Eric Chavez, Scott Rolen)
----------------------------------------

More of the same with the voters, as Eric Chavez took home his sixth straight 
Gold Glove and Rolen his seventh, though Rolen's aren't consecutive because Mike 
Lowell grabbed the honor when Rolen missed over 100 games due to injury in 2005.

I was fascinated by the AL race all year.  With Lowell now in the league, the AL 
voters would have a choice between two incumbents, and both men put on an 
awesome display of reliability, ultimately tying for the league lead in fielding 
percentage.  While Lowell made 6 errors to 5 for Chavez, Lowell's total is just 
as impressive because he played 133 more innings and handled 70 more chances 
successfully.

Furthermore, they were one-two in the majors in double plays -- Chavez with 42 
and Lowell with 39, both very impressive totals.  In fact, Chavez's total put 
him in the top twenty all time for double plays in a single season.

But Chavez did not display superior range in 2006, perhaps because he entered 
the year with a lingering problem with his throwing shoulder and battled several 
nagging injuries during the season.  

And neither did Lowell, though that's nothing new for him.  He's extremely fun 
to watch because he's so smooth and makes so many plays look so easy, and nobody 
in the majors at any position has saved as many errors as Lowell over the past 
five years.  But he has never covered as much ground as I usually like to see in 
a Gold Glover.

How do you choose between two players with average range and exceptional skills 
in all other aspects of playing the position?  Maybe you don't.  Maybe you go 
with a third option.

Brandon Inge provides a great contrast to these two.  His range and arm are 
spectacular, so he gets to a lot more balls, and he was among the league leaders 
in double plays.  But his 22 errors were second only to Alex Rodriguez in the 
AL, and perhaps that's enough to take him out of contention.

How do we balance reliability with range?  The simplistic way is to count 
successful chances.  After equalizing for playing time, Inge had 62 more assists 
than both Lowell and Chavez.  Inge also made 15 more errors.

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention to fielding analysis for the 
past decade knows that simple counts and rate stats (such as range factors) are 
subject to many sources of distortion.  So we need to take all of those things 
into account.  When we do, Inge emerges as the clear leader, so he gets my vote 
despite the errors.

The NL featured several very good candidates this year.  Rolen is on that list, 
of course, but so are Pedro Feliz, Freddy Sanchez, David Bell, Corey Koskie, and 
Morgan Ensberg.

Feliz showed excellent range but was average in errors and double plays.  
Sanchez combined very good to excellent range with the league's leading fielding 
percentage.  Bell, Koskie, and Ensberg showed very good range and average skills 
in other areas.  Rolen was very good across the board.

Although Rolen continues to impress in the field, age and injury appear to have 
eroded his ability to dominate the league the way he did earlier in his career.  
His career remains the best of this group, but I can't choose him based solely 
on the current season.  

A year ago, I wrote that "Freddy Sanchez, a former shortstop, showed enough in 
55 starts to suggest that he might contend for a Gold Glove if given a full 
season at third in the future."  He did get a full season, and he did indeed 
contend for a Gold Glove, at least in my eyes.  But Feliz had the better year, 
and he gets my vote.


Shortstops (Derek Jeter, Omar Vizquel)
--------------------------------------

What happened to all the great shortstops?  Omar Vizquel is 39 years old.  Nomar 
Garciaparra ran into a series of injuries and was inconsistent enough with his 
arm to be moved to first base.  Alex Rodriguez moved to third when he joined the 
Yankees.  Miguel Tejada has gotten a little older and a little bigger.  Derek 
Jeter has always been better known for class, leadership, clutch performance, 
and hitting than for his glove work.  And many teams have grown to expect more 
offense from the position, making it tougher for Mark Belanger types to hold 
down a regular job.

As a result, it is very hard to find a legitimate Gold Glove candidate in the AL 
this year.  We have to look at Jeter because the voters picked him.  There's 
Alex Gonzalez of the Red Sox.  Then there's ... a bunch of other guys who are 
pretty average.  (Please keep in mind that it's very high praise to say that 
someone is an average major-league shortstop.  Among the multitudes who play 
this game, only a handful reach that level.)

Jeter is one of those average guys.  His best claim to the award lies in the 
fact that he played a lot (149 starts) and was above-average in fielding 
percentage.  But there were others who played more and were more reliable, and 
his range and double-play performance were a little below average, so he really 
doesn't belong on the list of multiple winners.

Folks in Boston think Gonzalez was robbed after watching him do amazing things 
with his hands, feet and instincts.  Those skills are real, and he led the 
league in fielding percentage, but his range is not spectacular.  He'll impress 
you with deft moves around the bag, but you won't see an unusually large number 
of "where did HE come from?" range plays.  And he started only 110 games.

I wish I could skip the AL and pick two from the NL ranks, but that's not how 
the system works.  I guess it'll have to be ... Gonzalez.

It appears that the best defensive shortstops are in the NL these days.  Adam 
Everett, Craig Counsell, Clint Barmes, Khalil Greene, and Jack Wilson top that 
list.  Freddy Sanchez looked good in limited time as well.

As much as I'd like to go on about the virtues of all of these guys in order to 
build suspense, I can't really do that, because Adam Everett blew everyone away.  
Previously, I wrote about how tough it is for Mark Belanger types in today's 
game.  Everett may be the last of a dying breed.  He's a major liability at the 
plate, but he makes a ton of plays in the field.  Houston's defense turned 
grounders into outs at the highest rate in the majors, by a huge margin, and 
Everett deserves most of the credit for that.

You'll notice that I didn't list Omar Vizquel among the contenders even though 
he won the award.  That's because Vizquel led the majors in fielding percentage 
but was otherwise quite average.  At his age, it's no surprise that he's not 
covering as much ground as he did in his prime or as others are doing now.  

In almost exactly the same amount of playing time, Everett tallied 90 more 
assists than Vizquel.  All of the more sophisticated measures of playmaking 
ability confirm that Everett did a lot more to help his team win than any other 
shortstop in the game.  He's my pick, and I'll never understand how he went 
unnoticed by the voters.


Outfielders
-----------

It was a very interesting year for outfield play, with a larger than usual 
number of players performing at a high level but nobody separating themselves 
from the pack the way Andruw Jones, Mike Cameron, and Darin Erstad did when they 
were in their defensive primes.

The voters went with the status quo, for the most part, bringing back all three 
AL incumbents (Ichiro, Torii Hunter, Vernon Wells) and returning Andruw Jones in 
the NL.  Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron were the other NL picks.

Because Rawlings groups all three outfield positions into one category, the deck 
is stacked in favor of the center fielders, as it should be.  For a corner 
outfielder to be given serious consideration, he has to dominate his position to 
a degree that shows he could be a very good center fielder if he was used there.  
That's not easy to do, but it does happen from time to time.

So let's start with the corners and see if anyone rose to that level.

Carl Crawford has been one of the top left fielders in recent years, but his 
defensive numbers were down a little this time around.  Dave Roberts had very 
good raw numbers, but he got a lot of help from his home park in that regard.  
Reed Johnson may be the best defender at the position, but he's a part-time 
player, starting only 64 games and playing in only 100 at the position.  Melky 
Cabrera, who didn't play much until Hideki Matsui broke his wrist, was among the 
leaders in his 112 starts.  Matt Murton and Garret Anderson were also very good 
in left this year.  But none of these players rose to the level that would put 
them into the Gold Glove conversation.

Among right fielders, three players are worthy of consideration.  The first, 
Randy Winn, split his time among all three outfield positions, getting 69 starts 
in right, 57 in center, and 10 in left.  He showed excellent range in the 
corners and very good in center, consistent with his pattern in years past.

Early in his career, I regarded Jacque Jones as a very good to excellent center 
fielder who was pushed to the corners by Torii Hunter, and it was never clear to 
me that Hunter was a better center fielder than Jones.  In any case, Jones has 
been a top corner outfielder for years except on rare occasions when he was 
slowed by injury, and he was in the top three again this year.

It should come as no surprise to regular readers that Austin Kearns is the third 
right fielder to stand out this year.  From the beginning, we pointed to him as 
a defensive star in part-time duty, and he was one of my outfield picks last 
year despite lacking a little on the playing time front.  He split the 2006 
season between two teams, making a total of 139 starts, and continued to perform 
at the highest level.

It's not hard to find good center field candidates this year.  Mike Cameron, 
Willy Taveras, Curtis Granderson, Brian Anderson, Corey Patterson, Johnny Damon, 
Carlos Beltran, and Torii Hunter were very good.  The hard part is picking among 
them.  

In the AL, my votes go to the three "sons" -- Granderson, Anderson, and 
Patterson.  After going over all of our range metrics and reviewing the impact 
of their respective home parks, I see this trio as having been better than Damon 
and Hunter.  That's not to take anything away from Damon and Hunter.  Damon has 
always been well above average and Hunter bounced back from a serious broken 
ankle to have another good year in the field.

In the NL, it's a tougher call because there are some strong right field 
contenders.  Two center fielders, Cameron and Taveras, outplayed their peers to 
at least the same degree as the top right fielders did at that position, so it's 
clear that these two are worthy of votes.

The key questions, then, are whether the third-best center fielder, Beltran, is 
more worthy than the top right fielder and, if not, which of the right field 
candidates deserves the honor.

My answer to the first question is no.  Beltran looks good playing the position, 
and our metrics show that he is a very capable defender.  But in eight full 
seasons in the big leagues, he has never posted defensive numbers that put him 
in the top tier, and 2006 was no exception.

So my vote goes to Jacque Jones by a narrow margin over Winn, Kearns, and 
Beltran.  The Cubs led the majors in outfield defense this year, and while 
Murton and Juan Pierre did their parts, Jones was the biggest reason.

To this point, my outfielder analysis has focused on the players I view as most 
deserving, but because some of the actual Gold Glove winners weren't even 
mentioned here, I ought to take a moment to talk about them.

Vernon Wells has never risen very far above average in our range metrics, and 
I've always been a little puzzled by his popularity with the voters.  He looks 
good and has a strong arm, so maybe that's it.  But objective measures suggest 
that others are better.

Ichiro is getting up in years, and his range numbers in right have slipped a bit 
lately.  He did post some very good defensive numbers in a late-season stint in 
center field, his position in Japan, and it would be interesting to see him get 
a full season in that position.

In the NL, we've already seconded the selection of Cameron and explained that 
Beltran was a very close call, so there's no need to say more about them.  

The third NL Gold Glove was given to Andruw Jones.  Regular readers know how I 
feel about Jones.  Our defensive metrics identified him as a dominant defensive 
player in the mid-to-late 1990s, when he was in his defensive prime.  But he's 
quite a bit older and 40+ pounds heavier now, and the same analytical tools show 
that he's only a little better than an average center fielder these days.


Recap
-----

Here's how my selections compare with those of the voters:

        ------- American -------        ------- National -------
  Pos   Voters        Diamond Mind      Voters      Diamond Mind

  P     Rogers        Santana           Maddux      same
  C     Rodriguez     same              Ausmus      same
  1B    Teixeira      same              Pujols      same
  2B    Grudzielanek  Polanco           Hudson      same
  3B    Chavez        Inge              Rolen       Feliz
  SS    Jeter         Gonzalez          Vizquel     Everett
  OF    Hunter        Granderson        Cameron     same
  OF    Wells         Anderson          AJones      Taveras
  OF    Ichiro        Patterson         Beltran     JJones

This year, we agreed on 7 of the 18 selections, which is near the low end of the 
range.  From 2001 to 2005, we agreed on an average of 9 picks, with a low of 5 
and a high of 12.
