On November 8, I received my 2015 edition of The Bill James Handbook. I wrote a lot about the Handbook last winter, and I will again this year. It's a fun book. I'll find myself going through it, looking at the pages, all the way until the 2016 edition's delivered next November. It contains career records for every player who appeared in a major league game in 2014 as well as all sorts of features on pitching, managing, fielding, hitting, and baserunning. Want to see how much Phillies starter Cole Hamel's fastball slowed down last year? (It didn't; he's been around 90-91 mph each of the past eight years.) Wondered who got thrown out trying to take an extra base most frequently? (The Dodgers' Yasiel Puig, which isn't a surprise, and the Brewers' Carlos Gomez, which sort of is; both with nine.) Which AL manager called the most sacrifice bunts? (Trick question; the Royals' Ned Yost has a reputation for being bunt-happy, but he trailed Cleveland's Terry Francona, Tampa's Joe Maddon, Baltimore's Buck Showalter, Toronto's John Gibbons, and Seattle's Lloyd McClendon.) You can order it here or at your preferred book retailer. I really like it.
The first thing I do every year when I get the Bill James Handbook is check out the Fielding Bible Awards. These are fielding awards voted by a panel of twelve baseball experts. You've heard of several of them, probably: Bill James, ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, MLB Network host Brian Kenney, sportswriter Peter Gammons. The voters receive data from John Dewan's Baseball Info Solutions, which compiles and distributes baseball statistics to teams and consumers, to help them make their decisions. The two key differences between the Fielding Bible Awards and the Gold Glove Awards is that the former are voted by baseball experts who use statistics, while the latter are voted by managers and coaches. I like to compare how the more empirical vote does compared to the more intuitive one. The stats vs. scouts storyline is a false dichotomy, and the Gold Glove voting includes a statistical component, but I always look to see how the Gold Glove winners do in the Fielding Bible voting to get a read on how the much the two views of the game are diverging.
There is one Fielding Bible Award per position, while the Gold Gloves are awarded to a player in each league. Here's the rundown:
FIRST BASE: Adrian Gonzalez of the Dodgers won the Fielding Bible Award. The Gold Gloves went to Gonzalez in the NL and Kansas City's Eric Hosmer in the AL. Hosmer finished in a three-way tie for twelfth in the Fielding Bible vote. He was tied for sixth in the American League, which was led by the Angels' Albert Pujols, so there was a pretty big disagreement there.
SECOND BASE: Boston's Dustin Pedroia won the Fielding Bible Award and the Gold Glove, with the NL Gold Glove going to the Rockies' D.J. LeMahieu. LeMahieu was the top National League vote-getter in the Fielding Bible balloting, so there's no disagreement here.
THIRD BASE: Oakland's Josh Donaldson won the Fielding Bible Award, edging out Colorado's Nolan Arenado, who was the top National League vote-getter for the second straight time. The Gold Gloves went to Arenado and Seattle's Kyle Seager. Seager was ninth in the Fielding Bible voting, behind Donaldson, Chase Headley (who split his season between the Padres and Yankees), Texas' Adrian Beltre, and Baltimore's Manny Machado among American Leaguers.
SHORTSTOP: Brave sensation Andrelton Simmons was a unanimous Fielding Bible Award winner for the second year in a row, and he took the Gold Glove too. Baltimore's J.J. Hardy won the AL Gold Glove and was the top American League shortstop in the Fielding Bible voting. No controversy.
LEFT FIELD: The Royals' Alex Gordon was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner, besting the Marlins' Christian Yelich. They won the Gold Gloves too. No disagreement.
CENTER FIELD: Juan Lagares of the Mets got all but one first-place vote to win the Fielding Bible Award. He won a Gold Glove, along with the Orioles' Adam Jones. Jones is probably the one player for whom the analysts and the managers have the widest disagreement. He has a strong arm and he can go over the fence to rob a homer, but he's well below average at getting to balls. He finished behind six American League center fielders, led by Boston's Jackie Bradley, in the Fielding Bible vote, en route to a 13th place finish overall. Big continuing dispute here.
RIGHT FIELD: The Braves' Jayson Heyward was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner and he took the National League Gold Glove too. He's now a Cardinal. In the American League, there was another Oriole-related difference, as Tampa Bay's Kevin Kiermaier was first, followed by Oakland's Josh Reddick and Boston's Daniel Nava, ahead of Baltimore's Gold Glove winner, Nick Markakis.
CATCHER: Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers barely edged out the Pirates' (now Blue Jays') Russell Martin, who in turn was just a bit ahead of the Cardinals' Yadier Molina in the Fielding Bible vote. Molina won the Gold Glove, as did the Royals' Salvador Perez, who was the top-rated AL catcher per Fielding Bible. Close enough.
PITCHER: I've always been skeptical of fielding awards for pitchers because the sample sizes are so small. The Fielding Bible Award went to Houston's Dallas Keuchel, who also won the Gold Glove. The NL Gold Glove went to the Dodgers' Zach Greinke, who was third, behind the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw and the Marlins' Henderson Alvarez in the Fielding Bible vote.
So that wasn't all that controversial, was it? There was a big disagreement between the Fielding Bible votes and the Gold Glove voters for the AL center field and first base awards, and a smaller disagreement over third base and right field in the American League. But that's pretty much it. Every Fielding Bible award winner got a Gold Glove other than Lucroy and Donaldson.
It wasn't always this way. What this is saying is that the empirical view and the intuitive view are getting closer together. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's influencing whom.
This continues a series of looks at each team over the past month.
After finishing last in their division in 2012, 26 games behind the first place Yankees, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2013. It that makes them a Cinderella team, the clock struck midnight this year, as they're in last place again. Their 59-67 record ties them with the Twins for third-worst in the American League.
How Are They Doing Lately? On July 31, the Red Sox traded their ace starting pitcher, Jon Lester, and outfielder Jonny Gomes to the A's for left fielder Yoenis Cespedes. They also traded away No. 2 starter John Lackey. With Lester a free agent after the season, this move erased any question whether the Red Sox were throwing in the towel on 2014. Thus far in August, their 11-16 record is fifth-worst in the league (just ahead of the A's at 12-16, coincidentally). They've gotten there by way of a 4.29 ERA, fourth worst in the league, due largely to a terrible 5.38 ERA by their starters, second-worst. On offense, the team's batting .230 over the past 30 days, second worst in the league, with a second-worst .299 on base percentage and league-worst .336 slugging percentage.
What's Going RIght? The bullpen's been pretty good. Red Sox relievers have made 94 appearances over the past 30 days, partly due to the struggles of the starters, but they've compiled a solid 2.57 ERA, fourth best in the league. They've probably been a little lucky, as both their .264 batting average on balls in play and 7.6% of fly balls leaving the park are far enough below league averages that they're unlikely to be sustained. Further, they've induced swings on only 29% of pitches outside the strike zone, third fewest in the league, violating the On The Field of Play mantra that it's good to throw strikes, but it's better to get strikes. So we could see some backsliding, particularly if the starters keep going just 5.70 innings per start, fourth-fewest in the league over the past month.
On offense, it's pretty hard to find bright spots over the past 30 days, but the Red Sox have had solid defense this year, with both traditional fielding metrics and advanced ones placing the team near the top of the pack in the American League. They've stolen 16 bases and been caught just once so far in August. Granted, that's not a lot of steals, but it's the highest success rate in the league. I'm reaching here.
What's Going Wrong? Oh, everything else. As noted above, the relievers have been good but probably lucky. The starters have been just bad: Lowest strikeout rate and highest walk rate in the league over the past month, inability to throw strikes (48% of pitches in the strike zone, third-fewest in the league) or get strikes (swings on 25% of pitches outside the strike zone, second-fewest). Only two starters with over 20 innings pitched (Joe Kelly and Rubby de la Rosa) have an ERA below 5.50, and both of them have walked way too many batters (5.8 per nine innings for Kelly, 4.8 for de la Rosa).
As noted above, the team's compiled the worst- or second-worst batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage in the American League over the past 30 days. Has that been partly due to bad luck? Not really: the .282 team batting average on balls in play trails the league average of .292, and that's not enough of a gap to say that the balls just haven't been falling in on a regular basis. They've struck out too much (22% of plate appearances, third-most in the league) and while they're walking a lot (8.4% of plate appearances, second most) they lack the power (19 homers, tied for third-fewest) to drive those walked runners home.
Who's Hot? DH David Ortiz has a .342/.440/.603 slash line in August so far, ranking third in the league in batting and on base percentage and second in slugging. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia is having a subpar year for him but has been pretty good of late (.297/.333/.414).
The Red Sox's primary setup men are middle relievers Burke Badenhop, Tom Layne, Edward Mujica and Junichi Tazawa. Over the past 30 days, they've pitched in 48 innings, compiling a 1.50 ERA and 1.13 WHIP (1.04 excluding intentional walks). They've given up only two homers, both by Tazawa. Another middle reliever, Alex Wilson has a 1.17 ERA and has allowed only ten baserunners in 15.1 innings.
Who's Not? Ortiz has been hot, and three other hitters--Pedroia, Cespedes, and outfielder Daniel Nava--have been OK. Everybody else has been bad. Catcher Christian Vazquez is batting .197 over the past 30 days, with just a .212 slugging percentage, as his production has consisted of 12 singles and a double. First baseman Mike Napoli's hitting .184. Third baseman Will Middlebrooks is batting .200 and has supplemented that batting average with little plate discipline (just four walks) and little power (five doubles, no other extra base hits). Outfielder Brock Holt has supplied no power, either (.289 slugging percentage). And rookie shortstop Xander Bogaerts has seemed lost at the plate, batting .101 with a .130 slugging percentage, a far cry from the remarkably poised 21-year-old who batted .296 with a .412 on base percentage and .481 slugging percentage in last year's postseason.
The most notably bad Red Sox starters of late are Allen Webster (7.28 ERA, more walks than strikeouts), Brandon Workman (7.47 ERA over three starts) and Clay Bucholz (5.50 ERA). Workman's batting average allowed on balls in play is .408, a ridiculously high number that suggests an element of bad luck.
The notable exception from the list of successful Red Sox relievers above is closer Koji Uehara, who's compiled a 5.56 ERA over the past 30 days, with 16 hits allowed in 11.1 innings en route to two blown saves. He still has a 2.25 ERA on the year, but that compares to last year's otherworldly 1.09 and raises concerns that at age 39, he's nearing the end of the road.
What's the Outlook? The Red Sox are playing for 2015. Probably the most important thing the team could accomplish in the remainder of the year would be to get youngsters Bogardts (age 21), Middlebrooks (age 25), and Vazquez (24) squared away for next year. This year's a last-place waste.
Today, just two days after the Series ended, I received this in the mail:
The Bill James Handbook is full of stats on the 2013 season: Career records for every player who appeared in a major league game as well as all sorts of features on pitching, managing, fielding, baserunning...it's really a fun book, and I'll pull out some excerpts over the next few weeks.
Oh, and you can order it here. You should. It's a lot of fun.
The first thing I do every year when I get the Bill James Handbook is check out the Fielding Bible Awards. These are fielding awards voted by a panel of twelve baseball experts. You've heard of several of them, probably: Bill James, ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, MLB Network host Brian Kenney, sportswriter Peter Gammons. The voters receive data from John Dewan's Baseball Info Solutions, which compiles and distributes baseball statistics to teams and consumers, to help them make their decisions. The two key differences between the Fielding Bible Awards and the Gold Glove Awards is that the former are voted by baseball experts who use statistics, while the latter are voted by managers and coaches. I like to compare how the more empirical vote does compared to the more intuitive one. The stats vs. scouts storyline is a false dichotomy, and the Gold Gloves include a statistical component, but I always like to see how the Gold Glove winners do in the Fielding Bible voting to get a read on how the much the two views of the game are diverging.
There is one Fielding Bible Award per position, while the Gold Gloves are awarded to a player in each league. Here's the rundown:
FIRST BASE: Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks won the Fielding Bible Award. The Gold Gloves went to Goldschmidt in the NL and Kansas City's Eric Hosmer in the AL. Hosmer finished seventh in the Fielding Bible vote, but was second in the AL to Mike Napoli (!) of the Red Sox, so we'll say the two awards agreed.
SECOND BASE: Boston's Dustin Pedroia won the Fielding Bible Award, getting 11 of 12 first place votes. He also got the AL Gold Glove. The Reds' Brandon Phillips took it in the NL. Phillips was fifth overall and third in the NL in the Fielding Bible vote, behind the Cubs' Darwin Barney and the Dodgers' Mark Ellis. It wasn't all that close between the Barney (7 seconds, 3 thirds, a fourth and fifth) and Phillips (one first, one third, everything else fourth or lower, and not named on Gammons' ballot). Let's call this one a disagreement along the lines of the typical complaint about Gold Gloves: the award went to the better hitter who makes some eye-popping plays but may not be as reliable overall.
THIRD BASE: No surprise that Oriole Manny Machado won the Fielding Bible Award unanimously. Rockies rookie Nolan Arenado was second. They won the Gold Gloves. No disagreement here.
SHORTSTOP: Brave sensation Andrelton Simmons was a unanimous Fielding Bible Award winner, and he took the Gold Glove too. J.J. Hardy won the AL Gold Glove, but he ranked behind the Rangers' Elvis Andrus, the Twins' Pedro Florimon, and the Royals' Alcides Escobar in his league. Hardy tied Troy Tulowitzki for homers by shortstops, and one of the complaints about the Gold Glove is that it goes to guys who hit well...I'm calling this a dispute.
LEFT FIELD: The Royals' Alex Gordon tied with the Pirates' Starling Marte and won the Fielding Bible Award on a tiebreaker. The Gold Gloves went to Gordon and the Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez. Cargo finished third in the Fielding Bible vote. We'll call this one an agreement, but barely.
CENTER FIELD: The Brewers' Carlos Gomez got all but one first-place vote to win the Fielding Bible Award. He won a Gold Glove, along with the Orioles' Adam Jones. This is the one case where there was a wide disagreement between the voters. Jones received almost no support among the Fielding Bible voters; there were ten American League centerfielders who got a higher vote. The knock on Jones has always been that he's got a cannon for an arm and he can go over the fence to rob a homer, but he just doesn't get to as many balls as he should. Big dispute here.
RIGHT FIELD: The Diamondbacks' Gerardo Parra got all but one first place vote in capturing the Fielding Bible Award, and he won the Gold Glove too. Boston's Shane Victorino was second, and he was the AL Gold Glove. No disagreement.
CATCHER: Yadier Molina of the Cardinals was the Fielding Bible Award winner, edging out the Pirates' Russell Martin and the Royals' Salvador Perez in a close vote. The Gold Gloves went to Molina and Perez. Complete agreement.
PITCHER: I've always been skeptical of fielding awards for pitchers because the sample sizes are so small. Kyle Kendrick led the majors in pitchers' assists with 43. Andrelton Simmons got more assists every two weeks or so. Anyway, the Fielding Bible Award went to R.A. Dickey, who won a Gold Glove. The NL Gold Glove went to Adam Wainwright, who finished only seventh in the Fielding Bible voting. I suppose you could call this a dispute, but with pitchers, I'm disinclined.
So that wasn't all that controversial, was it? There was a big disagreement between the Fielding Bible votes and the Gold Glove voters for the AL center field award, and a smaller disagreement over AL shortstop and NL second baseman. Kind of a disagreement over NL left fielder. But that's it. Every Fielding Bible award winner got a Gold Glove.
It wasn't always this way. What this is saying is that the empirical view and the intuitive view are getting closer together. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's influencing whom.
