That Glove Looks Good Now That We’ve Seen Your Bat
By I see that Derek Jeter’s defense has become so wretched that the Gold Glove has finally gone to a good defensive shortstop instead. However — because God forbid we go a year without a popular New York player winning a Gold Glove with his bat — David Wright somehow won the NL Gold Glove at third. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s similarly egregious; Wright is OK defensively, maybe better than his reputation. But you’d have to be crazy to think that he’s better than Feliz or Zimmerman.
Which reminds me: recently King Kaufman wrote about the all-time Gold Glove team. There are a couple people who won with their bats: Morgan was a good second baseman but although as a player he arguably had the highest peak between Mantle and Bonds he was no Mazeroski
with the glove. Griffey was a decent CF in his prime, but overrated; just among ones I’ve seen play every day Grissom and Cameron were better and Beltran not significantly worse. Parker probably wasn’t as good as Hernandez but was good, and I kind of like the idea of there being more light-hitting defensive specialists. The fun comes, however, in the runners-up:
What surprises me about this silly exercise is that current players didn’t dominate. Derek Jeter finished second in the shortstop voting, ahead of Vizquel, Concepcion, Aparicio and Belanger. That’s ridiculous, but at least he didn’t win.
Wow. Like, wow. It’s not like Jeter is a good-but-overrated defender like Griffey or Alomar. He’s a bad shortstop. This is clear if you watch his range, and also empirically unassailable. Only recent Prospectus numbers show him as even OK, and that 1)requires the implausible belief that he suddenly greatly improved in his early 30s, and 2)can’t be detected by more sophisticated methodologies, which show him as being just as bad as ever. To rank him above these guys is like claiming that Brad Ausmus is a better hitter than Manny Ramirez. Anybody who thinks that Jeter is a better defensive shortstop than Vizquel should never be permitted to watch a major league game again for their own good; they obviously don’t know what they’re watching anyway…