Guardado Returns
Dave · November 2, 2004 at 7:48 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Eddie Guarado took less than 24 hours to exercise his player option for 2005, an absolute no-brainer of a move, quite honestly. There’s just no way he was getting $4.5 million on the open market with the concerns about his health.
Also, Bret Boone and Ichiro were awarded gold gloves today, further cementing that honors place as the most ludicrous of all the hardware handed out.
Comments
50 Responses to “Guardado Returns”
And I certainly welcome that extra million and a half.
That will pick up Cabrera’s option! (not that I necessarily advocate paying Jolbert Cabrera 1.5 million)
“…further cementing that honors place as the most ludicrous of all the hardware handed out.”
I agree because of two words: Derek Jeter.
Why the heck did Jeter win a gold glove? I am boggled by this.
Ichiro’s a ridiculous defensive player? Only if you mean ridiculously good.
But yeah, Jeter and Boone…ugh.
Why the heck did Jeter win a gold glove?
This probably had something to do with it.
That’s *three* words – Derek “frickin'” Jeter
Seriously, there are so many places to talk about the election, lets leave this as a haven for baseball talk, okay?
What I find interesting, is that with Jeter this year, and Palmeiro a fews years back, is that even the “casual” fan is seeing how worthless this award has become.
I would consider us more knowledgable than casual fans. I think the casual fan looks at Jeter’s ESPN highlights and figures he must be a great defensive player. And most people don’t realize that Raffy won his gold glove playing 28 games at 1B. I still can’t believe that one happened.
Some sportswriter (Bill James ?) pointed out that one of the problems with the gold glove is that its a plurality with open eligiblity. They never announce the vote totals; in fact they don’t say who votes (or how many voters) on the award in the articles I see. Jeter could reasonably have won with 25% of the vote.
I concur with Dave that the voters don’t pay attention on this award. I’ve never done an analysis but the top criteria for winning seem to be HR, AVG, and who won last year. I still think Boone is an exceptional defensive second baseman, but he sure didn’t show it in 2004.
Serious question on Jeter (because I’m not sure how to measure defense): is he merely below average, really bad, or the worst in the league?
I’m wondering how bad Boone is. He did seem to wave at more balls this year…
Oh, and thank you, Dave. I REALLY do not want more election news right about now.
Did Ichiro deserve it this year?
hey Dave, i have another idea how the mariners can improve.. i heard that nomar is willing to change positions. If that is the case do you think he would be willing to play 3rd for the M’s? I m also interested in whats going down in colorado… is helton also available?… just some ideas. what do you think?
Sub Mariner: Two good questions. I wonder if a shift to third would appeal to Nomar. It may help him hold up better over the course of a season, and he certainly has the power to be a corner infielder. As far as Helton goes, that would certainly be an inquiry that I hope Bavasi makes…
My question is — yes Boonie had a down year, but what 2B had a better year defensively? I’m not sure I can think of one — Belliard, perhaps? So, I’m okay with giving it to him, in spite of his decline.
It’s Jeter that’s the travesty.
Nomar saying that he’s willing to change positions probably translates to: “I want to play second base for the Yankees.”
Orlando Hudson. Orlando Hudson should have been the 2B Gold Glover. Hands down.
I’ve been hyping Hudson as the winner since July. Really no one else came close to Hudson this year.
Check out Clay Davenport’s analysis:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3600
Meanwhile Tony Gwynn says that Jeter was “overdue” for a gold glove.
Dash,
That commentary by Gwynn really demonstrated that he doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. It was laughable. One more example of a ex-player who really shouldn’t be writing. Just because you can play a sport doesn’t mean that you know a lot about them, as Gwynn clearly shows.
Didn’t get a chance to watch much of Hudson. I’ll accept anyone, really, other than Soriano, of course, because I wasn’t paying much attention at 2B.
According to MGL, Boone was the best 2B in the AL this year.
Jerry, I forgot to add a comment about the ‘wisdom’ of ESPN analysts but kind of forgot.
Re: The Clay Davenport article [mentioned by Evan (# 18)]: what does the term “ratings” mean?
E.g.: BRET BOONE 11/-13 ORLANDO HUDSON 37/16
[PLEASE DON’T YELL.]
“Meanwhile Tony Gwynn says that Jeter was “overdue†for a gold glove.”–Comment by Dash
so just how many Yankee games *does* Gwynn see anyway, what with living in San Diego, and coaching all those Aztecs???
John: the first is runs saved above replacement (worst player at that position, essentially) and the second is runs saved above an average player at that position.
Boone was the best 2b. If MGL says that I believe it. However, Mark Ellis was hurt and he is a better defensive player.
I don’t know the methodology of Clay’s system but something is wrong when it states that Ichiro is not the best RF in the league. Look in the 2004 BPro annual and you will see what I am talking about.
IMO, Ichiro can be considered among the greatest RF’s of all time with Clemente and Hooper. He makes it look so easy and he makes a mistake about as often as Wile E. Coyote oufoxes Bugs Bunny.
Clay’s system looks at team defensive performances and then essentially goes down and assigns credit or blame shares to players. The advantage of this approach is that it allows you to use it across eras and so forth, because it doesn’t require data that didn’t exist earlier.
The disadvantage is that it isn’t fine enough. In rough, absolute terms, I think you can look at Clay’s fielding numbers and be confident they’re in the neighborhood — if someone’s reaally sucky, they’ll be bad. But what it doesn’t give you is the kind of specific evaluation you can try to make with play-by-play data.
Davenport admits that his defensive ratings are pretty crude. I expect he’d assert that everyone’s defensive ratings are pretty crude. Defense is just really hard to measure.
But I’ve always liked Clay’s defensive ratings – ever since I saw that he ranked Jeter as far below average as Ozzie Smith was above average.
Paul – Clay’s system seems to react strongly to a change in adjacent personel. This year Jeter scored way higher than ever before, and the only real change was the addition of A-Rod to his right. Similarly, Ichiro’s weakest year by Clay’s ratings was last season, when he had two other CFs out there with him, so he might have been crowded by Cameron (ratings-wise). We just don’t know enough about measuring defense to be able to work out why these things happen.
Clay ranked Ichiro as the best RF this year.
USS Mariner is the best!
Thanks for the explanations.
As long as it is on my mind, Derek. Can you ask the Bpro crew to include EQA for each player projection in the 2005 Annual? Or please tell me who I could email with my suggestion. Thanks.
Email customer service @ BP, my good man, the contact link is at the bottom of the main page. Maybe elsewhere too.
Did you guys see that UZR ranked Winn third this year in the AL in CF, at +10, only one back of Hunter and Aaron Rowand? That’s pretty hysterical, really. MGL mentions it in that thread on Jeter.
By the way, my post wasn’t entirely clear: MGL calculates, and publishes, UZR rankings – Ultimate Zone Rankings, which are, indeed, play-by-play, extremely granular, park- and everything-adjusted defensive stats. I trust them more than anything else. The only problem is that you need pbp data so, obviously, you can’t make any historical comparisons.
But defensive evals are so darn hard that, probably, the best method is to get a bunch of different ratings (BPro’s, Diamond-Mind’s, UZR, etc.) and average them somehow.
Er, make that Ultimate Zone Ratings…
Thanks for the MGL link, Bob. And I agree about trusting UZR (as a play-by-play based estimate) more than anything else, but not to the exclusion of other methods.
MGL made a comment in the linked post about
Bret Boone I thought really lacked the sharpness that he had in previous seasons at 2nd Base. I thought Brian Roberts on Baltimore was much more deserving.
Oops, should have deleted that last line (decided not to address further issues in this comment after all).
I’d agree with the general sentiment that we don’t have a great handle on defensive specifications; we can make general assumptions (Mike Cameron: Awesome), but when it comes to splitting hairs, we don’t have the necessary information. UZR is probably the best of the bunch, but I’m not totally sold on it either.
OT, but we are not getting Deivi Cruz!!! WOOHOO!
Jeter probably also won because people knew he had slipped defensively the past two year, and he played much better with the glove this year. And a few highlight plays will do it. For your ultimate example: Jim Edmonds over Mike Cameron. Edmonds is great at crashing into walls and making his hat fall off at just the right time. He also started getting Gold Gloves right about the time he made that big over-the-shoulder catch in Anaheim. But he can’t carry Mike Cameron’s jock defensively. Hell, he can’t even carry the receipt for Cameron’s jock!
Glad to see Izturis get recognized, though – he’s deserved it since last year. As Vin Scully says, “he’s like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.” The Dodgers DP combination truly warms your heart.
p.s. re: Guardado, does anybody think the M’s might/should make a run at Troy Percival now that he’s available? I know ex-Angels haven’t been great for this team, but the M’s will need a closer, I’m not sanguine on the young guys, and there’s a great chance Guardado will be at sub-closer level when he gets back.
I still think Percival can get it done, and even if he’s not great little, somebody might still take a gamble on him at midseason, and the term “trade bait” you can’t say about a lot of guys on this team.
Percival relies too much on his fastball lately, which doesn’t have the zip it used to (though it still has plenty), but he also had trouble locating the fastball last year, which might be fixable. He also has a breaking pitch which is quite good. I bet Price could fix his location, get him to throw more curves, and I bet the motivation of getting dumped by the Angels would motivate him to get stronger and gain a few mph on his heater. Anyone?
Adam –
No, we definitely shouldn’t pursue Troy Percival. He’ll command at least $5 mil per season and will probably want a 2-3 year deal. Expensive 35-year-old relief pitchers aren’t who the M’s should target.
Agreed. We already have one overly expensive ex-Angel right handed former closer (Shiggy) who’s starting to look their age. Two is probably two too many.
Yeah, I see your point, but you have to admit there’s a real difference between Shiggy and Percival. Percival can close (Anaheim’s pushing out the door because they want K-Rod to close; the M’s, as you may have noticed, do not have a K-Rod), plus Percival’s a strikeout pitcher who doesn’t rely as much on his defense to bail him out as Shiggy does. Anyways, it’s a pipe dream: Percival will probably get snapped up by another team for more than the M’s can afford, but if he doesn’t, and the M’s can get him fairly cheap for a shorter-term deal, why not? Percival’s definitely not washed up, and I could see him being a big help. Plus, he’ll still be dealable next season once some other closer’s arm falls off. I just think AJ Zapp is not a plan.
Hmm – that’d be interesting. The PCL strikeout king converted to closer…
I bet you likely meant JJ Putz.
I’d like to see Aaron Big Country Taylor healthy and given a shot if Everyday ends up being laid up. He’s a decent closer with good, but inconsistent, stuff. Better closer’s material than Putz’
That said – I’d be OK with Percy to shore up the ‘pen & as insurance on Eddie – at a reasonable price…
Whether Guardado’s 100% or not, Percival will not be worth the risk. He’s just too expensive and too old. Plus, check out these K/9 rates for the past 4 seasons: 11.08, 10.86, 8.76, 5.98…not so hot. There also seems to be a big misconception that it takes a flame-thrower to be an effective closer or accumulate saves, and this is simply not true. Personally, I’m a big believer of building bullpens on the cheap, so, in my opinion, spending big bucks on 35-year-old “proven closers” is just asking for trouble. Add to the fact that the M’s have much bigger holes to fill and it’s just not a good idea any way you spin it.
One idea that is beginning to appeal to me is to have Moyer in the bullpen. This is some kind of crazy Tim Wakefield as temp closer kind of thing. My, admittedly, smewhat sketchy theory is that Moyer showed last year that for small pitch counts he was as difficult to hit as anyone, but at the higher pc’s of a starter he was getting into trouble and giving up hits etc. I appreciate he is not a strike out pitcher, but surely the amount of work looking at closers have shown that no one type is any more effective than another? Or maybe as a lefty setup? Or hot dog salesman? OK, just an off the cuff thought.
Talking about the BP, this from The Stone in today’s ST:
“Longtime Mariners reliever Norm Charlton confirmed yesterday that he had contacted Price and Seattle GM Bill Bavasi to express an interest in the bullpen coaching job.”
Why not? Putting Charlton, Guardado and Madritsch together would be a welcome attitude boost.
JPWood –
Yeah, but the top of the article said: “Longtime Mariners instructor Jim Slaton, who had left the organization recently to become San Diego’s Class AAA pitching coach, was named Seattle’s bullpen coach yesterday.”