When fans discuss baseball around America, offense is usually the first thing we speak of. “Chicks Dig the Longball” was a hot catchphrase in baseball years ago, but the reality is EVERYONE does. But there is another catchphrase that rings true in every sport; “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.”
But what quantifies “great” defense? Today’s game has evolved beyond only using simple statistics like fielding percentage to judge a player. Now analytics helps us look deeper into the stats, thus giving us a better assessment of what a player’s true defensive value is.
There are plenty of bros who flash the leather on an elite level, but the three below have the potential to add more hardware to their trophy cases.
Mookie Betts
Mookie is without question a Top 5 player in today’s game, and his manager Dave Roberts already gave us the breakdown earlier this season as to why. “He’s scoring runs at a crazy clip. He’s on base. He’s slugging at a ridiculous clip, too. And he’s playing Gold Glove defense, too,” the Dodgers’ manager told reporters.
Let’s focus on that last attribute. Last year, Betts seemed to fall off a bit defensively as he played through multiple injuries. The injury bug hasn’t visited Mookie as much this season, and as a result his defensive metrics are among the best in baseball. According to baseball-reference Betts is second in putouts and fielding percentage, and fifth in assists among right fielders. And let’s not forget that cannon of an arm he has, which has led to four double plays from right.
Cedric Mullins
The Baltimore Orioles are a fun bunch to watch, especially with Cedric “CM Storm” Mullins flying around in Centerfield. Mullins has a perfect fielding percentage so far this season and has turned three double plays from center. That mark is the best in baseball among all center fielders right now, and he is second in assists.
Mullins has worked hard to improve his defense, especially his arm strength, and the results have been everything he and the Orioles had hoped. Fresh off a season that saw him join the exclusive 30/30 season, it will be interesting to see where Mullins finishes in the Gold Glove conversation.
Marcus Semien
Marcus Semien was a good defensive shortstop before making the switch to second base in order to secure his first big payday. Not only did Semien play well enough to get his paper, but he also secured his first Gold Glove. Now a member of the Texas Rangers, Marcus looks poised to repeat as a Gold Glover. He currently ranks first in putouts amongst second basemen while ranking second overall in assists among his position.
He is primarily a second baseman, but Semien has been able to slide over to short whenever his ball club needs it. He has made six errors at second this season (one error came at shortstop), two less than he made last year.
Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes has had an impressive season and is establishing himself as an elite player. The 25-year-old is already a top player on his team, and he’s shown that he can make an impact at the plate and in the field.
What’s Poppin’ takes it to Pittsburgh to feature an electrifying bro.
KeBryan Hayes went off yesterday, going 3 for 5 against the Dodgers and adding one of five runs in a solid Pirates win.
This brother can certainly flash some leather out there and he makes it look easy too. Through 82 games at third base, Hayes has a .970 fielding percentage with eight errors. Despite having eight errors, Hayes leads all infielders in one category.
According to the SABR defensive index, our MLBbro was at 7.7 when the last figures were released on June 19. That’s the highest among any player in the league.
For those who may not know, the SABR defensive index is a metric that is widely used to determine Gold and Platinum Glove winners.
They look at two different types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts.
Hayes is in the driver seat right now and has a chance to take home his first Gold Glove Award. Now there is a lot of season left, but for Hayes to be at the top of that list, speaks volumes to the type of player he is on the field.
Pirates manager Derek Shelton knows that Hayes is a special talent at third base.
“There are sometimes situations where guys are gonna get errors because they’re really good,” he said in an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That sounds screwed up, but it’s because you get to more balls, whereas guys who don’t move as well might not make as many errors just because they don’t have as many chances.
“The other thing we see with Key is he makes a lot of really, really tough plays look easy, stuff you take for granted.”
For Hayes, he just wants to go out there and make the plays that he can and put his team in positions to win games.
“It’s kind of like batting average,” he said. “You can’t look at that every week. It’ll beat you up if you do. Just try to go out there and play to the best of my abilities. At the end of the year, that’s when I look at that stuff.”
Ke'Bryan Hayes. Good defense. Send tweet.
Seiya Suzuki had a sprint speed of 29.3 ft/s (30.0 ft/s is elite). Wasn't an easy play here at all. pic.twitter.com/dZubSUjCYa
— Justice delos Santos (@justdelossantos) April 22, 2022
With technology becoming so advanced, there are many ways to track different metrics in all of sports, allowing people to break down players even more.
“I think that’s why the advanced metrics are so important because we can see that he makes a lot of plays other people don’t make,” Shelton said. “A couple of his errors have been on balls that just took bad hops. He got caught in between. I think that’s why being able to gauge defense moving forward is so important.”
It will be interesting to see how things play out with Hayes and if he will still be in the running to win a Gold Glove once September is through. With how he’s been playing so far this season, the brother definitely deserves it.
As the 2021 season nears to a close, that means it’s time for end of season awards.
This is when we found out who the best of the best were in the field. Those webmasters who separated themselves from the rest.
It seems as if two MLBbros were left off the finalists list for the Gold Glove Award.
The National League finalists were: Zach Davies, Max Fried, and Zack Wheeler. Not to throw salt on those pitchers at all, but two of our Bros were deserving of that award.
Marcus Stroman and Taijuan Walker made web gems on the mound all season long in addition to carrying the New York Mets pitching staff as workhorses.
When the finalists were announced, there were a lot of people on social media who were surprised that neither Stroman or Walker were on that list.
On the mound they competed and did their best to keep their team in ball games, whether that was striking batters out or making plays on the mound.
Marcus Stroman can make plays on the mound
I mean, it doesn’t get much better than this.
In @STR0’s outing last night, he threw a season high 114 pitches, and held the Giants to a .170 xBA, .336 xSLG, .232 xOBP, .249 xwOBA, and struck out 9 with 16 swing and misses.
For those who aren’t familiar with the term PFP (Pitching fielding position), just watch Stroman on the mound.
He is very quick off the hill and any ball hit anywhere near the mound, you better believe that Stroman will get to it.
Stroman is no stranger to winning Gold Gloves. When he was playing with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2017 he won his first and only Gold Glove.
He finished the 2021 season with a .961 fielding percentage and made only two errors in 51 chances. Stroman also had 29 assists and 20 putouts.
Stroman had a higher fielding percentage than Zach Wheeler (.958), let’s not forget that.
Our MLBbro is arguably the best fielding pitcher in all of baseball. The former high school shortstop is certainly the most athletic.
Taijuan Walker also deserved to be a finalist for the Gold Glove Award.
In his first season with the Mets, Walker certainly made a name for himself, earning his first All-Star nod as an important piece in the Mets’ rotation.
Taijuan Walker recorded 7 defensive runs saved (DRS) in 2021.
This brother was at the top of the list when it came to Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) at seven. Only Dallas Keuchel was ahead of him in that category with 12.
Like his teammate Stroman, Walker finished the season with a .961 fielding percentage and made two errors in 51 chances.
He had a career-high in putouts (16) and assists (33), but apparently his stats weren’t enough to be named a finalist either.
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