Gold Gloves Don't Fit on Cinderella's Hands

WEEI reported that the Red Sox, despite leading the league in defense, have no Gold Glovers. And ESPN confirms that with Derek Jeter getting the hardware at shortstop and Eric Chavez at third base.

Let's examine whether this became a political hack job, using the yardsticks we have, range factor, fielding percentage, win shares, and so forth.

Shortstop

Derek Jeter has the Nomaresque talent of making the easy play look sensational, while Alex Gonzalez makes the exceptional play look easy. Jeter had 4.6 Win Shares (the Bill James rating system) compared with Gonzalez 5.9. Notable in that Gonzalez played fewer games. Jeter had a fielding percentage of .975 (compared with the league average of .970), a range factor of 3.97 (league average 4.02), and participated in 81 double plays, starting 149 games. Gonzalez had a fielding percentage of .985, a range factor of 4.22, and 68 double plays, starting 110 games. So Gonzalez had a better fielding percentage, range factor, and more double plays per game. Jeter played in New York. It's kind of like nepotism, not a big deal, as long as you keep it in the family.

Third Base

Eric Chavez played for the division champion A's and had 6.2 defensive win shares. Mike Lowell had 6.6 defensive win shares. Chavez had a .987 fielding percent (league average .960), range factor of 2.88 (league average 2.54) and participated in 42 double plays. Lowell had a .987 fielding percentage, range factor of 2.98, and participated in 39 twin killings. Simply they had the same fielding percentage, Lowell more range, a slightly higher number of win shares, and the double plays were even. Chavez got the nod, because he was 'defending' his title?

So it wasn't enough that the Red Sox had a disappointing second half and an abominable stretch. They also get jobbed for individual honors by the shortstop from Gotham and a third baseman who nobody even saw play because the games came on after we were fast asleep. That, my friends, is baseball, a game so great that not even the idiots who run it can kill it.