Johnny Mac for Gold Glove
John McDonald should win this year’s Gold Glove award and this is why:
Let me preface this article first by stating that by no means is my claim that Johnny Mac should win a gold glove empirically sound, as the nature of defensive statistics is subjective. the problem with statistical analysis on defense is that it is, by and large, as subjective as official scoring. You have 30 different statistical analysts in 30 different parks, just as you have 30 different official scorers — and you can rest assured that they don’t all have equal talents of observation, and wouldn’t all agree on how to describe every ball hit in play. This is in part because the placement of their seats can be dramatically different from park to park. A statistical analyst sitting in Camden Yards, where the press box is low, is going to have a completely different read on a line drive than the analyst in the Fenway Park pressbox, where you get a bird’s eye view.
Besides that, here is why Johnny Mac should win the Gold Glove.
1. He ranks #1 in MLB with total chances per 9 innings at 5.22. This is almost half a chance per game more than the closest player to him, Jason Bartlett, at 4.88. This is no big deal except for….
2. He leads the AL with a .987 with only 5 errors. By comparison, perennial Gold Glove favourite Derek Jeter has 16 errors and a .970 fielding percentage.
3. For all you SABR nerds out there who I am bound to hear from, let’s talk range factor. Johnny Mac leads all shortstops with a range factor of 5.13. Derek Jeter’s is a full point behind him at 4.10.
4. I have the pleasure of watching him play almost every day and see spectacular highlight reel plays made on a regular basis from him. Since Toronto gets hardly any media coverage outside the bubble that is the Golden Horseshoe, American fans outside of Cleveland probably don’t even know who this guy is (which is an atrocity). To remedy that situation, point your browsers to http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/team/player_media.jsp?player_id=150348 and click on all of the multimedia links to see the defensive artistry and panache Johnny Mac brings to the game.
*Update* Here is footage as to why he is a stud.
[youtube T9UNx7ei1xk]
Certainly better than Jeter, who ranks in the bottom two amongst MLB SS in D (along with Hanley Rameriz). The thing is, Mac probably won’t start more than 100 games at the position. His weak ass bat and the fact that he plays in the T-Dot won’t help him either. Currently, he doesn’t have enough games played at SS to qualify on ESPN’s fielding leaders. We know how the voters role, which is go for a name & someone with a bat (in the AL). I’d figure the award will unjustly go back to Jeter or over to Michael Young.
The Gold Glove is a joke, with a guy like Raffy Palmeiro who wins the GG with only 14 games played at first base. Johnny Mac should be able to get it with 120-130 games played, doubt he will even get a single vote though.
I think the Star writer has a vote (forget his name), so he should get at least one. I’d vote for Mac myself, his D is super solid.
Take away the Jays fooling around with Clayton at short, the trio of trouble in Thompson, Ohka, and Zambrano, and JP & Gibby’s senseless persistence with Vernon Wells and I think you can tack on at least 6-8 more victories for Toronto this year. Instead, Marcum and McGowan didn’t get started till later, Johnny Mac won’t have nearly enough games at SS, and Stairs and Lind won’t have as many games under their belts while Vernon goes 5 for his last 45 (oh, and he’s batting lead-off).
Solution: Fire JP
Reality: JP has a job for life
End Jays Fan Result: Sucks to be one
Well Vernon showed us, good win last night for the Jays but you still gotta wonder about this shoulder business. JP made a good point after the game stating that if Vernon’s shoulder was really bugging him there’s no way he’d have been able to get on top of an elevated fast ball and drive it out of the park to dead centre at Fenway. So if that’s the case, why did the Jays mention anything about his shoulder in the first place? To bail him out of a career worst season? If so, that just aint cool. There’s no shame in benching a guy if he’s not producing and/or dealing with a minor injury.
I think this is just another case of JP not knowing what the hell he is talking about.