There has been a changing of the guard in the world of Strat-O-Matic. It has been gradual and subtle, but nevertheless true diehards notice. I helped open up a debate about defensive ratings when in 2001 Jim Edmonds received one of his many Gold Glove awards. There was no major debate about his ability and reputation as a solid centerfielder, however, if he, as the Gold Glove winner, sets the benchmark for excellence in fielding, than how do you rate players that are statistically superior to the winner of such an award?

Strat-O-Matic leads the way in attempting to let the numbers and near unbiased evaluators determine how to rate a player. And I applaud them for getting away from the fashion show and the politics. Most Gold Glove winners are excellent defenders overall, however, they can also gain points by being offensively dominant, acrobatic, popular, or just because they are the incumbent. Elements that may improve ticket sales, but do not have an impact on whether a player will actually make a play.

Unfortunately, the Gold Glove award has taken some credibility hits over the years, especially with Rafael Palmeiro winning one year where he played less than 30 games at the position where he won. In the year that I raised the question about the Gold Glove award, I had attained over 100 more putouts in the outfield than the Gold Glove winner. That is equivalent to sitting out one-third of the season and still having the same amount of clean catches. Yet he had to get the “1” rating and I had to take my “2.”

Of course, that is not everything that defense is about. Good decisions, intimidating arm strength, intelligent positioning, and stadium effect knowledge aren’t easy to measure, but they should play a role in what constitutes “good” defense. A player could be playing for a team that has bad pitching or for a “fly ball” pitching team that gives a defender more opportunities in the field, but it is debatable whether that can account for huge statistical gaps between a Gold Glove winner and any other player at the same position. In the case of Jerry Hairston Jr. one year, there was no one even remotely close to him in assists from second base. (Roberto Alomar cleanly beat him out in the Gold Glove) Is the winning the Gold Glove enough to justify a better rating?

Nevertheless, a former teammate of mine, and friend, Bobby Abreu won the Gold Glove award. Bobby had been highly criticized, up until this past year, for lack of focus on his defense. In playing with him in 2004, he had made great strides in every area of defense, but it is near impossible to go from a rated “4” defender to a gold glove winning “1” in a year. Defense is just as much instinct as it is skills, and if a player can’t gauge how far away from the wall he is, or a player has little sense of spacing between himself and a surrounding teammate, then he generally will not wake up with those skills. (Certainly hard to do in a year). We can take groundballs until we pass out, but 99.9999% of us will not wake up and become Ozzie Smith. Not even my favorite shortstop, Jimmy Rollins.

So, I hope the Strat-O-Matic community accepts this change. It was time to be bold in saying that defense is not to be voted in. Strat-O-Matic is trying to set that statistical tone.

Doug Glanville

Philadelphia Phillies (1998-2002, 2004)