Did Manny Machado Deserve His Gold Glove?

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On Tuesday, the Orioles saw something good come out of 2015. Manny Machado, who had made a triumphant return from knee surgery, won his second Gold Glove for his work at third base. Anyone who has seen him make plays such as these over his time in Baltimore knows that he fields his position incredibly. But did he truly lead the entire American League? The answer to that is kind of tricky.

By the standard (for sabermetricians) fielding metrics, Machado certainly had an outstanding campaign. He racked up 14 Defensive Runs Saved, to go along with 8.4 runs by Ultimate Zone Rating. While those marks couldn't match up to the ones his sensational 2013 season, they still drew the envy of almost everyone in the Junior Circuit. Almost — but not all.

Adrian Beltre, who finished in the top three behind Machado in the final voting, has always excelled at the hot corner. For his career, his play there has netted him four Gold Gloves. He hasn't acquired one since 2012, however, and despite struggling in 2013 and 2014, he regained his superiority this year — at Machado's expense. With 18 DRS and 11.4 UZR, Beltre led all qualifying third baseman in the AL; Machado had to settle for second and third, respectively (Josh Donaldson narrowly beat him in UZR).

These statistics have error bars, so a difference of decimal points — such as the one between Donaldson and Machado — shouldn't lead to any bold proclamations. That doesn't apply to Beltre and Machado, who have a four-run gap by DRS and a three-run gap by UZR. When both of the widely used defensive systems come to an agreement like this, it's hard to argue otherwise.

With that said, Machado's case doesn't end there. In addition to the aforementioned statistics, FanGraphs puts out Inside Edge Fielding data. It relies on scouts, rather than stringers, to take a more subjective look at the plays on the field. They grade all plays into six categories, each with a rough percentage range of the player making it: "impossible" (0%*), "remote" (1-10%), "unlikely" (10-40%), "even" (40-60%), "likely" (60-90%), and "routine" (90-100%).

*In the four years for which these numbers exist, no player has made an impossible play. 

The Inside Edge data flips the script — here, Machado came out ahead of Beltre:

Name	1-10%	10-40%	40-60%	60-90%	90-100%	AL 1-10%	AL 10-40%	AL 40-60%	AL 60-90%	AL 90-100%
Manny Machado	9.1%	41.2%	57.1%	74.8%	96.9%	3.4%	25.3%	49.1%	72.9%	96.5%
Adrian Beltre	5.6%	12.9%	46.7%	74.3%	96.0%	3.4%	25.3%	49.1%	72.9%	96.5%

In the most trying times, Machado clearly reigned supreme; Beltre closed the gap a bit for the easier plays, but the disparity remains. Although both cleared the league averages in almost every regard, Machado did so to a greater extent than Beltre did.

Plus, Machado didn't receive as much help from his pitching staff, who gave him more hard-hit balls than Beltre's did:

Player	# 0%	# 1-10%	# 10-40%	# 40-60%	# 60-90%	# 90-100%	AL # 0%	AL # 1-10%	AL # 10-40%	AL # 40-60%	AL # 60-90%	AL # 90-100%
Manny Machado	2.4%	6.6%	3.4%	2.8%	9.6%	75.1%	1.7%	5.7%	3.4%	3.8%	8.4%	76.9%
Adrian Beltre	1.2%	4.4%	2.5%	3.7%	8.5%	79.7%	1.7%	5.7%	3.4%	3.8%	8.4%	76.9%

Overall, 8.1% of Machado's plays fell on the difficult side of the spectrum, compared to 12.5% for Beltre. So not only did Machado cruise through the biggest challenges, he encountered far more of them. In terms of both quantity and quality, the Inside Edge Fielding data comes down pretty firmly on Machado's side.

It would seem that this question boils down to the defining conflict of baseball's modern age: statistics versus scouts. Do we trust the systems that theoretically track every play objectively, but which don't take into account confounding variables like starting position? Or do we trust the scouts who can better gauge the nuance of a play, but who carry their own human biases? While I don't have an easy answer, I know what might mediate the discord.

Most baseball analysts (like me) use solely DRS and UZR to appraise defensive value. Those two don't act alone, though: Fielding Runs Above Average, from Baseball Prospectus, also measures players' glovework. FRAA uses a different formula, looking at plays made rather than basing its analysis on zones. Many other potentially influential factors — the ballpark and the base/out state, among others — also make their way into FRAA, whereas DRS and UZR (to my knowledge) ignore many of these.

FRAA agreed with DRS and UZR, insofar as it thinks very highly of both Machado and Beltre. However, it diverged from the narrative those two have established, in a major way. According to FRAA, Machado gave the Orioles 20.3 runs, and Beltre cost the Rangers 2.6 runs. By the (theoretically) most advanced publicly available defensive metric, Machado demolished Beltre by a 24-run margin.

Maybe you want to split the difference: Since Beltre wins in DRS and UZR and Machado wins in FRAA, they should tie in the end. But the duo didn't have a wide gap in the former two, and they certainly had one for the latter. As August Fagerstrom observed at FanGraphs, a weighted average here still puts Machado ahead.

Even if Beltre had taken home the Gold Glove, few people outside of Maryland would disagree with it. At age 36, he succeeded as much as ever; even if he decided to retire right now, his resume would surely transport him to the Hall of Fame. Machado nevertheless warranted the award, providing the best third base defense in the AL for the second time in three seasons. Keeping this up for several more years could earn him a ticket to Cooperstown as well.

Brooks vs. Adrian: Who's the Better Glove?

The other night during the Orioles' one game Wild Card Showdown against the Rangers, Cal Ripken, Jr., who was doing color commentary, mentioned that he thought Texas slugger Adrian Beltre was the best fielding third baseman he had even seen. When Ernie Johnson, the play-by-play man, questioned whether Beltre was even better than Brooks Robinson, Cal hesitated a bit, then responded in the affirmative. Yes, Cal Ripken, Jr. believes that Adrian Beltre is a better defensive third baseman than Brooks Robinson.

But is it actually true? In my opinion, it's impossible to reliably compare defense across eras but we can try. Using Baseball-Reference.com's Defensive WAR calculations (based on Sean Smith's Total Zone rating), we can at least see how dominant each player's defense was compared to their peers and see how it shakes out.

Brooks Robinson was a major league regular three years before Cal Ripken was born and was well on his way to his first Gold Glove when Cal was born in 1960, the first of 16 consecutive Gold Gloves that Robinson would win. While I'm certain that young Calvin Edwin was watching Orioles baseball all his life, he probably couldn't be a good judge or even recall much of those early years watching Brooks man the hot corner. Most of Cal's recollections are likely from the time his age hit double digits. Cal would have been 10 at the beginning of the 1971 season so we can start from there. Brooks played full time and at a high level from 1971-1975. In 1976 and 1977, he played sporadically and poorly. So for the sake of this post, I will assume Cal's memories of Brooks as a great player come mostly from the 5 season span from 1971-1975.

We will compare those 5 seasons to Adrian Beltre's most recent five seasons and see how they stack up.

Here are the top 10 third basemen in terms of Fielding Runs over the last 5 seasons as reported by Baseball-Reference.com:

                                           
Rk            Player Rfield From   To   Age
1      Adrian Beltre     91 2008 2012 29-33
2      Evan Longoria     71 2008 2012 22-26
3        Scott Rolen     46 2008 2012 33-37
4    Placido Polanco     39 2008 2012 32-36
5      Jack Hannahan     36 2008 2012 28-32
6       Brett Lawrie     34 2011 2012 21-22
7     Ryan Zimmerman     34 2008 2012 23-27
8       Brandon Inge     28 2008 2012 31-35
9     Kevin Youkilis     27 2008 2012 29-33
10         Joe Crede     26 2008 2009 30-31

By this measure, Beltre is the best and it's not even close. Even if you assume what Evan Longoria could've done if he'd been healthy this season, Beltre likely would beat him by 10 fielding runs. (By the way, how good is Brett Lawrie's glove? He's right in the middle of this list despite only 168 major league games under his belt.)

Here are the top 10 third basemen in term of Fielding Runs from the 5 season spanning 1971-1975:

                                             
Rk              Player Rfield From   To   Age
1      Brooks Robinson     90 1971 1975 34-38
2        Graig Nettles     83 1971 1975 26-30
3         Mike Schmidt     38 1972 1975 22-25
4              Ron Cey     36 1971 1975 23-27
5           Buddy Bell     35 1972 1975 20-23
6        Darrell Evans     31 1971 1975 24-28
7    Aurelio Rodriguez     29 1971 1975 23-27
8       Eric Soderholm     26 1971 1975 22-26
9         Ken McMullen     16 1971 1975 29-33
10        Jerry Kenney     16 1971 1973 26-28

It's Hall of Famer Robinson and Graig Nettles (who probably should be in the HoF) and nobody else. For the 5 season spans for each player:

                    Rfield   rTZ
Adrian Beltre         91      42
Brooks Robinson       90      83

So it could be argued that Beltre was a wee bit better than Brooks over the two 5-year spans in question. Although, in terms of Total Zone, a Gold Glove caliber defender will score a TZ of 15 or more in a season. Brooks had 4 out of 5 of those seasons with a TZ of 15 or more. Beltre had none.

And as you my have noticed, these were Beltre's age 29-33 seasons; Robinson's were from his age 34-38 seasons. If we look at Robinson's 5 seasons from the same age span, he has an Rfield of 97 and three seasons over 15 rTZ, all over 20 and two over 30. Beltre's never had quite that kind of run.

Athletes get better as the years go by. It is very possible that if you took Beltre back to the 1960's he would have been Brooks' superior with the glove. But since we have to judge these things in the context of the eras they played, you have to compare their relative dominance to their peers. And given all that, I'd have to respectfully disagree with Cal. Adrian Beltre may be the best defensive third baseman of his generation but I don't think he's any match for Brooks Robinson.