Your 2016 Giants: The Three Ami-Gold Glovers

As reported by various news outlets (Haft, Pavlovic, Schulman; I would include Baggarly, but since the SJ Mercury changed to no RSS feed, it's not easy to grab, as these three were), three Giants won Gold Gloves:  Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Joe Panik.

• Schulman reported:  "The winners were announced on ESPN on Tuesday afternoon. Posey, Crawford and Panik were selected in a vote of National League managers and coaches who could not choose their own players, in combination with a defensive index created by the Society for American Baseball Research."
• As Pavlovic reported, this is the first time since 1994 that the Giants won 3 Gold Gloves in a season.  Bonds, Lewis, and Williams won it that year.   As Haft noted, this is the most since 4 Giants won gold gloves in 1993:  Bonds, Manwaring, Williams, Thompson.  And Schulman noted that the Giants and Rangers were the only teams to win three in 2016, and that 1993, 1994, and 2016 are the only seasons the Giants won 3 or more Gold Gloves.
• This is Posey's and Panik's first Gold Gloves.  Posey's win broke Yadier Molina's eight year streak and he was the first Giants catcher to win it since Matheny won it in 2005.   Panik won in spite of only playing 127 games (and starting only 118, per Schulman), which suggests that, with health, he could put up a streak at 2B.  However, one of the guys he beat out, DJ LeMahieu, had won in 2014 and, per Schulman, is "widely viewed as the best defensive second baseman in the league."  He and Robby Thompson are the only Giants secondbasemen to win a Gold Glove (no Tito?).  
• This was Crawford's second Gold Glove, which was made easier when his top competitor, Andrelton Simmons, was traded to the AL, but he got a new strong competitor in Addison Russell, who the A's stupidly traded away to the Cubs.  Pavlovic:  "This season he had to hold off Cubs rookie Addison Russell, who tied Crawford with 19 Defensive Runs Saved and led in SDI. Crawford had the support of opposing coaches and managers who have spent years watching him pull outs from thin air. "
• Schulman noted:  "Crawford and Panik compose the first double-play combo to win in the NL since the Cardinals’ Edgar Renteria and Fernando Viña in 2002."
• Pavlovic provided numbers that backed Posey:   "He led all catchers with 12 Defensive Runs Saved and was a runaway winner in the SABR Defensive Index, which makes up about a quarter of the vote. Posey finished with 15.2 SDI, far ahead of second-ranked Yasmani Grandal (5.9) and Molina (0.7)."  He noted that the Giants were disappointed that Posey did not win last season, but it has historically been hard to unseat the incumbent, especially someone like Molina, who won for so many years.  These numbers could no longer deny the breakthrough for Posey.  
• Similarly for Panik:  "Panik got a boost from SDI, finishing at 8.5, two points ahead of the next best second baseman."
• This adds to the trophy case for Posey and Crawford, and starts one for Panik:
• Pavlovic:  "The award is the first major one for Panik and gave Crawford two to go along with his 2015 Silver Slugger Award. Crawford said he was happy to hear Posey added another item to an overflowing trophy case. “I think it was the one award that he hadn’t won,” he said. Through eight big league seasons, Posey has an MVP, three Silver Slugger Awards and a Rookie of the Year Award. Like Panik, he finally has that coveted Gold Glove, too. "
• All three noted that they had always focused on defense, from their earliest days.  Which is not surprising given that they all three started out as SS, which is a position that most coaches drill into their heads to be good defensively.  

ogc thoughts

Looks like this could be the start of another Golden era, like we had in 1993-94.  Posey probably will win again next season, barring injury.  Panik most likely should win again, as he won it while only starting 118 games.  Then again, this SI article on the Gold Gloves noted that while he led in SDI, he didn't lead in any of the components other than TZ, where he tied (good article, covers Posey and Crawford as well;  but based on the tone, 2016 might be one and done, except for Posey).  Wong actually led more, so he must have come up horrible in other components.  Crawford looks like he's up against a tough young competitor in Russell, however, so we'll see there, but advanced defensive stats are notoriously up and down as well, so Russell will have to repeat to see whether he'll be Crawford's next thorn.

Perhaps Belt Will Get the Call in 2017?

I would also add that Brandon Belt has been considered to be a good defensive first baseman.  And he had 10 DRS per baseball-reference.com, 9 per Fangraphs, in 2016.   Rizzo, who won the award, had 11 DRS, Goldschmidt 4 DRS, and Myers, the last finalist, 7 DRS.   Plus, Belt killed it in SDI in 2015, so I'm not sure why he wasn't a finalist in 2016:  he had 11.1, Goldschmidt 9.4, A-Gon 8.3, Rizzo 4.2.  Per this SI article, Belt was very comparable but only played 117 games.

Oh, now I know, his 2016 SDI was not as good in 2016:  only 3.5, vs. Rizzo's 8.6 and Myers 6.6.  He was fifth and by a lot.  Wow, what a drop!  He must have fallen a lot in the other components.

Looking at another component for Belt, UZR, he was third with 5.8, behind Myers 8.8 and just ahead of Rizzo's 5.0.  So he had another good showing.  He must have really sucked, then, in the other three defensive analytics: Runs Effectively Defended (RED) from Chris Dial, Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA) from Michael Humphreys, and Total Zone Rating (TZ) from Sean Smith.  I've never heard of any of these other metrics, though I'm aware of Chris Dial as a baseball analytics guy.  I'll have to research these other ones.

Though that SI article nicely noted the Sean Smith TZ connection, and there we have it, a reason why Belt's SDI fell like a rock.  He was -0 in that stat in 2016, this after two stellar years in 2014-15 in TZ.  And per DRA, available at the Baseball Gauge website (here's Belt), he had a really down year in 2016:  after steadying increasing DRA from the start of his career to 2015, he had his worse full year results ever in 2016.  So that's two different metrics where Belt got really crushed in the index, he will need to fix whatever problem this was, and return to his prior goodness.  Had he not suffered this decline with these two stats (both are derived from play-by-play data, so that's where he was hurt), he probably would have been among the leaders again.

In any case, maybe next year Belt will return to his 2015 goodness (I mean really, he led by a lot in 2015, 11.1 vs. 9.4) with improvement particularly in his play-by-play (not sure how those metrics work; just ordered Humphrey's book) and help to bring at least three Gold Gloves to the Giants in 2017.

Other SDI rankings

• Bumgarner 9th with 1.4
• Cueto 14th with 0.7
• Samardzija was actually negative!  Moore just squeaked above 0 in AL.
• Duffy was actually third with 6.3 at 3B, with full season probably would have challenged for lead with Arenado.
• OMG, Adam Duvall actually led with 9.1 in LF.  Looks like Giants made a mistake in letting him go, both offensively and defensively.  A rare miss in the Sabean era, but it seems like they are missing more lately:  Biagini, Duvall, Otero, among others.   Though part of me wonders if Hamilton being in CF helped Duvall out by taking over some of his area of coverage.  
• Span was next to last with -9.2; surprisingly, McCutchen was last with -15.5.   We need a better defensive CF, perhaps the Giants could trade Span given that Nunez could take over leadoff.   Hernandez could be good defensively there (he had nice time with SF, but SSS, but horrible time in CF with Miami in 2012), but obviously we don't know about his offense, though, again, SSS, but he had nice time with us.  Span's down year hurts his value, though.  However, part of his down was a bad BABIP year, down 27 points from last season and 25 points from his career.  However, at 33 YO next season, and recovered from hip surgery that happened last off-season, could be reasons why this continues.  
• Pence was 9th out of 13 with -1.0.   As much as fans love him, defensive stats have been "meh" about him, particularly advanced stats.  

Your 2016 Giants: Belt Finally Putting Things Together

As reported by the media (great account and interview by Baggarly here, and I pulled out some of it below), Brandon Belt figured out the last major piece to his mechanics to enable him to be the hitter he was in the minors:  power hitter (high SLG/ISO) with good contact (low K's) and eye (high BB/K).   He actually figured it out last year, but got concussed in the same series.  Fortunately, he was able to remember what that was and thought hard about it during the off-season:

It was against the Reds at AT&T Park last September when Belt finally found a stance and a feeling at the plate that allowed him to see the ball deeper, allowing him to react to the pitch rather than keep falling back on guesswork. It was the comfort zone he had spent his entire big league life searching to find. 

“Basically, yeah, I found an approach that I liked and then got concussed,” Belt said. “But fortunately, I still remembered it.” 

He is putting it into practice this season, and even in a small sample, the difference is striking. 

“I thought about it a lot in the offseason, and honestly, it came down to the last series I played against the Reds,” Belt said. 

“I thought about that often, about how I can put the ball in play more. 

“It was more approach than anything, and it was something I had to contemplate a lot in the offseason. I beat it into my head over and over. It’s something I held onto, and it’ll make me be more consistent in the long run.” 

What is it, exactly? “It’s getting back to seeing the ball and not guessing, which I still do at times,” said Belt, who signed a five-year, $79 million extension in April. "The results aren’t good when I do that. I tried to find a place where I felt more square with the plate. I stuck with that feeling.” 

Giants manager Bruce Bochy sees a hitter who continues to emerge. “He’s being a little more selective and he’s looking for his pitch,” Bochy said.  

“Honestly, that’s what excites me, that my strikeouts are down,” Belt said. “I wanted to put the ball in play more, because stuff can happen. I think that’s what makes us so tough as a lineup. There’s not an easy out.” 

“For a few years, I was searching for something and, yeah, I had some good years,” Belt said. “But I was still looking for something I could hold onto. And I think I found it.”

ogc thoughts

This has been a huge struggle for Belt all his career:  combining his ability to hit for power along with his ability to hit for contact.  I followed his contact rate in his early seasons, covering the rate over 10, 20, and 30 games, and he was able to keep it up for around that long, but then he would lose it and then strike out a lot.  This has prevented him from reaching the potential that many saw for him, being a Votto-like player:  power hitter, with good contact and eye, enough speed to steal in the teens, while providing gold glove defense at 1B.

His OPS of .945 (as of May 3, 2016;  all data from the great site, Baseball-Reference.com, I should be noting this more often, but been slacking, apologies to them) is much higher than his career .803 OPS prior to this season, or .823 OPS for the prior three seasons or his best of .841 in 2013.  So he is roughly about 140 points higher than what he had produced in his career before.  League OPS of .744 is 201 points less, so he went from being better than average to an elite level hitter.

Some of his improvement is from the change in league offensive environment, though.  League OPS of .744 is higher than in recent years, .721 OPS in 2015, and roughly .700 OPS in the years prior for Belt's career, showing that part of his rise is due to the league standard going up (and with reports that overall offense has been up the past two seasons).   Thus, 43 points of that rise over the past two years is related to the league environment change.

Where Has He Improved?

Looking at components of his hitting gives more clarity as to where this is happening.  His significant improvement was in his batting average, which has roughly been around .280 the past four seasons, with 2014 being the outlier due to the various injuries he had that season, but is .311 as of May 3rd.  But his improved BA is not from BABIP.  His BABIP has been basically the same this season, as of May 3rd, at .342 vs. career .340 BABIP, so the boost is not from abnormal BABIP.  So the improvement is from some other improvement in his hitting.

And where it is, is because of his sharp drop in strikeouts.  Career prior 24.4% SO%, average of 26.7% the prior two seasons, he currently is at 14.2%, which translates to a contact rate of 82.2%.  His contact rate for his career prior is 72.5%, 72.3% for the three prior years, and so this is a huge improvement, and over 113 PA.  With less strikeouts, there are more balls in play.  More balls in play, at a .340 BABIP adds up to a lot more hits, and the bump in BA.

His other big improvement is in his walk rate.  A career 9.8% walk rate prior to this season, he is currently at 18.6%.  So he has roughly dropped his strikeouts in half, while at the same time roughly doubling his walks!  And that results in a BB/K ratio of 1.3, which is great, anything over 1.0 is considered good, generally.  And that adds to his OBP.

Per Fangraphs, both his K% and BB% should be relatively stabilized at this point in the season:

With respect to sample size, it’s important to know that K% and BB% tend to “stabilize” in a relatively low number of PA. You don’t need more than about 60 PA for K% or 120 PA for BB% before the numbers start to become meaningful, which means that it’s very unlikely that even a half season of K% or BB% are simply functions of random variation. More directly, a player’s K% and BB% are skills that you can estimate from a reasonably small amount of data. This means that if you have a good sample of PA, you can feel good about the validity of the information you’re using.

Belt is at 113 PA as of May 3rd (and added 4 PA with one BB and no K on May 4th, so he is pretty much at 120 PA), and thus this is looking like Belt is doing what he says he's doing in the above interview:  he's found the right adjustment to allow him to utilize his skills in making hard contact, while avoiding the pitches that he can't make hard contact with, leading to less strikeouts and many more walks.

Now he's walking more than he strikes out, which is a sign of a very good hitter, which was something he did in the minors in his meteoric rise, and that gives us four hitters who are roughly in the 1 K:BB ratio range:  Posey, Span, Panik, and now Belt.  And I studied Crawford's contact rate as well, and he also had periods of good contact rates, and so he could add a fifth hitter at some point in his career.

In addition, there is a table in the Fangraph link on how good each rate is.  His K% went from a below average to poor 24.4-26.7% to an above average 14.2% and closing in on great (which is at 12.5%).  Meanwhile, his BB% went from an above average 9.8% to a excellent 18.6% (where above 15% is excellent).   With his reduced K%, the Giants now only has two hitters in the lineup who are not above average or better in K%:  Pence and Crawford.  And both are slightly above average, so the Giants lineup no longer has any hitter below average, all make good enough contact.

Lastly, oddly enough, his ISO of .200 (so far) is basically the same as it has been the past three seasons for Belt (and really, seems to be his talent level, he had a .187 ISO in his first MLB season).   So the improvement in OPS is not coming from increased power, just from improved BA (due to reduced K%) and improved BB% (adding to OBP).

Adding It All Up

Overall, his OPS has gone up 140-150 points.  A 30 point jump in BA translates into both OBP and SLG, so that covers around 60-90 points (rise in BA results in boost of SLG, still haven't figured out right way of accounting for this boost) of the jump in OPS, still leaving a big jump to be accounted for, which came from his greatly improved walk rate.   The near doubling of his walk rate has added a lot to OBP:  for his career prior, walks added 76 points to his BA, but in 2016, the walks are adding 123 points, adding another 47 points.  This is on top of the 60-90 being added by his improved batting average.  And those are the components that make up his improved OPS.

Will he continue this improved rate of hitting?  As pizzacutter (Russell Carleton's handle), notes frequently, just because a hitter has shown a stabilized skill over a long enough period of PA does not mean that he will continue to do that, just that he was capable of doing it long enough to show that this is a skill for him.  The issue, as I quote frequently from Baseball Forecaster, is for the player to repeat and exhibit that skill again.  According to the interview, this change is permanent for him, so I think it's reasonable to believe that he will be able to continue this level of hitting going forward.   But we shall see, does anyone see any reason he won't be able to do this?

The Giants made the right move to sign him to this long-term $79M extension before the season.  That works out to $16M per season for his free agent years, or roughly 2 WAR production.  And covers his age 28 to 33 YO seasons, when a hitter's production is at his steadiest.  True, he has been injury prone throughout his career, and that probably was priced in as well.  But he's been a good hitter previously and now appears to be a great hitter, and that's a player any team would want to keep in their lineup for the long-term.