Kyle Seager's Gold Glove at 3B
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In 1986, the Seattle Seahawks were really good. They were in the middle of 4 playoff appearances in 6 years, this in a very tough division. Curt Warner ran for 1,481 yards that year. Steve Largent caught his usual 70 passes; he'd led the NFL in receiving yardage the year before. The Kingdome was, long before 1986, the forerunner of today's CLink / 12th Man. The NFL passed a rule against crowd noise because of the Seahawks in that era.
QB Ken O'Brien brought the Jets into town, with the Seahawks favored by 4 points. O'Brien did something never seen before or since: he threw for a perfect passer rating, 158.3 was it?, while going for over 400 yards. Looking all this up ... he was 27-for-33 that day, 439 yards, and the Jets crushed the Seahawks like a pop can. 38-7.
A shellshocked Chuck Knox said, on his TV show that week, "27 for 33. That's hard to do against the AIR."
Great line. It is hard to do, even in passing practice, so ... what are your defenders doing out there?
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That was the quote that bubbled to the surface of the addled mind when Bob Dutton pointed out Kyle Seager's 96.6% "good throw" rate this season. We're not saying that he had 3.4% errors. Kyle had no throwing errors. We're saying that Mariner first basemen only had to make nice plays on 3.4% of his assists.
That's hard to do against the air. Never mind with Elvis Andrus tearing down the 1B line .... while you snatch at a ball with your bare hand .... and whip the ball as hard as you can ... while madly off balance.
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Bill James had an observation, this week, that MLB franchises love to play minor leaguers at 2B and SS. They reason, "we can always move him to an easier position." Great for them. Not so great for a raw rookie who has to get to the majors, the 3-deck stadiums, yada yada ... and then immediately move to a strange position.
Bill James had an observation, 25 years ago, that you can basically tell who (in distant baseball history) was a nice guy by asking whether he played better-than-expected defense. Barry Bonds and Albert Belle played worse-than-expected defense; where does hard work on defense get you? You don't get paid for defense.
Sometimes Dr. D is a little hard to scan. KYLE SEAGER IS A SECOND BASEMAN.
You can argue about whether Kyle Seager deserves the Gold Glove, or whether that Orc mutant does. And you can totally miss the point. Kyle Seager has made himself into a Gold Glove quality third baseman.
Who cares about spending the week, making the case for-or-against Seager's Gold Glove? He's a superb infielder. Get that straight.
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Seager had 5.5 WAR this season. In this specific case, these 5.5 WAR put him in the American League's top 10 ballplayers, and were in no way misleading. (WAR gives him credit for about 11 fewer runs saved than the Fielding Bible does.)
Seager had more WAR this season than did Miguel Cabrera. Evan Longoria was at 3.6 WAR. ... if you gave him credit for the +24 runs saved, he was the #2 player in the league, behind Mike Trout.
Another way to put it: Fangraphs gives him credit for $30.6 million in bases gained and lost this past year. Or if you went with the higher defensive total, it's closer to $40M.
No, I don't pay Seager for +25 runs saved with the mitt. But I'll cheerfully pay for +10 or +15 defensive runs saved, and that's a completely separate issue from the fact that he's at the hot corner in the first place.
And we don't make Seager out to be Longoria or Tulowitzki in 7-WAR form. Kyle Seager isn't a franchise player.
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But here's the thing.
If you add Kyle Seager's 2014 statline onto the back of Derek Jeter's baseball card, it ranks #5 out of 21 seasons.