As promised, my thoughts on Bobby Abreu winning a Gold Glove [and if this is the first you heard the news, I'll give you a minute to wipe your beverage off of your screen after spewing it all over the room].
Admittedly, I was a bit suprised to the hear the news, and judging from my readers' comments, I'm not the only one. While we can all agree that Bobby is an extremely talented hitter (lets leave his clutchness out of it for a moment, that is another argument/can of worms for another day), no one has ever said anything close to "Abreu is the best rightfielder in the National League."
That's not to say he doesn't do some things well. Subjectively and objectively speaking, his throwing ability is well regarded. But after that, his abilities are hardly worthy of a Golden Glove.
Subjectively speaking, we've all witnessed the poor jumps Bobby gets on balls hit in his direction, and all to often, when a heroic dive is called for, Bobby pulls up, but not because he is afraid of getting hurt, but because he is unsure of his abilities. If that weren't bad enough, watching Abreu play a flyball near the outfield wall is always an adventure. It appears as if he has no sense of where the wall is (to be fair, he probably doesn't expect it to be that close to home plate) and times his jumps poorly to meet the ball.
Turning to more objective measures, we are still at a loss as to how the voters reached they're conclusion (not that managers and coaches are a particularly sabermetrically inclined lot). Abreu accumulated 3.7 fielding win shares in 2005, a total that was fourth in the National League among rightfielders behind Jeromy Burnitz (4.6), Geoff Jenkins (4.2), and Shawn Green (4.1). Zone rating, a measure of range, rated Abreu as seventh best in the NL.
As I said earlier, we can all agree Abreu is a talented hitter, and believe it or not, I think that is what won Abreu a Golden Glove. In recent years, the Golden Glove Award has to often been treated similar to a lifetime acheivement award. Players who gain a lot of attention for their offensive play end up drawing attention to other aspects of their play. In that way, voters end up becoming impressed with everything a good hitter does, even in the field and even if they are still not very good defensively. Remember, late in his career when he was hitting home runs at prodigous rates, Mark McGwire "earned" a Gold Glove (but it only goes so far, Mike Piazza would have to have 80 HR and 250 RBI in a season to garner Golden Glove consideration).
So I'm warning you now, at some point next season, an announcer -- maybe McCarver, maybe Wheeler -- will praise Abreu for his defense and say, "you know, he did win a Gold Glove last year." And when that happens, make sure your beverage is sitting on the table, I don't want you getting caught in mid-sip.
