Jeter had his best year in the field in 2005. His Rate was 105, which is pretty darn good. Of course, I think Peralta had a 113 Rate (or something like that). Jeter wasn't the best fielding SS in the AL, but he certainly was one of the top fielding SS in the AL.

gold gloves for a lot of positions tends to be given to someone 'by default.' look at AL 1B...i like Teixeira, but really he got it b/c no one else deserved it. same with ss. ps: tell me again why Aaron Rowand was snubbed for a guy who was out most of the year (Hunter)??

Gold Gloves are often pretty silly...I remember Raffy winning one for Texas a few years back when he had played something like 25 games at 1st. It was just ridiculous.

For what it's worth I think 2 is an all-around above average fielder, not great but good. But since you brought up pop-ups I gotta say it: After 30 years of watching baseball, I've never seen ANYBODY field the shallow OF pop-up better than Jeter. There are better all-around SS's to be sure but none of them go back on the ball better than this guy.

"Does anyone have this year's zone ratings?"

Is this not what you're looking for?

ESPN Player Fielding Stats

Compared to Jeter, Jack Wilson had more "chances", fewer errors, more DPs, a higher F%, a higher RF and the best ZR in baseball. At least they didn't give it to Renteria...

I don't know that Rowand deserved a gold glove, but he'd certainly be a better choice than Hunter.

I've been critical of Crede in the past but his rate of 109 this season is certainly worthy of notice. (Not that Chavez at 106 is undeserving.)

I guess the Rowand and Crede will have to content themselves with a championship.

If you use Baseball Prospectus Fielding Runs Above Replacement, Jeter ranked 3rd in the AL. So he wasn't the best, but it's not a crime that he won it. He's made huge strides since 2003. So yeah, I agree with Sabernar.

Player FRAR
Jhonny Peralta 40
Juan Uribe 35
Derek Jeter 31
Orlando Cabrera 29
Marco Scutaro 26

I'm sure there's other players on the list who might not have 'deserved' the award, but way to stay objective & single out Jeter, a Yankee. :P

I think its an absolute joke that Jeter won and it shows that the GG awards are a farce.

Hardballtimes.com just posted an article on their choices for GG. Jeter came out to be one of the worst SS. His range is terrible. They used a fielding system that basically takes all the batted balls and compares them to the amount of outs made.

Here is the article.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/2005-gold-gloves/

I have an article on the primate studies section of BaseballThinkFactory.com with zone rating converted to runs.

I have Jeter at -3, MGL posted his UZR and has Jeter at -16.

Bad choice, but what do you expect from the people who voted for DH Palmeiro a few years ago?

Derek Jeter is not the best shortstop on his own team. He's probably the worst shortstop to win two gold gloves. I can't believe he won it last year. This is all New York City hype.

I told myself I wasn't going to get involved in this debate, but I'm getting a little sick of it. You people are going overboard with your bashing of Derek Jeter and his fielding. He's not awful. Some imprecise fielding metrics have him ranked at vastly different fielding levels. What does that tell me? It tells me that no one's been able to really quantify fielding yet. No one agrees what's the best approach. He's just not that bad of a fielder. Sure, he may not be the best, but no one said the Gold Glove was meant to go to the guy with the fewest errors or most assists. Hell, Varitek won a Gold Glove and he threw out just 24 % of would-be base stealers.

And GEB, your "New York City hype" comment is about as pathetic as some "vast right-wing conspiracy" talk. Give it a rest.

Benjamin, by your post I can tell that you are a Yankee fan living in NYC. I live in NYC and I can tell you with a straight face that IT IS the NYC hype. Here in NY Jeter is considered a defensive wizard but in reality he isnt. Hes terrible. Web Gems dont make you a good defensive player. He lacks any kind of range and every single fielding systems shows that. Its not hard to see. The only thing that doesnt show it are Errors and Fielding %, the 2 most useless stats in baseball.

No one is going overboard. Look at the facts.

The White Sox had arguably the best defense in the league last year. When they showed who was in the field, there was only 1 gold glove (dye in rf). I was hoping either Rowand, Uribe or Crede would be recognized. Hell, even Buerhle would have been a good choice.

Rowand was top notch in the OF. Shame he didnt get anything.

How do all of the so-called "zone ratings" account for where the player is positioned on the field? I'm guessing not at all.

Besides that, how can a player who is as good or better than anyone on pop-ups and slow rollers supposedly have no range from right to left? All of a sudden the guy has no lateral movement?

Give me a break and watch some games instead of complaining about numbers.

Antonio: I'm not sure what fielding systems, other than the one at THT (which has a vendetta against Jeter), you're looking at. Take ESPN. They aggregate Range Factor and Zone Rating. Derek was second in range factor and fifth in zone rating in the AL. That's not awful. Awful is Russ Adams and Cristian Guzman. You can't expect anyone to believe that Jeter is that bad at short stop. In the end, he's an average defender.

Plus, Antonio, if you go read Clay Davenport's latest piece on BP about Gold Glove awards, even he conceeds that Jeter deserves to win it this year. He may have been bad earlier, but he's shown a marked improvement in fielding. The Hardball Times, despite its good insight and writing, like another site, is just one view of things. (And I don't mean to insult David Gassko's work. He and I are co-writing a blog now.) But fielding's hard to quantify. That's all there is to it.

If Jeter is so good at catching fly balls, why don't they put him in the outfield where he could make himself useful? Last time I checked, the Yankees didn't have a centerfielder. They could move Rodriguez back to short and get a low rent third basemen. I've heard what a team guy Jeter is. Well maybe it's time for him to make a sacrifice for the team to solidify New York's defense.

So if someone else gets the award over Jeter, does Posada get it over Varitek?

- Higher fielding percentage
- More assists
- Fewer errors
- More double plays
- Only 1 more passed ball than Varitek

So what gives there?

Pete: Don't forget that Jorge had a significantly better CS% than Varitek as well.

I was looking on baseball-reference for my numbers- didn't even see CS on there...where did you find it?

It's on the ESPN.com player pages in the "Fielding" page of the individual player stats.

Posada is another guy who's got a bad rap because his defense used to be much worse. Varitek, however, is a "leader" much like Rolen, Jeter, Garrett Anderson and those guys anointed by Peter Gammons and the like.
Intangibles, baby. Infuriating rose-colored stat glass-wearers since Bill James came on the scene.

But seriously, people go overboard on Jeter's defense. He's never campaigned for the award, and neither do the Yankees. So he's not stealing it from anyone. If anything, blame people actually working in the game of baseball for voting for him, since apparently they always get GG selections wrong.
As for him sacrificing for the team and moving to center, he's going to be 32, whereas Robin Yount was 29 when he moved to CF. Secondly, nobody's asked, and Jeter shouldn't have to volunteer. Demanding someone be unselfish for no reason in that regard is either selfish or baiting. Besides, we don't know what's happened to A-Rod's range after playing at 3rd for the past two years. It's no lock that he'd be an upgrade, or that Jeter would be a great CF.

Ben, Ill accept that he's an average defender. He definitely has improved this year but not a whole lot. He is NO WHERE near the defensive player he's made out to be. Zone Rating and Range factor are flawed as well even though they are still better than using Errors and Fielding %. But even when using ZR and RF you can see that Jeter isnt the best, especially in the last 5 years. The THT systems isnt the only one, Fielding Win Shares also show it and Im sure UZR would show it as well if we had access to it.

This year, Uribe, Peralta, Castro and Cabrera all deserved it more than Jeter. Jeter won cause he's the more popular player which is a shame.

guys,

yall missed the most important statistic of all

"getting" the largest number of hot chicks

sorry

derek ROOLZ in the hotness factor category

therefore he gets the gold glove. besides, he also has a higher BA and clutch factor and you KNOW those are VERY important to defensive awards

James, take off the rose-colored traditional glass. What the hell do intangibles have to do with GG awards? Nothing, what an ignorant statement.

I would never argue that Jeter was the clear-cut favorite. But while Cabrera was hurt by playing on the West Coast, his biggest fielding advantages cited in the post are in Fielding % and errors, which have been called the "two most useless stats in baseball." So Cabrera isn't clear-cut either, and when that happens, popularity usually wins out. Unfair, maybe. But, um, that's life.

Also, using ZR and RF over the last 5 years? How's that determine this year's GG winner? Maybe I missed your point on that. If so, my mistake.

The intangibles thing was sarcasm...

Thanks god it was sarcasm, too bad I didnt pick up on it.

There was a clear cut winner and it sure as heck wasnt Jeter. In my opinion Uribe should have won without a doubt. He had 9.3 Fielding Win Shares and Jeter had 6.0.

Maybe this brings up a larger problem: Do the people voting on these awards know or care about these fielding stats or formulas. And are there arguments/theories out there on which ones are the best indicators? A lot of these guys are going to go on hearsay and their own eyes anyways, but if they're bombarded with lots of fielding stats without context or the name-recognition that batting or fielding stats have, they might not use them.
It's their fault, partly, but not entirely.

Now you're citing fielding win shares?! Make up your mind. Which fielding stats do you consider important and which aren't? Fielding win shares are hardly given any traction in the stat community at this point. You're just randomly throwing out numbers that may or may not show who's better at short stop.

Im not jsut randomly throwing our numbers. Fielding is probably the hardest to evaluate with stats but Win Shares does a pretty damn good job. Its not perfect but much much better than Errors, fielding %, ZR and RF.

I mentioned WS cause you said you werent sure if there were other fielding systems that show that Jeter isnt such a great defensive player. We'll I showed you that there are.

So far, I see a lot of numbers saying Derek's average in the field and you tellinlg me he was awful. Over the last two years, Jeter's shown a ton of improvement. Who can explain it? But he's no longer as bad in the field as he was during, say, the 2000 campaign.

Looking at fielding win shares, I see that Derek was sixth in the AL. That's not awful. He was .1 of a win share worse than Migue Tejada in the field. That accounts for 1/30 of a win. That's not much of a difference. He's average. He's not awful. That's what all of these numbers say, and for all of that, it's not a travesty that he got the Gold Glove this year.

"This year, Uribe, Peralta, Castro and Cabrera all deserved it more than Jeter. Jeter won cause he's the more popular player which is a shame"

And my point was the same could be said for Varitek in relation to Posada - anyone who's been watching Jorge let runners take advantage of him all these years, and then to see him gun down Figgins & Guerrero all series long, knows he's a LOT better now than in years past.

The numbers don't lie- so if Jeter loses the award to Tejada, then the same must apply to Varitek and Posada.

I agree. I dont think Varitek should have won either.

After 36 comments here, I think we can all agree on at least one thing: The Gold Glove is overrated post-season award.

WITH OUT A DOUBT JETER DEFINITELY DESERVES IT.

DEREK JETER IS THE BEST SHORTSTOP - HE HAS MY VOTE!

Jeter is one of the best shortstops. He will always have my vote. Hes also a great captain of the team.

The Golden Glove routinuely contains a few weak choices every year. Note that Bobby Abreu won his first GG this year, which has the Philly fans/media in a giggle fit. I'm not as down on his defense as most of the locals are, but it is unusual for a player who looks as awkward in the field as Bobby does to win a GG.

Derek Jeter does deserv that golden glove!!! i might be a girl but i know my baseball stats.

Derek Jeter does deserv that golden glove award!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I might be a girl but i sure know my baseball stats.he has been doing very good hes probaly 1 of the best on the team in my oppinion!!jeter is staying strong and thats y he should get it again

I'M STILL STEWING OVER THE FACT THAT TINO MARTINEZ NEVER GOT A GG.

Yes i am a girl,yes i think derek is beautiful looking, but i dont understand,why eveyone is alway's saying derek is'nt that good?I am a real baseball fan i know the game in and out.Derek is a great hitter 200 hit's this year he turn's a dp like nobody else, maybe if you watched him play you would see what all the fuss was about, out of towner's and met's fan.

Stats are stats, and accordingly to them the gold glove should have gone to Orlando Cabreraīs hands, instead to Jetterīs: he was simply the best or, as John Lennon should have said, "the topper most of the popper most", if one sees the pure numbers. Sadly, voting is not quite rigthtly a fair way to pick one "best of" anything, because, usually the winner, of a voting process is not the best, but the most popular. And for sure, the are two quite different thigs. In conclussion: Cabrera was the one who, accordingly to his seasonīs stats should have received de golden as the best short stop in the AL; not Jetter, who was the most popular among coaches and managers, but not really the best.

I have one thing to say about Jeter's feilding... he can't get any baseballs up the middle. If you don't beileive me just watch one of his games we won't get anything up the middle.