Friday, October 23, 2020

Sorry, folks, but it's flat-out absurdity to nominate Clint Frazier for a Gold Glove

Yesterday, after MLB unveiled its 2020 Gold Glove nominees, after the shock and awe subsided, I flashbacked to a 1966 sitcom called The Pruits of Southampton. 

Stick with me here, because - yeah, we're taking a ride to Obscurity, USA. 

The show featured Phyliss Diller, channeling Lucy, with a supporting cast of Richard Deacon, Marty Ingles, John Astin and Billy De Wolf - an all-star team of second bananas. (No Paul Lynde? WTF?)  The premise was The Beverly Hillbillies in reverse, the rich family abruptly banished into poverty - (a concept better achieved by Green Acres and, to a finer extent, Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island.) It lasted two seasons and lives today only in tortured boomer memories.  

But Pruits has a legacy,  sorta. It stands as a forerunner to Schitt's Creek , a sitcom starring Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. As sitcoms go, Schitt's wasn't bad. But this year, it somehow won every single Emmy in the category of comedy. Listen: It was a decent show - not bad; it simply didn't deserve nine Emmys. Somehow, in this truncated, crazy pandemic year, the Emmy voting got skewed.

Today, Clint Frazier is baseball's version of Schitt's Creek. 

Somehow, somebody fucked up the 2020 Gold Glove voting. That's the only explanation for the fourth best fielding OF on the Yankees getting nominated. 

Anybody who watched the Yankees this year knows that Red Thunder upped his game defensively, no longer a walking minefield out there. He made one error in 51 chances. Apparently, some new, Rube Goldberg defensive metric - (the "UZR," don't ask; I'm not going there) - rated Frazier as second best rightfielder in the AL this year. Thus, the nomination... (along with 3B Gio Urshela, who, by contrast, definitely deserves to win.)  

During this year's playoffs, I recall a liner into the LF corner that Frazier nearly botched. He overran the ball, arched backwards at the last moment and snared it. It was a fine play. It was also the kind of play that a major league outfielder has to make. And he made it. But, whew, he came damn close...

This year, in 28 games, Frazier made the plays. For that, I say, way to go! But he could become the only Gold Glove in history to be regularly replaced in the late innings for defensive upgrades. Brett Gardner is a far better fielder. So is Mike Tauchman, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, and maybe even Tyler Wade. 

What an insane year. MLB is up Schitt's Creek.

14 comments:

ranger_lp said...

It's sort of like Stranger Things...the upside-down world...

13bit said...

In 2020, everyone gets a trophy. It's a generational thing, as well.

OR...there could be a darker narrative at work. Perhaps MLB is doing the cyborg know as CashBrenner a favor. They may have polished his circuit board in exchange for this honor as a way to boost Clint's trade value. Somebody got blown, somebody else did the work, somebody will benefit, somebody else will wipe his lips dry. It's all purely transactional.

And, while we're at it and taking advantage of the pandemic, much the way they gentrified The Big Easy after Katrina, let's short ALL games in the future to 4 innings, start a man on third every inning, eliminate full-time pitchers, sell billboard real estate in left field and print logos all over the uniforms. AND, if a player is willing to get a corporate logo tattooed on his forehead, give him a bonus.

We can also play 3 sixty-minute games a day and the playoffs can start in July and go through November.

Fuck MLB.

ranger_lp said...

From an article I read...

Since 2011, the Rawlings Company picks the best three players at every position to determine who is the best. Due to the compressed 2020 season, the Award qualifications have been amended to rely solely on the SDI, which draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. SDI utilizes MLBAM’s Statcast, Sports Information Solutions data, and STATS, LLC data, as well as traditional statistics with advanced analysis. For 2020 Award consideration, infielders/outfielders must have completed at least 265 defensive innings. Each player qualifies at the position he has played at most (SDI is only for play at qualified position).



so it's those metrics we lash out against that came up to this conclusion. Same metrics that got the Yanks earlier tee times than the Rays and Astros.

Anonymous said...

duque--your gratuitous sliming of Clint Frazier, the Yankees' best young player, is simply perverse. As a different anonymous said a couple of days ago, "Fuck you, too, duque," and check into the local AA chapter.

Unsolicited said...

Animus, you and your doppelganger seem bored.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Fielding statistics are often shaky. Often, you're judging what you think SHOULD have happened, instead of what did. And anybody who actually watched the games knows that Clint Frazier—while admirably improved—is not one of the three best outfielders in the American League.

Anonymous said...

"Anyone who watched the games." Same old tattered cliche of the idiots and daily sportwriters who have never read a book on sabremetrics--which HC66 has confessed to never having done. Frazier made a series of fine to great catches and has a cannon for an arm. "But anyone who watched the games . . ." How can you have possibly watched the games with your head that far up your ass?

Anonymous said...

Hey duque--you don't think two different people can find your posts increasingly mean-spirited, erratic, and basically stupid? Think again. If you can still think through the alcoholic haze, that is.

Kevin said...

Hey, anon, aka "gutless wonder. So happens that I have been reading, studying, and even collecting SABR books since the very early eighties. You don't understand numbers, you barely understand prose, and you sure as hell don't understand baseball, you coward POS. You've been kicked off Facebook, have no girlfriend, no friends, and you were caught masturbating with a pair of zircon encrusted tweezers at work. So do yourself a favour and STFU before someone decides to turn you into a project.

Kevin said...

Is Clint Frazier a Gold Glover? NFW!

Anonymous said...

Maybe he should move to Montana soon.

Kevin said...

^LMAO! Yep, just him and his pygmy pony. Fast. Giddy up.

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