Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina was omitted from Gold Glove consideration this year, and he believes his ethnicity played a part, saying that not being one of three finalists for the award was an “injustice” perpetrated by voters.
“I don’t know if it’s MLB or whoever but it’s clear that they don’t want this Boriuca Jibarito to draw with the great (Johnny Bench),” Molina wrote on Instagram (as translated from the original post in Spanish). Bench won 10 NL Gold Gloves in his Hall of Fame career; Molina, 38, has won nine in a career that will likely send him to Cooperstown as well.
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Molina also said that it was his impression that MLB was retaliating against him for not being a “puppet.” Molina didn’t provide specifics.
“For me at 38 years I’m still the best,” he wrote (per the translation). “Ask every catcher in the MLB and they’ll tell you!!!”
Molina is entitled to feel a certain way, but he’s wrong on several counts.
First, no one voted for Gold Glove this year. The Society for American Baseball Research announced Thursday that all Gold Glove finalists were determined strictly by a set of metrics titled the SABR Defensive Index, or SDI. The SDI accounts for 25 percent of the voting results in normal years; the other 75 percent comes from MLB managers and coaches. They were excused from voting this year because the regular season was reduced to 60 games in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The Reds’ Tucker Barnhart, the Pirates’ Jacob Stallings and the Cubs’ Willson Contreras were announced Thursday as the three NL Gold Glove “finalists” for 2020 based on SDI (minimim 29 games played). SABR said the full SDI rankings will be published Nov. 3 when the Gold Glove winner is announced. For reference, Molina was fourth in catcher SDI in 2019.
Second, and more specifically, one of the metrics that is given weight in calculating SDI was not flattering to Molina in 2020: Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). He tied for seventh with Contreras and eight other NL catchers with one DRS. Barnhart (nine DRS) and Stallings (seven DRS) were the top two in the league.
Interestingly, SABR says pitch framing is not used in calculating in SDI, but Molina wasn’t an elite framer this year, based on MLB’s Statcast calculations. He ranked seventh in the NL in Runs from Extra Strikes and was 13th in Fangraphs’ framing category.
So while Molina is free to claim discrimination or vaguely accuse MLB of plotting revenge, he should really be sending his strongly worded messages to the nerds for keeping him away from the award this year.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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