10 Most Overrated Defenders in Baseball History

The hardest skill to measure is also the easiest to overrate.

Such is the way of defense and baseball.

We know defense matters. Just how much it matters and how to track its impact eludes baseball stat heads more than any of the game’s other major facets.

In the absence of convincing fielding statistics, we often rely on the anecdotal and the experiential in our evaluation of individual defenders. And we do so in a way we would rarely allow in the evaluation of other baseball skills.

When we witness Wily Mo Pena hitting a 500-foot home run, we reflexively curb our conclusions with the hard reality of statistics, noting that by most any measure—batting average, on-base percentage, etc.—Wily Mo Pena isn’t a very good hitter.

The conclusions drawn from the fielding equivalent of a 500-foot home run, maybe a diving catch or a strong throw, usually go unchecked.

Was the diving catch merely the product of a bad route? Would the player have had to dive if he was been faster?

We have no way of knowing for sure, so we substitute awe for proof and make defensive heroes out of those who thrill.

Thanks to more sophisticated defensive metrics; however, that formula is changing. A 2009 article in Sports Illustrated by Albert Chen summarizes the impact:

"

“There will be a day when metrics like UZR will be as accepted by the mainstream as they are in the sabermetrics community; a day when a player's plus/minus carries as much weight in a Rotisserie league as his offensive statistics; a day when a 33-year-old centerfielder who has lost a step won't be considered one of the best defensive outfielders in the game; a day when the eye and the brain will no longer be able to deceive. Until then, the revolution continues.”

"

Because of these advents, it’s now easier than ever to see what defenders truly earned their stellar reputations and who merely benefited from the chasm between perception and truth.

That “revolution” in baseball statistics, more than anything, drives the conclusions in this list.

In Defense of Numbers: How I Define Overrated

Numbers, numbers, blah blah blah. I can hear the bored sighs already.

If you think baseball players should be evaluated by “feel” or “common sense” or “that SportsCenter highlight you saw once with your friend Xavier,” you won’t like this list.

But before you turn to another article or rush off to the comment board, allow me an explanation.

Defensive metrics aren’t perfect, and I don’t claim to understand them completely. I do think they’re useful, and I think that because they largely corroborate much of what we already assume.

Look, for example, at the metric designed by baseballreference.com called defensive WAR. The statistic measures how many wins a player contributes through his defense relative to the efforts of a replacement-level player at that same position.

According to defensive WAR, the four best defenders of all time are, in order: Brooks Robinson, Andruw Jones, Roberto Clemente and Ozzie Smith.

Sound about right?

Other members of the top 40 include Carl Yastrzemski, Willie Mays, Cal Ripken Jr., Ivan Rodriguez, Robin Ventura, Al Kaline, Scott Rolen, Rey Sanchez, Mike Schmidt, Devon White, Omar Vizquel, Keith Hernandez and Gary Gaetti.

There are a couple of surprsies, but in all it’s clear that defensive WAR does an excellent job capturing the various attributes of great defenders and converting them into a simple and easy-to-understand number. How else to explain such reasonable results?

Now I freely admit that the statistics I reference aren’t perfect tools, and using them in too narrow a context is dangerous.

I won’t, for example, claim that Ivan Rodriguez didn’t deserve the 1994 Gold Glove award because Chris Hoiles had a slightly higher defensive WAR that year.

I will, however, claim that Craig Biggio wasn’t a great defender because consistent and reliable statistics kept over the course of his long career say that he wasn’t.

So was Biggio, who won four gold gloves despite those facts, overrated?

The way I see it, he was.

Glossary of Terms

Defensive WAR

The number of wins a player added to their team relative to a theoretical replacement player solely through defense. The statistic is cumulative.

Plus/Minus

From the folks who invented it: “Here’s the question that we try to answer with the Plus/Minus System: How many plays did a fielder make above or below an average player at his position?”

UZR

Stands for Ultimate Zone Rating. From the folks who invented it: “UZR puts a run value to defense, attempting to quantify how many runs a player saved or gave up through their fielding prowess (or lack thereof).”

UZR Range Runs

A subset of UZR that calculates how many runs a player saves by getting (or not getting) to the ball.

UZR Outfield Arm Runs

From the folks who invented it: “The amount of runs above average an outfielder saves with their arm” by preventing runners from advancing

Fielding runs above average

From the folks who invented it: “The number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays he made.”

Torii Hunter

Perception

Nine gold gloves

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -2.9

Career Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) as a center fielder: -3.5

A great fielder at the beginning of his career with the Twins who regressed badly from his mid-20s onward, Torii Hunter’s star got blown out of proportion by one well-watched play.

At the 2002 All-Star game, Hunter made a spectacular catch to rob Barry Bonds of a home run. It was a remarkable effort, one made more memorable by Bonds’ joking attempt to tackle him after the catch, and it left most baseball fans with the impression that Hunter was the game’s single best defender.

The impression would stick.

Hunter, already a one-time Gold Glove winner by 2002, would go on to win another gold glove that year and in each of the seven years that followed.

To date, Hunter is one of the most decorated defensive outfielders ever. His nine Gold Gloves rank him seventh all-time in that category, above luminaries like Paul Blair, Garry Maddox, Curt Flood, Devon White and Carl Yazstrzemski.

All this from a player who never had back-to-back seasons with a positive defensive WAR.

Hunter deserved a couple of gold gloves at his height, but no way is he one of the all-time great outfielders. The metrics of others in his company—players like Andruw Jones, WIllie Mays, Roberto Clemente and Ichiro—put that in very clear terms.

Ken Caminiti

Perception

Won three consecutive Gold Gloves

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -1.8

Career fielding percentage: .946

In 1995, admittedly with the help of banned substances, Ken Caminiti transformed from a solid corner infielder into one of the game’s most complete hitters. As his bat gained notoriety, so too did his glove, although there was scant evidence that he’d improved in any appreciable way as a defender.

It’s an all-too-common trend among gold glove winners, an award that at times seems as much about hitting as it is about fielding.

Although even in that context, Caminiti’s case is a perplexing one. Not only do advanced metrics rate Caminiti poorly, he also wasn’t a good fielder by the standard measures his era.

Caminiti never made less than 20 errors in his three consecutive Gold Glove seasons and led all NL third basemen in errors the first year he won the award.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

Perception

10 Gold Gloves

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -2.3

Career UZR: -112.1

Ken Griffey, Jr.'s defensive career is one of the most difficult to assess in baseball history.

Conventional wisdom calls Griffey one of the best defenders ever. Only seven non-pitchers, Brooks Robinson, Ivan Rodriguez, Keith Hernandez, Ozzie Smith, Omar Vizquel, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays won more Gold Gloves than “the Kid.”

By contrast, a fair number of advanced defensive measures rank Griffey as one of the worst defensive outfielders ever. That’s right, ever.

So he’s overrated, right?

Well, maybe.

The problem with using advanced metrics to rate Griffey lies in the fact that many of those measures came into use just as Griffey experienced knee troubles and went into decline.

For example, fangraph.com’s UZR consistently rated Griffey one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball from 2002 until his retirement in 2010. Coincidentally, 2002 was also the first of three consecutive years in which Griffey suffered season-ending injuries.

Considering that Griffey won all 10 of his gold gloves before 2000 and thus before any reliable defensive metrics, it’s tempting to disregard all of the damning evidence attached to the latter part of his career.

Temptation be damned.

I can’t just accept the premise that Griffey, even with his injuries, could go from supposedly the best outfielder in baseball to the worst outfielder in baseball so quickly and decisively.

It’s more likely that we overrated Griffey  from the start based on the enticing fluidity of his game, the graceful way he ranged back on the ball or the artful gait of his long strides.

Griffey was one of the better defensive outfielders in history, and perhpas the most electric. I don’t think he was one of the best.

Craig Biggio

Perception
Won four consecutive Gold Gloves

 

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -7.9

Fielding Bible’s plus/minus system ranked him the third worst second baseman from 2005-2007.

It’s no accident that Craig Biggio won his first of four consecutive gold gloves the same year he eclipsed .300 for the first time. As the Astros second baseman reached his offensive prime, the defensive accolades arrived apace.

I’m not suggesting that Biggio, a converted catcher, wasn’t a solid defender. He had a strong arm, was pretty sure-handed and turned double plays well enough.

Biggio, however predictably, played middle infield like a converted catcher. Never blessed with a ton of range or exceptional agility, Biggio made due with what he had.

That’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not worthy of four Gold Gloves.

J.T. Snow

Perception

Six gold gloves; ranks sixth all-time among first basemen

Stat

Career defensive WAR: -2.8

Of the seven first basemen to win more than five gold gloves, only J.T. Snow owns a negative career defensive WAR. It is a particularly damning appraisal because so many of the other first baseman thought of as great—Keith Hernandez, Albert Pujols, George Scott, Mark Grace, Wes Parker and Don Mattingly—make out well in newer defensive measurements.

Snow stands alone in his statistical rejection.

Snow’s worst defensive season by defensive WAR coincided with the first of six gold gloves he won as a member of the California Angels and San Francisco Giants. From there out, he would post average to below-average results for the rest of his 15-year career.

Snow certainly looked smooth around the bag, picking balls in the dirt and snagging one-hoppers with fluid grace. The numbers, however, don’t bear that out.

Roberto Alomar

Perception

10 gold gloves, most ever for a second baseman

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -3.4

Fielding runs above average: -32

Leave it to Roberto Alomar to play the lightning rod.

Of the 16 players in baseball history with 10 or more gold gloves, Alomar is the only one consistently rated below average by new defensive statistics. Defensive WAR, runs saved over replacement level, range factor and UZR all give Alomar tepid reviews.

Unlike Ken Griffey Jr., whose statistical footprint vacillated between best and worst, Alomar shuffled between “C” and “C-” throughout his career. He never had a defensive WAR better than 1.1 and posted negative totals in six of his 10 gold glove years.

Alomar benefited from the attention brought to his hitting, which was legendarily great, and the grace he exhibited in the field. Those two elements obscured his lack of range and elevated his status in the eyes of gold glove voters.

Alomar was great at the things we could clearly see and assess. It was the other stuff that sabotaged his chances for statistical greatness.

Bret Boone

Perception

Four Gold Gloves

Stats

Career UZR: -11.4

Career defensive WAR: -4.1

Plus/Minus: -41

For the first decade of his career, Gold Glove voters didn’t think much of Bret Boone.

Then at age 33, an unlikely time for a defensive evolution, Boone became positively studly in the voters’ eyes. After posting a career-best year at the plate in 2001, Boone won three consecutive gold gloves from 2002 to 2005.

Nothing much about Boone’s statistics changed during those years. He continued to rate below average in defensive WAR, and even his fielding percentages—the most common yardstick of the early 2002s—remained around career level.

Only his bat improved, and with it came a slew of unexplained defensive praise.

Bernie Williams

Perception

Won four consecutive Gold Gloves

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -12.0

Career UZR: -109.5

Career UZR Outfield Arm Runs: -21.0

You won’t find a single advanced defensive stat with something nice to say about Bernie Williams.

If an astoundingly low -12.0 career defensive WAR wasn’t harsh enough, Williams was one of the five worst centerfielders in the AL during each of the four years he won a Gold Glove, according to a baseballreference.com stat that measures how many runs a player prevents with his defense.

Williams’ arm only made matters worse, a noodly limb that usually ranked as one of the league’s least effective.

Team success and personal hitting prowess likely helped Williams’ gold glove case. The Yankees won world championships in three of the four years Williams won the Gold Glove, and he never hit less than 20 home runs or below .300 over that stretch.

Defensive accolades gravitated towards Williams when his star was brightest, a development based on circumstance and in conflict with measurable greatness.

Dave Winfield

Perception

Seven gold gloves

Stats

Career defensive WAR: -9.2

Fielding runs above average: -91

Tools don’t make the fielder, and Dave Winfield’s career makes that case.

Winfield could run, throw and jump with the best. He was a tremendous athlete and truly one of the great hitters the game has seen.

Those things combined say nothing about his defense, or specifically how good he was at preventing runs.

He wasn’t good.

Winfield’s range was below average even at the height of his career and more than made up for the fact that he accumulated an impressive outfield assist total.

It was easy to fall in love with Winfield’s skill set, but nothing about his statistical profile screams seven gold gloves to me.

Derek Jeter

Perception

Five gold gloves

Stats

Career UZR range runs: -75.6

Career defensive WAR: -14.7

Career UZR: -48.9

Plus/Minus: -125

At this point you’ve likely heard both sides of the argument on Derek Jeter’s defensive prowess.

Jeter makes memorable plays (the flip), sacrifices his body for the ball (Derek, meet seat) and even has his own signature defensive play (the backhand-jump-throw combo). Jeter’s accumulated more anecdotal mojo than any contemporary shortstop, and those swayed by that logic give Jeter high regard.

The statistics beg to differ.

Jeter has been one of the worst defensive shortstops over the last decade by most statistical measures. His range rates abysmally and a below-average arm isn’t helping matters.

Regardless, Jeter continues to collect hardware and has five of the last eight AL shortstop gold gloves to his name. A chorus of voices outside New York say Jeter didn’t earn those honors, and the statistics conclusively agree.