Michael Young was the other big surprise winner of a Gold Glove in 2008 (see last week's Stat of the Week about Nate McLouth). Here's what we had to say about Young in The Fielding Bible three years ago:
"Before switching over to shortstop, Young had a reputation as an excellent defensive second basemen. However, his 2003 plus/minus figure of -16 suggests otherwise. We reviewed videotape of many of his plays that year to try to figure out the discrepancy, because his basic tools are superb. The problem became apparent very quickly. He simply was playing too close to second base and missed hit after hit to his left. His plus/minus figure was -22 to his left that year and +10 to his right. Now, after having moved to shortstop in 2004, he continues to have problems to his left with a cumulative -46 over the last two seasons. He has a very strong arm and it seems pretty likely at this point that he shades too far to his right to try and take advantage of that arm. In 2005 the average Major League team allowed 292 hits up the middle or in the shortstop hole. The Rangers allowed 374. That was the most in baseball. So, in only two years of work as a shortstop, Young claims last place in three-year plus/minus, three-year zone ratings, team hits allowed near the shortstop position in 2005, and he's second to last in Bill James' new relative range plus/minus. Not good."
Three years ago he was one of the worst shortstops in baseball. Has he improved to the point where he's the best in the American League?
Well, he is better. But frankly, that's not saying much. His 2003 and 2004 plus/minus figures were -34 and -39. He has "improved" to -10, -15, and -7 over the last three years. And he still had problems going to his left.
In 2008 there is one area in which he excelled: double plays. Out of 189 ground balls hit his way with a man on first and less than two out, 123 (65%) were turned into outs. That was the seventh highest percentage in baseball out of the 35 shortstops who played the most all year. In addition, he also had 14 Good Plays involving double plays with zero Misplays—the best net figure (+14) on double plays in all of baseball.
However, in addition to his poor plus/minus number, he was also weak in another key area for shortstops—throwing. While his arm may be strong, he clearly has problems in this area. His 15 misplays and errors on thrown balls with zero good plays (net -15) was the fourth worst total in baseball. By contrast, National League Gold Glover and Fielding Bible Award winner Jimmy Rollins had a net of -3 with five throwing good plays and only eight misplays or errors.
One of the key reasons Young won the American League award was lack of competition. In the voting for the Fielding Bible Awards, eight of the top ten shortstops in baseball were from the National League. Young, in fact, came in 11th in the voting. But the guy that should have beaten him for the AL Gold Glove came in fourth in the Fielding Bible Awards voting (the other American Leaguer was White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who came in sixth). The fourth place finisher was Erick Aybar of the Los Angeles Angels. The key reason that Aybar didn't win a Gold Glove is that he only played in 98 games. Nevertheless, his plus/minus was +7 and he turned in more Good Fielding Plays than Young (55 to 51) and had fewer Defensive Misplays (35 to Young's 41).
Source: The Fielding Bible—Volume II (shipping February 2009).