According to Fangraphs, over the past season and a half Brett has been worth 9.9 fWAR. That’s just 0.3 behind Albert Pujols and 0.2 ahead of Evan Longoria. It’s good for ninth in all of baseball. Anyone who has watched Brett come into his own as a player since he inherited a starting job after the team traded Melky Cabrera should have a sense that he’s a good player, but is he one of the top ten in baseball over the past two seasons?
Fangraphs reports that during this time Gardner has managed a .357 wOBA, good for a 122 wRC+, which is excellent, but it also puts him dead last among the top ten players during this time period. The culprit here — to the extent that there is one — is Gardner’s lack of power.
Over that same period Gardner has been worth 6.7 runs in Fangraphs’ Base Running metric, which is tied for ninth in all of baseball (and no doubt reduced due to Gardner’s slow start stealing bases this season). That’s a solid score, and makes up some of the difference between Brett and the bigger bats who also rate among the games best players of the past two seasons, but that alone isn’t how he got to 9.9 fWAR.
If you take Gardner’s defense into account, Fangraphs says he has been worth 40.4 runs since 2010. That isn’t just the best in all of baseball over this time period, that’s four wins! To put things in perspective, Andres Torres is second on this list, with a score of 24.2. According to Fangraphs, Brett Gardner isn’t just the best defender in all of baseball, he’s the best defender in all of baseball by a country mile. No one in the game comes close.
The question, then, is should we trust defensive metrics? The eye test for defense doesn’t always work at the margins, but we can give Gardner a pass. He runs down everything hit to him and about 30% of the balls hit toward Curtis Granderson. The question is whether or not Fangraphs is accurately measuring Gardner’s defense. Is it really as valuable as the website suggests?
The surprising answer, is probably yes, provided you also trust Baseball Reference. Gardner is one of those rare cases where Fangraphs and Baseball Reference are both in agreement when it comes to their respective offensive and defensive WAR metrics. Fangraphs argues that Brett has been worth 15.5 defensive runs this season and 24.9 defensive runs last season, while B-Ref rates him at 19 last season and 19 again this season. While that’s not in perfect alignment, they come pretty close together over the entire observed period. In total, Fangraphs suggests Brett was worth 6.2 wins last season, and 3.7 this season while B-Ref rates him at 5.2 last season and 3.4 so far this year, putting the two sites fairly close to agreement in terms of Brett’s value.
I’m not quite ready to annoint Brett as the best Yankee over the past season and a half, perhaps because when push comes to shove I’m more old school than I realize. (Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson have been excellent over this stretch as well.) However, I am willing to say that he’s the best all-around position player on the Yankees. Gardner does everything a player needs to do. His only flaw is that he doesn’t hit for power, but he can help make up for that with his speed. If he keeps up his current pace through the end of the year, however, I may just change my mind and remove the “all around” caveat from my assessment.
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22 Responses to The best player on the Yankees since the start of 2010?
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TIQ IQ
I am not sure if he has been the best overall player since 2010, but I do believe he is the best defensive outfielder that I’ve EVER seen play for the Yankees.
More than suspicion about the reliability of defensive metrics, I am not confident that stats like WAR properly incorporate the contribution. For that reason, I’d probably also go with Cano among position players, although all hitters take a back seat to C.C.
Yeah, WAR weights offense/defense equally, which is suspect. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of an adjustment.
Then you didn’t see Mickey Rivers play, nor Roberto Kelly, Bernie and Gerald Williams, even Mel Hall was pretty good himself.
Bernie was a terrible defensive player. He never took a good line to a ball in his life, he was just incredibly fast. That speed is the only reason he stole a base as well, he had no instincts on the base paths. Bernie was a tremendous natural athlete, but I don’t think he came close to utilizing even half of it on the ball field, especially outside of hitting.
It’s impressive how far Grit has come. I still remember how skeptical I was — and many of us were — throughout the -09-’10 offseason about Gardner’s ability to contribute at the big league level.
It’s pretty amazing what Brett’s managed to accomplish since then. Just imagine if he had power.
Just imagine if he was batting leadoff instead of Captain Can’t Hit Anymore.
What would be the Yankees current record if Gardner had as many at-bats as the leadoff man as CCHA and CCHA had as many at-bats in the #9 slot as Gardner? I’m gonna say the Yanks are two wins better thus 7.5 games ahead of the Rays for the wildcard going into tonight. I think CCHA’s bat cost the Yanks a win last night and I’m pretty sure he’s cost the Yanks at least one with his bat before that. One could argue his injury cost one cuz his fill-in Ramiro Pena cost the Yanks a game with his glove (final game against the Mets and second good Garcia start against them pissed away.)
When you think about it, CCHA would be the ideal #9 hitter because of his low strikeout rate: only 41 K in 344 PA.
So let’s bat him 8/9th, by all means. Wouldn’t want to have a run creator at the top of the line-up, Heaven forbid.
Word. Why are ownership and the front office so scared of Jeter? Do they honestly believe/think fans would stay away from Yankee Stadium in droves if CCHA was dropped to ninth, benched, or dropped to ninth and sat regularly? Those fans aren’t real Yankee fans if they did that, just Jeter Fanboys And Fangirls.
The Yanks owe Jeter nothing.
Hi all,
Thank you for your comments. I’m glad everyone has taken the time to read and comment on the post.
I also wish you could have read the entire post. I’m backed up at work today. I just got to the site now and it looks like Word Press (or my own computer at home) ate the first couple of paragraphs from this post and deleted one of my line spacings.
I apologize for any confusion this may have caused. To the extent I can, I will restore the full post when I get home tonight.
On a final note, Brett Gardner rocks! Defense is important! Go home grown talent!
We should consider how it was that Gardner was not more highly thought of as he came up in the minors. My recollection is that the hype was much more about AJax than about Gardner. Is there something wrong with how we evaluate prospects? By we, I mean fandom, not the Yankees.
The basic answer is that Gardner has zero power, but I’m slowly concluding that the Yankees handle their top prospects badly, over analyzing them and dangling them as trade bait too much. As a result, those players (AJax, Hughes, Banuelos, etc) find themselves under too much scrutiny, so other potential top prospects such as Nova and Gardner go under the radar and blossom well.
The only counter to this would be that players such as Gardner got by all talent evaluators, unless I missed something.
It’s funny you say that Mike; I too have found myself drawn more and more to the idea that the Yankees really don’t seem to have a clear idea of what to do with their top prospects. Or I suppose it could be that they’ve just had spectacularly bad luck in developing them. I’ve been planning to jot my thoughts down on this in a more cohesive post; hopefully I can get to it soon.
I think both are instincts are correct. If the Yankees couldn’t develop prospects in general players such as David Roberton, Brett Gardner, and Robinson Cano never would have come along.
We also know the Yankees aren’t poor judges of talent because all of baseball loves the farm system.
My gut feeling is that it stinks to be a top prospect for the Yankees. You’ll constantly be under intense scrutiny, and you’ll be mentioned as trade bait for every top flight player coming onto the market. That can’t be easy for a player to develop under.
Nevermind that the Yankees actually tried to trade Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams several times, I’m willing to bet the modern team would have tried to trade Derek Jeter for 1996′s equivalent of Cliff Lee.
That’s an interesting question. I see two areas where people missed on Gardner:
1. We knew he was supposed to be a good enough defender to stick in centerfield in the majors, but because of the lack of defensive stats in the minors, we had no idea how good of a defender he was, or was capable of becoming (and the value of his defense is).
2. Most assumed that his high walk rates were more the result of bad minor league pitching rather than legitimate plate discipline. As a result, given his lack of power, most people predicted that nobody would walk him in the majors, and he wouldn’t hit enough to be valuable without the walks.
I guess the lesson from Gardner is that plate discipline (and good minor league walk rates) may be sustainable even in hitters that don’t hit for much power – it’s a real skill that can manifest in the majors as well. Gardner has certainly hit a lot better than anyone thought possible, and I don’t think anyone could have predicted his defense to be as awesome as it has been
Any thoughts on who in the minor league system right now might be better than we think based on these insights?
Here are ten unscientific, low on the stats reasons why Jeter should bat ninth:
1. He’s protected by Gardner.
2. He has eight batters to study the starting pitcher for his first plate appearance.
3. He has more time to study the starting pitcher the longer the eight at-bats before him and even more time if the first six go down in order with commercial breaks.
4. As I mentioned, only 41 K in 344 PA. If he didn’t K in his next 25 PA, he’d have a .111 KA (Strikeout Average, my stat – don’t steal it haha!!! I’m sure someone has come up with it already.)
5. Since his current KA (K / PA) is .119, he’d K in less games cuz he’d have less PA per game. ‘Say he had a .125 KA for a K per 8 PA. If he had as much as 15 PA in three games, he could strikeout as little as once in those games since his K rate is one every 8 PA thus two every 16.
6. He has more opportunites to drive in a run without a hit since he would no longer be the first batter of a game and the probability of a homerun to lead off a game is slightly higher with Gardner than with Jeter.
7. If Jeter’s OBP improves in the #9, maintains his current KA, and steals more, he is essentially a second leadoff hitter thus a super #9.
8. By batting ninth, Jeter could attempt to steal more because if he’s thrown out, Gardner leads off next inning. When Gardner is caught stealing to end an inning, Jeter leads off the next inning, currently.
9. Jeter has less pressure to produce and his production would be less emphasized esp. if Laird (Eric Chavez if he returns, Ty Wigginton if he was acquired) played 3B more and Nunez made some starts at SS. I don’t buy that Jeter doesn’t feel pressure to produce even now, he does.
10. It’s best for the team which the Yankees are. Jeter can’t hit for average or power, get on base or steal one. What he does have going for him is he makes contact albeit weak contact, but you can only hope it improves i.e. he makes better outs. Then again maybe it doesn’t really matter what kind of outs he makes. If the Yanks are tied 0-0 through eight innings against Philly in Game 7 of the 2011 World Series, their #7 hitter leads off the ninth with a hit, moves to second on a wild pitch, third on the #8 hitter’s sac fly deep to RF, Jeter could be the World Series hero (and possibly MVP for a second time if he has a decent WS) if he drives in the tie-breaking, go-ahead, game-winning, and World Series-winning run with a weak tapper to 2B and Mo saves it, final score 1-0 Yanks.
First, need to know what CCHA is. Now!
To me, the biggest thing with the batting order is this. They have Gardner batting eighth, in front of Nuney, instead of first, in front of Granderson. When Gardner gets on, he creates absolute chaos. Steals, holes in the infield, messes up what the other pitcher throws, etc.
Other than Girardi, who on earth would not want Granderson benefitting from that and taking advantage of it, rather than Nuney?
This is like giving somebody a golf handicap. It is very obvious stuff.
I would like better Granderson at 3rd being protected by Canó, and Teixeira as 5th.
Leadoff and second should be either Gardner or Jeter, i go with Gardner as leadoff because it seems he doesn’t know how to bunt with runners on base (or doesn’t want to bunt appropiately), but Jeter knows how to do it, that would mean that if Gardner gets on base, steals a base and Jeter bunts him to third, then Granderson could get an RBI, and if he is walked then Canó would bat with men on first and third and one out, opening also the door for Teixeira.
With the way the lineup is set up right now, Teixeira is giving up too many outs, and Granderson can be pitched around because Teix is struggling.
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Sorry to spoil the party but I can’t agree with the premise that Gardner’s defense, impressive as it is, makes up for his lack of extra base power. Gardner plays a corner OF position. I will admit that he probably has as much impact with the leather, wheels and arm as anyone I’ve seen at that position (and I’ve been watching since 1962) but I simply do not trust the defensive metrics or the relationship between them and WAR that is implied by the Fangraphs data (irrespective of how well it agrees with Baseball Reference). And I have a hard time buying that LF defense, even played at the level Gardner is currently achieving, is important enough to outweigh the lack of extra base power (and some of Gardner’s other quirks – like long slumps that one would not think characteristic of a “small ball” player and some questionable baseball instincts).
Gardner is a good player, adds a dimension the Yankees have often lacked – they’re lucky to have him, he should be batting lead off and all of that. BUT – he’s not nearly as good or as valuable as Albert Pujols or better than Evan Longoria. Any numbers that purport to show that are, in my opinion, seriously flawed.
WAR is a counting stat. If you get injured, your WAR will be lowered. If you bat 9th, you have about 150 less plate appearances compared to the leadoff hitter. Gardner was out for a few weeks in 2010, was a part-time platoon player in 2011, and bats in the bottom of the order for most of 2010 and 2011. All these things more than make up the minor WAR variation versus other players.
On just about every other team, Gardner would be batting leadoff full-time and playing center which would greatly increase his value.
There’s an obvious bias in favor of power both among casual fans and among the arbitrators. That’s why Granderson and Cano seem like better players even though I don’t think they are. Granderson missed half the year in 2010 and was a hole on offense for all but 2 months in 2010. Cano had an MVP year both in terms of offense and defense, but both areas have regressed in 2011. Cano’s OBP is nearly half of what it was in 2011 vs 2010 due to declining plate discipline.
Gardner has been the most valuable Yankee despite not being properly utilize.
[...] Jaggers-Radolf’s excellent post on Brett Gardner, and several of the comments it generated, got me thinking about how he was a [...]