Of my six picks for outfield Golden Gloves, four were elected. The other two missed selection by 100 votes apiece.

My picks, their final vote totals placing in the poll of Japan’s baseball media and overall rankings in their league from baseball analytics site Delta Graphs. Unless noted all players are center fielders
Central League
Yohei Oshima, Chunichi Dragons (177) 2nd, DG CF 2
Ryosuke Hirata, Chunichi Dragons (139) 3rd, DG RF 1
Masayuki Kuwahara, DeNA BayStars (38) 7th, DG CF 1

Others:
Yoshihiro Maru, Hiroshima Carp (230) 1st, DG CF 4
Seiya Suzuki, Hiroshima Carp (102) 4th, DG RF 3
Takayoshi Noma, Hiroshima Carp (61) 5th, DG LF 1
Norichika Aoki, Yakult Swallows (39) 6th, DG CF 3

Pacific League
Yuki Yanagita, SoftBank Hawks (156) 2nd, DG CF 3
Haruki Nishikawa, Nippon Ham Fighters (143) 3rd, DG CF 2
Kazuki Tanaka, Rakuten Eagles (29) 5th, DG CF 1

Others:
Shogo Akiyama, Seibu Lions (216) 1st, DG CF 4
Seiji Uebayashi, SoftBank Hawks (134) 4th, DG RF 2

My votes started using defensive win shares and pretty much moved straight on from there. Outfield defensive win shares are about the weakest part of the entire system in my opinion. Because win shares tries to establish a cumulative positive value with no rental cost for taking up playing time, one will see left fielders who play everyday get listed above center fielders who contribute much more defensively but who play fewer innings.

So I make a slight adjustment for playing time and I also consulted analytic site Delta Graphs to make my choices. Unfortunately, their analysis of defensive contribution over 1,200 defensive innings produced exactly the same results as Bill James’ team-oriented-holistic approach. DG uses Arm ratings and UZR — which I can’t calculate, but this year I have some interesting data about how many times runners advanced against each team on plays to the three different outfield positions. This data is cumulative. If there is a single with a runner on first and and the lead runner advances to third and the batter remains on first that’s coded as “R1 > R13.” Hits with two outs are different from those with fewer than two, so they are treated separately.

I currently have only cleaned up my 2018 data set, so their is more noise than a data set looking at two years worth of data points.

My decision to exclude Shogo Akiyama, who won his fourth straight Golden Glove, received the most attention, one twitter follower pointing out the disparity in the vote totals amassed. One does have to respect that more members of the baseball media voted for Akiyama.

But, let’s compare what little evidence I have:
The Hawks pitchers’ were slightly more likely to get infield ground outs than outfield fly outs than the Lions.

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The Hawks’ center fielders fielded 20 fewer singles and 14 more extra-base hits, suggesting Akiyama might be better at cutting off balls in the gaps than Yanagita and his cohorts. Akiyama appears to have made a slightly higher percentage of potential catches — although that’s guessing. Delta Graphs gave Yanagita a higher UZR rating than Akiyama.

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Here’s how the teams’ center fielders interacted with base runners after a single to center with fewer than two outs and a runner on first:

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And here they were with two outs:

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And with a runner on 2nd with fewer than two outs:

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And with a runner on 2nd with two outs:

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As a group, the Hawks center fielders had 10 assists, took part in four double plays and made three errors. Akiyama appears to be easier to run on, had four assists, took part in one double play and made four errors. He’s pretty good at going and getting balls, but he doesn’t have a great arm.

With runners on 1st and 2nd with fewer than two outs, four runs scored against the Hawks on 10 singles to center, while two outs were made.

Against Akiyama, seven runs scored on 14 singles without an out being recorded.

Now that the Golden Glove Award votes have been announced, there are a few things I’d like to add to my voting story.

Among the pitchers, I voted for Hiroshima Carp lefty Kris Johnson, and Rakuten Eagles righty Takahiro Norimoto. Both of these guys finished third.

The CL vote went to Tomoyuki Sugano of the Yomiuri Giants for the third straight year, while Takayuki Kishi of the Rakuten Eagles won his first. I had Sugano rated very low, because he was below average in the three hard counting percentages I measured (see below).

One thing about Golden Gloves is that reputation goes a long way. Had he foiled a single bunt all season, he would have rated much higher. But here’s the thing, and John Gibson (@JBWpodcast) and I discussed this Monday on our latest podcast. A reputation has value on the field — if opponents limit tactical options to avoid someone’s perceived strength. I know it’s backward, but that happens.

I once calculated that by throwing out runners at an astonishing rate, Hall of Fame catcher Atsuya Furuta was helping opponents create runs, because they abandoned trying to steal against him. This meant his Yakult Swallows were given fewer easy outs on defense that other clubs were getting when opponents tried to steal against them.

If opponents don’t want to risk bunting against Sugano, that’s something in his favor, I suppose. But my pick, Johnson, has been outstanding at starting double plays the past two years and fields bunts really well, and has an outstanding number of plays considering the number of untaken ground balls in the infield and singles that aren’t stopped before getting to center field.

Kishi was, before I did a more thoughtful analysis, my first choice, above average in four of the five measures I looked at. He and Sugano are both reasonable choices, I suppose.

I don’t think too many people care about which pitcher wins an NPB Golden Glove, but the information is so scarce, I thought I’d contribute to what little discussion there is by trying to answer a few questions.

Because tomorrow is the deadline for NPB Golden Glove voting, I’ll throw some things out there. There’s very little info available for pitchers so I spent way too much time on this.

I wanted to measure how pitchers compared to their NPB peers in errors, bunts foiled, double plays started.

Those three are concrete, because we know the number of bunt attempts each pitcher fielded and about how many times each pitcher got a ground ball in a GDP opportunity – and how many of those weren’t taken by one of his teammates.

I have two more categories that are iffier.

1. The number of “bonus” plays a pitcher makes more than the NPB norm from balls at are :
a) infield ground balls in play to the pitcher, catcher or first baseman.
b) fly outs to the pitcher.
c) sacrifice hits.
d) Other singles that stay in the infield or get through to center field.

I don’t want to put much weight on that since this context is mostly noise.

2. The number of first base infield singles, since a fair number of these occur every season when the pitcher is not in position to cover the bag.

Again there are lots of other infield singles to first that don’t involve the pitcher, so I wouldn’t give that very much weight.

The tables below are for the pitchers who are eligible for Golden Glove votes having pitched 143 innings or appeared in 47 games. They are ranked in the order of points I assigned to each category – which I’ll put at the bottom for those of you inclined to look under the hood.

Point weights used for rankings

2.25 points for each error fewer than the NPB average per fielding chance, and for each GDP started more than the NPB average for ground balls in GDP opportunities.

2.5 points for each good additional good outcome (no fielder’s choice, hit, error or sacrifice) on bunts fielded by the pitcher.

.25 points for: every play made by the pitcher from the set of balls in play (listed above), and every additional first base infield single.