These four Kansas City Royals should be in Gold Glove contention, their manager says
Before he was the Kansas City Royals’ manager, Mike Matheny watched Michael A. Taylor roam the outfield for the Washington Nationals and marveled at the athleticism from afar.
Now, Matheny sees it on a daily basis and still finds reason to gush.
This week, Matheny lauded Taylor as part of a quartet of players in the middle of the Royals’ defense who he believes warrant Gold Glove consideration.
“Michael to me, I think it’s hands down,” Matheny said.
The Royals’ skipper included second baseman-turned-shortstop Nicky Lopez, second baseman Whit Merrifield and five-time Gold Glove-winning catcher Salvador Perez along with Taylor in the group he’s stumping for publicly.
“It’s very nice,” Taylor said when informed of Matheny’s sentiments. “It’s an honor to be mentioned in those awards and to know that your manager thinks that about you and the defense is definitely a positive. One day I hope to win one, so we’ll see.”
Taylor was a finalist for the NL Gold Glove in center field in 2017 with the Nationals. Ender Inciarte of the Atlanta Braves took home the award that year.
He recorded his eighth outfield assist of the season on Tuesday night when he threw out Martin Maldonado at the plate trying to score from second base on a single.
This season, Taylor’s 17 defensive runs saved rank second among major-league outfielders behind only Atlanta’s Adam Duvall. He also ranks fourth among all outfielders in UZR (ultimate zone rating).
At the All-Star break, he ranked second among all American League center fielders in SABR Defensive index rankings behind only Tampa Bay’s Brett Phillips. That metric combines six defensive data sets to come up with a measure of the runs saved by an individual player’s defense over a season compared to the average defensive player at that position.
After having come off the bench his final two seasons with the Nationals, Taylor embraced the idea of playing everyday and being tasked with covering one of the biggest outfields in the majors.
“I definitely looked at it as a challenge and just a great opportunity to come into a team where they value defense, especially in that position,” Taylor said. “To have the opportunity to go out there and prove that I can play defense here, it’s definitely a challenge. It’s one of the biggest yards. It takes a toll on your body. I’ve had to adjust in ways, but it’s something that I was looking forward to.”
Early on this season, Taylor focused a lot of energy and time on getting familiar with the ballpark and getting as much pregame work as he could, but he always planned to taper that down in the summer months in the heat when he needed to conserve energy. He said he has probably done less on-field work and shagging than years past because of his increased playing time.
He’d played 892 2/3 innings in the field entering Wednesday.
As for his high number of outfield assists — he has recorded three throws with a 96 mph or greater. A shortstop when drafted out of high school in Florida, Taylor spent his first year in professional baseball as an infielder.
As an infielder, his arm strength “got me in trouble more times than not because I would take time getting rid of the ball and then rely on my arm, and you can rush things a little bit.”
In the outfield that problem has been eliminated because of a combination of footwork — he uses a slightly unconventional footwork he feels allows him to take sharper angles to the ball and change directions to where he wants to throw easier — and necessity.
“In the outfield, you don’t want to make bang-bang plays,” Taylor said. “You want the catcher, the infielder, whoever is receiving the ball to get the ball as soon as possible and have enough time to make a tag.”
Strength up the middle
While the Royals and probably any other team in baseball will be hard-pressed to get four defenders in the running for Gold Gloves, including at the premium defensive positions on the field, Matheny stands steadfast to his opinion.
He also expressed optimism that the managers and coaches voting have moved passed the trends of past years where reputation sometimes played too huge a role in the selection process.
“I’ll talk about the Gold Glove and Nicky Lopez all day long,” Matheny said. “You another watch a play like (Tuesday) over-the-shoulder almost straight over his head catch. He made that look way easier than what it was, just the consistency of what we’ve seen from him.
“I think it’s probably evolved a little bit in a positive direction to where everybody is using the data more than ever before, and I think that data is going to be very helpful in supporting what Nicky has been able to do. Reputation is what it is, and there’s some guys that won Gold Gloves where it was a farce there for a little while.”
Rafael Palmeiro’s 1999 Gold Glove at first base jumps out as one of those examples of reputation trumping all else. He played just 28 games at first base that season.
Matheny, who won four Gold Gloves as a catcher, said coaches and managers typically get detailed analytics when it comes to things like this.
Those voting will have information such as runs saved, WAR, metrics measuring the amount of ground covered and likelihood of plays being made all at their fingertips.
He believes those pieces of data are all receiving more prominence in those conversations.
