Patrick Saunders talked to Bud Black and Nolan Arenado about Trevor Story’s chances at a Gold Glove this season. They both agree that he’s extremely deserving of the award. In 2018 he wasn’t a finalist, and he should have been, but it looks like this season Story will definitely be one of the final three considered. Saunders also notes that Story leads all National League shortstops with 19 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), so he has qualitative and quantitative backing here. Nick Ahmed, last year’s winner, has 18 DRS though. That slim margin could reverse by the end of the season, or it might make pulling ahead of Ahmed, who is having another fine defensive year, more difficult.
Trevor Story writes new chapter with improved defense | FanGraphs
Right on cue, Devan Fink at FanGraphs dives into the weeds of advanced metrics and asks why they like Story more on defense in 2019. He finds that Story has improved his range runs at shortstop, going from -4.7 in 2018 to 3.7 in 2019 (the number of runs cost or saved based on the players range). This finding is backed up by Inside Edge’s fielding metrics, which classifies each defensive play for a player in six categories, from “impossible” to “routine.” Most notably, Story successfully fielded 25.9% of the “remote” balls hit his way in 2018. Those are balls with a 10-40% chance of being successfully fielded. In 2019 he’s successfully fielded 56.3% of those. He does have fewer chances, but this probably contributes to his excellent DRS. There are also nice .gifs in here, for the more visual types.
The 10 most egregious moments in Coors Field narrative history, part 1 | BSN Denver ($)
Drew Creasman looks at careers and seasons that may have been unduly hurt, or at least not as highly regarded, for playing at Coors Field. Drew looks at both pitchers and hitters, who suffer from misperceptions in different ways. The lens is mostly snubbed awards or placement in final tallies, but he also notes entire careers that deserve more positive recognition than they have gotten.
Self promotion
POLL: How much do you trust the Rockies front office? | Purple Row
The weekly FanPulse polls have been fun this year, but we took a different approach in this one question poll. Take a look and cast a vote, if you haven’t already. We’ll write up the results and speculate on the reasons why later this week.
Purple Row is hiring 2 Rockpile writers | Purple Row
We’re looking for two fine folks to join the Purple Row staff to write Rockpiles and help us lead conversations about the Rockies. All you need to know about the positions are in the link. If there’s something else you want to know, you can email Jeanna Thomas (jeanna.thomas@sbnation.com) or myself. My email is in my author bio.