Biggest snubs, best picks among MLB Gold Glove selections

— -- Following the Kansas City Royals' World Series victory and consecutive AL pennants, it's more clear than ever that excellent defensive play can have a major impact on overall team success. The challenge then is in recognizing it.

When Lorenzo Cain makes a diving catch to rob a hitter of extra bases, it's obvious he made a great play. However, the best defenders often make difficult plays look routine because of their range, arm strength, anticipation and decision-making. Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) tackles that problem with its defensive runs saved (DRS) statistic, which at its core evaluates players' abilities to turn batted balls into outs relative to the league average out rates of similar batted balls based on their locations and velocities.

With DRS as a benchmark, here are the biggest snubs from the 2015 MLB Gold Glove Award selections, as well as what we considered the best picks.

Biggest snubs

As such, Kinsler has never won a Gold Glove Award despite easily pacing the position in DRS since 2009 (as the table shows). Kinsler has actually finished with the most DRS at second base in all of baseball three different times in his career, including last season and this season. With Pedroia's hamstring injury limiting him to 93 games this season and Cano's overall struggles in Seattle, Kinsler seemed primed to finally get over the hump.

Instead, Jose Altuve of the Astros won his first award. The Astros led the AL with 57 runs saved as a team this season, but so much of their success was about their strategy. They were second in baseball -- and way ahead of third place -- with 1,416 shifts on balls in play, and they saved 20 runs because of it. Altuve made a lot of plays because of his excellent starting positioning, but the Astros' coaching staff is responsible for much of that success. Because of that, BIS gives defensive credit or penalty to teams rather than individual players on shifted plays. In traditional alignments, BIS estimates Altuve saved only three runs this season. Kinsler saved 19, or 16 more than Altuve and 11 more than any other AL second baseman.

As a quick but relevant aside, similar to Altuve, Royals infielders Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, and Alcides Escobar probably benefited from the halo effect of the team's overall defensive excellence. All three players won Gold Glove Awards despite finishing well behind the DRS leader at the position.

Since entering the league in 2012, Simmons has been the best defensive player in baseball in terms of DRS, as the table shows, and it isn't particularly close. Usually when the accepted best player has the best statistical season, he wins the award. It's good to see the voters aren't relying on reputation when making their selections, but this is probably a case of the reputation actually matching reality this season.

Posey's biggest edge over Molina came in pitch framing, where Posey saved 10 runs compared to only two for Molina. Considering that elite pitch-framer Jonathan Lucroy lost the Gold Glove to Molina last season despite leading the league with 24 runs saved -- 14 runs of which were due to framing -- it seems voters are not accounting for pitch framing in their selections.

Best selections

For the most part, the Gold Glove winners mirrored the DRS standings. In total, 10 of the 18 winners -- Dallas Keuchel, Yoenis Cespedes, Kevin Kiermaier, Zack Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt, Dee Gordon, Nolan Arenado, Starling Marte, A.J. Pollock and Jason Heyward -- led the league at their position in runs saved. Two others -- Manny Machado and Crawford -- finished second, and Kole Calhoun finished third.

In several instances, voters went against conventional wisdom to make the best choice. Most interestingly, Cespedes won the Gold Glove in the AL despite playing his final 57 games for the New York Mets in the NL. One of the pitfalls of having a league-specific award is that it can rob deserving players who change leagues at the trade deadline. However, even in his partial season for the Tigers, Cespedes saved the team 11 runs, which led the league among left fielders. In particular, Cespedes made his mark with his throwing arm, tallying eight throw-outs of baserunners without the use of a relay man, trailing only Eddie Rosario's nine in the AL. Cespedes' candidacy was helped by the fact reigning four-time Gold Glover winner Alex Gordon was limited to only 104 games in total this season because of his groin injury.

Lastly, the Gold Glove discussion cannot end before mentioning Kiermaier's much-deserved first award. In previous seasons, the Orioles' Adam Jones had ended up among of our "most surprising winners" areas thanks to a defensive reputation that was not supported by his advanced statistics. This season, Kiermaier not only led all center fielders with his 42 DRS, he set the record for most DRS in a season by any player at any position since BIS started tracking the stat in 2003. It was only his first full season in the majors, but Kiermaier's performance this year puts him on the short list candidates to be considered the best defensive player in baseball, probably right beside the man whose record he just broke: Andrelton Simmons.