Every year I see the names of the Gold Glove winners, and every year I think they lose a little more credibility.
This years winners:
C – Joe Mauer, Yadier Molina
1B – Carlos Pena, Adrian Gonzalez
2B – Dustin Pedroia, Brandon Phillips
3B – Adrian Beltre, David Wright
SS – Michael Young, Jimmy Rollins
OF – Ichiro Suzuki, Torii Hunter, Grady Sizemore, Nate McLouth, Carlos Beltran, Shane Victorino.
P – Mike Mussina, Greg Maddux
My main beef is the outfield selections. You have guys that are specialized in the field (you wouldn’t want Manny Ramirez anywhere other than left field, while someone like Sizemore would be a waste out of center). Why is it this award doesn’t reward the top left, center, and right fielders. It drives me nuts to see 3 centerfielders win from one league. For position specific, I’d have gone with Ryan Braun (no errors, .892 RZR) and Carl Crawford (.983 fielding and .911 RZR) in left, Beltran and Sizemore in center, and Hunter Pence (.997 fielding and .906 RZR) and Nick Markakis (.991 fielding and .925 RZR) in right.
I’m also not a fan of the voting process. Managers and coaches select the players, but they can’t choose anyone from their team. That’s fine, but why not look into who you are voting for rather than reputation. Michael Young is probably one of the worst fielding shortstops playing (.984 fielding pct, .850 revised zone rating). Jed Lowrie and Maicer Izturis had higher fielding pct, while Lowrie, Mike Aviles, and Adam Everett all had higher RZR. Other snubs this year include Jason Kendall (although, they could be making up for snubbing Yadier Molina last year), Albert Pujols, Mark Ellis, and Orlando Cabrera.
At least Derek Jeter didn’t win one this year (which would normally lead me into a rant about why the Yankees took a true defensive gem and moved him to 3B in favor of Jeter, but I’ll leave it be)…
The Alternative
The best alternative to the Gold Gloves is the Fielding Bible Awards:
C – Yadier Molina (Jose Molina)
1B – Albert Pujols (Mark Teixeira/Casey Kotchman)
2B – Brandon Phillips (Mark Ellis)
3B – Adrian Beltre (David Wright)
SS – Jimmy Rollins (Erick Aybar)
LF – Carl Crawford (Willie Harris)
CF – Carlos Beltran (Carlos Gomez)
RF – Franklin Gutierrez (Randy Winn)
P – Kenny Rogers (Greg Maddux)
They only list one player for each position, so I listed the player that would have been the winner if they did it by leagues. You’ll notice that for first base I have Teixeira and Kotchman listed, since they flipped spots at mid-season. (Full votes here)
While they do have some overlapping, these are definitely better than the managers/coaches selections. Of course, some managers don’t care about stats. Most of the voters are well educated (with the exception of Mike Murphy, which you can read about his picks here, down below the analysis of the picks) and are highly reputable. They tend to look at more than errors and fielding percentages.
What to do?
This goes back to the stats vs. scouts argument. I don’t think we’ll ever have perfect Gold Glove winners, much like there will always be controversy in the other awards (I smelling it coming with the NL MVP this year). The best thing to do is look at both awards and draw your own opinions.
