Batter's Box Interactive Magazine: Gold Glove Finalists

Once again a few Jays are up for the Gold Glove awards.... 5 players in total are among the top 3 at their position for defense (which shouldn't be a shocker this year).

By DRS Chapman is #1 by a mile at 3B for the AL (12 to 6), Kirk by a mile at C (17 to 8), Varsho in the OF (29 to KK's 18 to 15 for 3rd) so if that measure has a lot of sway the Jays should get those 4 awards easily. If you cut to just LF Varsho is 2nd with 11 to Kwan's 15 but Kwan has 0 elsewhere vs Varsho's 18 in CF (ties KK for most in CF). I can't find a leaderboard for pitchers, but Berrios had 5 DRS as a pitcher which sounds good (Gray at 4, Lopez also at 4). So it is possible all 5 win which would be cool to see. Hey, if we can't win playoff games at least we can see guys win awards. I'll take what I can get.

For oddities - 3 guys are up for 2 gold gloves each - NL: Mookie Betts for utility and RF (107 games in RF, 70 at 2B, 16 at SS) and Ha-Seong Kim for 2B and utility (106 games at 2B, 32 at 3B, 20 at SS), plus AL: Mauricio Dubón for 2B & utility (79 at 2B, 29 in CF, 9 at SS, 9 in LF, 2 in RF, 2 at 1B). I think they need to clean that up at some point so guys are only up for one position not one position plus utility.

1994: 2B: Roberto Alomar & OF: Devon White

1993: 2B: Roberto Alomar & OF: Devon White

1992: 2B: Roberto Alomar & OF: Devon White

1991: 2B: Roberto Alomar & OF: Devon White

1990: 3B: Kelly Gruber

1989: SS: Tony Fernandez

1988: SS: Tony Fernandez

1987: SS: Tony Fernandez & OF: Jesse Barfield

1986: SS: Tony Fernandez & OF: Jesse Barfield

So an all-time GG Jays team by position is...

C: Maybe Kirk

1B: Vlad

2B: Semien & Alomar (5 times) & Hudson

3B: Gruber

SS: Tony Fernandez (4 times)

LF: none yet

CF: Devon White (5 times), Vernon Wells (3 times)

RF: Jesse Barfield (2 times), Shawn Green (once)

P: Dickey & Stroman

So if Varsho & Kirk win they'll finish providing at least one Jay at each position. Don't get voters not picking Barfield every year he was qualified for it (he was amazing out there) but that was when they could and often did pick 3 CF'ers for the 3 OF gold gloves. We've never seen more than 2 winners in a season, so with 5 nominees this could be a Jays record.year (I suspect 5 nominees is the Jays record). Btw, I did double check and Josh Donaldson has never won a Gold Glove which seems odd as he had a great rep there, and great stats (2nd in majors for defense at 3B according to FanGraphs for 2015, #1 in AL but dropped to a negative in 2016).

Winners will be announced Sunday November 5th at 7:30 PM.

Gold Glove Finalists

Wednesday, October 18 2023 @ 01:58 PM EDT