Atlanta Braves Gold Glove candidates against the rest part 3: Outfielders
By Fred Owens
Rawlings announces the 2018 Gold Glove winners Sunday, and the Atlanta Braves have three outfielders in the running.
In my first look at the 2018 Gold Glove nominees, I provided eligibility and voting information as well as looking at the Atlanta Braves’ nominees for the pitcher, catcher and first base awards compared to the rest of the National League’s best.
Part 2 discussed nominees for second base, third base, and shortstop, and looked to see if the nominating committee snubbed anyone. In this third and final post, I review nominees for awards in left field, center field, and right field.
After Ender Inciarte won his first Gold Glove last season, fans expected and got another Gold Glove caliber season from their perpetually smiling center fielder. Most didn’t expect a Nick Markakis nomination and none considered late arriving, underachiever Adam Duvall a candidate for any award.
Duvall’s nomination stems from his time in Cincinnati but he’s a Brave now, and that means a clean sweep of outfield Gold Gloves for Atlanta could happen.
The Fielding Bible Awards
On Monday the Fielding Bible announced their winners for 2018. Their awards are league independent and have different rules than the Gold Glove awards.
", , , that there is only one winner at each position . . . The goal of The Fielding Bible Awards is to stand up and say: “Here is the best fielder at this position in Major League Baseball last season.” . . ."
I include them here to add context and because I referenced them in the first two posts. The linked post lists the voters and gives further information.
| Position | Winner | Points |
| First Base | Matt Olson | 108 |
| Second Base | Kolten Wong | 111 |
| Third Base | Matt Chapman | 119 |
| Shortstop | Andrelton Simmons | 119 |
| Left Field | Alex Gordon | 117 |
| Center Field | Lorenzo Cain | 114 |
| Right Field | Mookie Betts | 120 |
| Catcher | Jeff Mathis | 81 |
| Pitcher | Zack Greinke | 118 |
| Multi-Position | Javier Báez | 98 |
Inserting that information changes the look of the pages for last three positional reviews.
Once again the Nominees are listed in rank the order according to SDI’s top ten.I color coded the tables so you won’t go number blind when looking at the statistics for each player.
| First |
| Second |
| Third |
A highlighted player’s name indicates a Gold Glove (GG) nominee.
Columns used in earlier posts are no longer required. In their place, I added columns for Fielding Bible points for each player with the winner’s points in bold type. Since this is all about outfielders, outs above average.
Abbreviations used are as follows:
- FB Points – Fielding Bible Points
- SDI – SABR Defensive Index
- Baseball Prospectus – adjusted fielding runs above average (FRAA_Ad ), framing runs (framing)
- Catcher runs above average from framing from StatCorner (SCRAA)
- Total Zone runs above average (Rtot) from each Baseball-Reference player page linked
- DRS and Fangraphs composite defense stat DEF
- OAA – Outs Above Average from Baseball Savant’s StatCast report
Now, on to the statistics!