Atlanta Braves name 2 finalists among 2019 Gold Glove hopefuls

The competition will be stiff, no doubt, but the best defenders of the Atlanta Braves have a shot to bring home Gold among their National League peers.

Rawlings has announced this year’s Gold Glove award finalists for each league and position and 2 Atlanta Braves are among those named today.

It used to be that baseball’s post-season awards were all named during the actual “post season”, yet it seems things are being spread out a bit these days.

Yesterday, the Hank Aaron award winners were announced prior to World Series Game 2, and today the Rawlings Gold Glove award finalists were announced.

Each year, there can be some raised eyebrows or even outright controversy about these awards, but for the most part, these lists appears to be fairly good.

Atlanta has enjoyed placing multiple players among the defensive elites in recent years.  Nick Markakis won his 3rd in 2018 while Freddie Freeman received his first such trophy.

This year, two different Braves have a chance to be first-time winners as third baseman Josh Donaldson and second baseman Ozzie Albies have been nominated.

Each position will come with difficult competition.

Second Base

At second base, the other nominees are Kolton Wong of the Cardinals and Adam Frazier of the Pirates.

Defensive metrics can be mixed, but here’s what they tell us:

• Defensive runs saved:  Wong leads all keystone men with 14.  Albies is 2nd in the league with 8; Frazier had 6.
• In terms of innings served at the position, Albies wins easily:  1405.  The others both fell short of 1200.
• If you think ‘errors’ are more important, then Albies is your guy:  just 4 on the year.  Frazier recorded 6 and Wong had 9 whiffs.
• Fangraphs’ overall defensive ratings place Wong #1 with 7.2 vs. 4.9 for Frazier and 4.6 for Albies.

Albies is actually dinged for range a bit, but that’s part of where the metrics start becoming fuzzy – particularly in this era of defensive shifting and positioning.

Wong may also get credit for his pitching staff in that he handled more plays than Albies despite the significantly fewer innings.  Thus it could appear – by the numbers – that he’s better simply by compiling more chances.

If you factor in offensive production – which some do despite this being a fielding award – then Albies may garner some extra credit here.  His year with the bat was excellent, easily besting his rivals with a 4.8 fWAR season.

Third Base

However, if the offense does count, Josh Donaldson – despite his solid year – will be in some trouble.  That’s because he’s up against Nolan Arenado and Anthony Rendon… and Arenado already has 6 of these gaudy gloves on his mantel… in a row.

Both of these hitters were tearing up baseballs all year long and that could overshadow defensive skills, but for sure, voters believe in Arenado’s stats on the field, too.

As far as that was concerned, Donaldson held his own very well and definitely has some defensive metrics in his favor:

• Defensive runs saved:  15.  This is almost double anyone else in the league, beating out Arenado (8) and Rendon (2) easily.
• Innings played:  1297 for Donaldson, nearly matching Arenado’s 1319.2 and just ahead of Rendon’s 1265.  In terms of this award… that’s essentially a ‘push’.
• Errors:  13 for Donaldson, 9 for Arenado and 11 for Rendon… with Rendon having far fewer chances (263) than Arenado (336) or Donaldson (314).
• The full fangraphs defensive rating puts Arenado ahead with a 12.5 – again, range is a factor here – with Donaldson ahead of Rendon at 4.6 to 4.2.

Manny Machado was not named a finalist, nor was Evan Longoria.  Both have 200+ fewer innings at the position, but have comparable numbers otherwise.

Of Note

Remember how people bashed Bryce Harper‘s fielding?  Believe it or not, he’s a finalist for the Right Field award this year.

If there’s any justice, Cody Bellinger will take home that trophy, but it’s noteworthy nonetheless… and the numbers seem to back up Harper’s candidacy.  Go figure.

While today named the finalists, the Gold Glove winners will be announced on November 3rd as MLB rolls out their annual major awards.