The 2010 NL Gold Glove Award winners are out, and now that we know who won, we can take things to the next natural step and do some analysis to figure out who deserved it, and who did not.
Analyzing The 2010 NL Gold Glove Winners
Rating a player’s defense is, of course, a difficult task, and there’s no consensus preferred tool. Eyes are subjective, and all the different statistics each has its own share of major problems. So what I’m going to do here is compare the NL winners to where they ranked in the recent Fielding Bible voting. Voting for the annual Fielding Bible awards is done by a panel of experts, with some consideration given to the opinions of fans who watch the players every day, and thus their results make for a handy point of comparison.
P: Bronson Arroyo. He ranked first in the NL.
C: Yadier Molina. He ranked first in the Majors.
1B: Albert Pujols. He ranked first in the NL.
2B: Brandon Phillips. He ranked second in the NL.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki. He ranked first in the Majors.
3B: Scott Rolen. He ranked third in the NL.
OF: Michael Bourn. He ranked first in the Majors among center fielders.
OF: Shane Victorino. He received some votes but did not place.
OF: Carlos Gonzalez. He received some votes but did not place.
It all looks pretty good. You can obviously argue about two of the outfield spots, as there were probably better fielders than Victorino and Gonzalez, and Ryan Zimmerman is a hell of a third baseman, but overall it matches up pretty well. No glaring mistakes.
See More:
