2017 MLB Defensive Players of the Year announced

The 2017 list of Defensive Players of the Year have been announced, and while there are some familiar honorees (fancy seeing you here Nolan Arenado) on the list there are also some first-time winners — including Yasiel Puig, Byron Buxton, and Carlos Santana.

Each year the award (sponsored by Wilson) is given to a player at each position — not one for the American League and one for the National League, but just one for each position — that is the best in the league defensively.

If you’re thinking “this kind of sounds like the Gold Glove Awards...” then you would be correct. It is kind of like that, except for this award uses “combines traditional defensive stats with advanced metrics” to decide who wins rather than a voting body of any sort.

So if you have problems with this list of winners, take it up with math.

C - Martin Maldonado, Angels

1B - Carlos Santana, Indians

2B - DJ LeMahieu, Rockies

3B - Nolan Arenado, Rockies

SS - Andrelton Simmons, Angels

LF - Alex Gordon, Royals

CF - Byron Buxton, Twins

RF - Yasiel Puig, Dodgers

P - Tyler Chatwood, Rockies

Arenado wins for the third year in a row, and Simmons wins his fourth honor in five years. Both are more than expected and deserved, even if Corey Seager and Addison Russell could also be swapped out for the latter if the formula worked out a little differently and it wouldn’t be the worst outcome in the entire world.

In addition to individual winners for each position, there are also Player of the Year and Defensive Team of the Year winners.

Player of Year - Byron Buxton, Twins

Defensive Team of the Year - Los Angeles Dodgers

Anybody who watched Byron Buxton play this season, even for only one game, knows he more than deserves this honor. It probably won’t be his last one either.

The fun (fun?) thing about this list is that nobody can really argue with it because it’s formula-based. That doesn’t mean people won’t try, but its just a tougher task to poke holes in these decisions.