Wright, Young nominated for Gold Gloves; Lagares snubbed

Rawlings announced Friday the three Gold Glove finalists at each position on the company’s official Twitter account.

As far as the Mets are concerned, David Wright – a two-time winner of the award in 2007 and 2008 – was nominated at third base, and Eric Young Jr. was rather surprisingly tabbed as a nominee in left field.

More surprisingly, the best defensive center fielder in the National League, if not all of baseball, Juan Lagares, was not nominated for an award, lending more ammunition to those who say the Gold Glove is more about hitting than fielding (see Palmiero, Rafael – 1999).

At third base, the nomination of Wright was predictable, but don’t expect to see him take home the Gold Glove for the third time.  The other two finalists, Colorado’s Nolan Arenado and Los Angeles’ Juan Uribe both posted superior numbers in UZR, Defensive Runs Saved, and Revised Zone Rating.  Their respective Fangraphs “Def” ratings rank them 8^th and 6^th among all players in 2013 defensively.  I’ve taken the liberty of laying this all out in a handy table:

Name	Team	DRS	UZR	UZR/150	RZR	Def
Juan Uribe	LAD	15	24	35.3	.830	25.5
Nolan Arenado	COL	30	20.7	22.5	.799	22.6
David Wright	NYM	5	3.7	4.9	.747	5.4

There is nothing wrong with Wright’s defensive performance from this year – it’s actually quite good.  But he’s not in the same league as Arenado or Uribe.[1]  The only way that I see Wright coming away with the Gold Glove this year is if the voters decide to vote based on offense which I’m sure they’ve never done before (see Young, Michael – 2008).

Speaking of a Met that won’t win the Gold Glove – Eric Young Jr.!

What do Starling Marte, Carlos Gonzalez, Logan Schafer, Chris Denorfia, Chris Heisey, Gragor Blanco, Cody Ross, Derrick Robinson, Juan Perez, Jose Tabata, Ryan Braun, Juan Pierre, Bryce Harper, Alex Presley, Scott Van Slyke, Skip Schumaker, David DeJesus, Freddy Galvis, Ed Lucas, Jose Constanza, Francisco Peguero, Kensuke Tanaka and Mike Baxter all have in common?  They all posted an equal-or-better DRS as Young, some in far fewer innings played.

I don’t mean that as a knock on Young’s defense, he has excellent range, his revised zone rating is a stellar .952 (out of 1.000), and he provided a humongous defensive upgrade over Lucas Duda, while providing the team with some much-needed speed on the base paths.

There’s also something to be said for the lineup stability that he provided in the leadoff spot.  He might not have the greatest OBP, but more times than not he took some pitches and gave a good at bat.

Young is certainly an above-average defender in the outfield, but I don’t really see him as a legitimate Gold Glove contender this year.  But in the interest of debate, here’s how he stacks up against Marte and Gonzalez, the other finalists:

Name	Team	DRS	UZR	UZR/150	RZR	Def
Starling Marte	PIT	20	10.2	20.1	.941	4.9
Carlos Gonzalez	COL	10	7.1	9.5	.893	2.7
Eric Young Jr.	NYM	2	3.9	6.2	.952	-0.1

There was no really stand out candidate for left field as far as a Gold Glove is concerned, so that might be part of the reason why Young made the final three.  Let’s face it, he made some nice highlight-reel grabs, and a lot of times that is enough to garner some extra consideration.

But on the flip side, Marte is defensively in a league of his own and certainly deserves to win the Gold Glove this year.  That is, of course, unless Gonzalez’s .302/.369/.591, 26 home run, 75 RBI in 110 game season puts him over the top for a defensive award, but when have offensive numbers ever played a role in Gold Glove awards (see McLouth, Nate – 2008)?

That brings us to Lagares.  His snub is perhaps the biggest one in the past few years.  Carlos Gomez and Andrew McCutchen are fine defenders and deserve consideration.  Denard Span, the third nominee, does not.  Not over Lagares or even A.J. Pollock, anyway.

I don’t need to go through every great play that Lagares made in the outfield.  I don’t need to tell you that in only 819.2 innings in center field, he posted the second-highest defensive runs saved in the National League.

I don’t need to say that his arm rating (12.3) is more than double the next highest rating (Gomez, 5.3).  I don’t have to mention that his 21.5 UZR was second best in the National League, and his 33.1 UZR/150 was the third-highest mark for any player in any position in all of Major League Baseball with at least 500 innings played.

I also probably don’t need to mention that his Def rating was 22.9, behind only Manny Machado, Andrelton Simmons, Gomez and Uribe – and Machado, Simmons and Gomez all logged at least 400 more innings in the field.

Span was good, but he is not in the same league as Lagares.  Consider the following table:

Name	Team	DRS	UZR	UZR/150	RZR	Def	Innings Played
Carlos Gomez	MIL	38	24.4	27.2	.942	26.5	1242
Andrew McCutchen	PIT	7	6.9	8.4	.952	9.3	1378
Denard Span	WAS	3	10.2	9.9	.911	12.4	1300.2
Juan Lagares	NYM	26	21.5	33.1	.900	22.9	819.2

An equally convincing argument can be made for throwing either McCutchen or Span out of the top three, the fact of the matter is Juan Lagares should’ve been nominated.  Consider the following table:

Name	Team	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	SB	R
Andrew McCutchen	PIT	.317	.404	.508	21	84	27	97
Denard Span	WAS	.279	.327	.380	4	47	20	75
Juan Lagares	NYM	.242	.281	.352	4	34	6	35

Yeah, it’s a defensive award.

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Joe Vasile is a play-by-play announcer for Widener Pride football and host of “Ball Four” on WTSR in Trenton.  Follow him on Twitter at @JoeVasilePBP.