Your 2012 Gold Glove winners have been officially announced. This year nine players received the award for the first time, the most since 2008 (MLB.com)
Let’s jump right to it:
| Position | American League | National League |
| C | Matt Wieters, BAL | Yadier Molina, STL |
| 1B | Mark Teixeira, NYY | Adam LaRoche, WAS |
| 2B | Robinson Cano, NYY | Darwin Barney, CHC |
| SS | J.J. Hardy, BAL | Jimmy Rollins, PHI |
| 3B | Adrian Beltre, TEX | Chase Headley, SD |
| LF | Alex Gordon, KC | Carlos Gonzalez, COL |
| CF | Adam Jones, BAL | Andrew McCutchen, PIT |
| RF | Josh Reddick, OAK | Jason Heyward, ATL |
| P | Jeremy Hellickson, TB Jake Peavy, CWS | Mark Buehrle, MIA |
I will officially put my put foot down and say Mike Trout was snubbed in this one (I know, real bold). Adam Jones is a nice defensive center fielder, but Trout seemed to have that otherwordly specialness we sometimes look to when we toss around terms like “Gold Glove.”
Let’s look at some basic numbers (playing center field):
Trout
.993 fielding percentage, 2 errors, dWAR 2.2. (dWAR is a defensive measure of wins above replacement).
Jones
.982 fielding percentage, 7 errors, dWAR -1.3.
So what the hell happened?
Kristi Dosh of ESPN noted, “Trout was a human highlight reel this season in center field for the Los Angeles Angels. The problem is that not enough people saw those great plays.”
But how true is that really? Los Angeles is a much bigger media market than Baltimore and Trout is … Trout. Did you ever watch SportsCenter and not hear Trout’s name? One major contributing factor to Trout not being seen by a wider audience could have been the Angels failure to make the postseason.
But still, we’re talking about Mike bleepin’ Trout. Every baseball fan has an opinion on the Trout vs. Miguel Cabrera MVP debate. I would submit he’s one of the more well known players in baseball—not some scrappy rookie waiting to burst onto the scene.
Still, the ‘Trout as an unknown’ argument rages on. Doug Shabelman, president of Burns Entertainment and Sports Marketing Inc., said:
“A guy like Mike Trout, who arguably could be the most exciting player in baseball in the last 25 years, is someone who is relatively unknown or off the radar for most of the country. He plays on the West Coast and on the Angels, a team destined to have a big year and didn’t.” (ESPN)
Fine. His team was ‘destined’ to have big year. They didn’t have a big year, but they were still relevant. If Trout didn’t win the Gold Glove partly because of the Angels failure as a team, how do we explain Darwin Barney‘s Gold Glove? Barney played for a Cubs team that reached triple digits in losses—teams don’t get more irrelevant than that.
The award season has started. Snub number one is in the books.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com
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