In the 1990’s the Indians had a near monopoly on Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers in certain positions and won 28 combined from 1990 through 2001. The vast majority of these belonged to Omar Vizquel (8 Gold Gloves), Robert Alomar (three Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers) and Kenny Lofton (four Gold Gloves) and since then, the cabinet has been practically barren with just seven since 2001 (Silver Sluggers: Victor Martinez 2004, Grady Sizemore 2008, Asdrubal Cabrera 2011, and Yan Gomes and Michael Brantley in 2014. Gold Gloves: Sizemore in 2007 and 2008).
This year, one player in particular could bring the precious metals of baseball back to Cleveland, but their team success as a whole could bring the kind of attention needed for some of the lesser known and unappreciated athletes.
Silver Sluggers
First, a couple players who won’t even be close to winning need to be pointed out. Mike Napoli had a great season and some even considered him the Indians offensive MVP, but the fact is there are many better candidates at first base. The finalists at first should be perennial MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera and Edwin Encarnacion along with one of Hanley Ramirez or Chris Davis. All these players had significantly better seasons than Napoli even when forgetting about his low average and high strike outs and focusing just on production stats.
Second, at second, apologies to Jason Kipnis after his great season, but if Jose Altuve doesn’t win this award, the voters have gone too homer happy and voted for Brian Dozier. Robinson Cano and Ian Kinsler were also significantly better than Kipnis offensively and one should be the third finalist.
This leaves two legitimate candidates who played enough at their positions to really be considered and are at least deserving of being a finalist (the top three vote getters), Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor. Of course, this doesn’t mean either will win.
Ramirez was the Indians best offensive producer during the regular season and he comes in second among AL third basemen for overall offensive production according to fangraphs. However, he played only slightly better than half as well as the number one, Josh Donaldson, who should win the award easily. Arguments in Ramirez’s favor are his league best average among 3B (.312), 22 steals and the fact that he struck out less than any other regular AL third baseman (10% of at bats). If you take away Donaldson’s defensive advantage (which shouldn’t count here anymore than offense should count for the Gold Glove) and add Ramirez’s base running to his offense, their values were very similar for the year. In the end, Ramirez deserves second place ahead of Kyle Seager, Manny Machado and Adrian Beltre and that alone would be quite the accomplishment given where he was last season.
Lindor has a weaker case, but also significantly weaker competition. Assuming Machado counts at third rather than short, the best overall hitter was likely Xander Bogaerts, followed by Carlos Correa with the top average and speed hitters being Lindor and Elvis Andrus.
Lindor came in second among all AL short stops in average and steals (both to Andrus) and he well outhit Andrus when considering production stats (home runs, runs and RBI). These numbers are close enough to Correa that Lindor should be able to beat the Houston short stop who beat him for the Rookie of the Year last year, but he may still be considered the lesser name due to the market (and MLB’s marketing). Neither Correa or Lindor, however, should be able to beat Bogaerts.
The Red Sox short stop was slightly behind Lindor in average and OBP, but out slugged him and still stole 13 bases. Bogaerts did enough of everything any voter is likely to look at (hit for average, hit for power, steal bases, score runs and knock in runs) that it’s hard to believe he won’t win this hands down.
Gold Gloves
The Indians were the second best team in the AL offensively, but don’t have a player who was clearly the best at his position offensively as the production came from many sources. They were the third best team defensively (behind Kansas City and Los Angeles) and the case was very different in the field.
Among CF with at least 750 innings in the field, Tyler Naquin was third worst in the AL. In addition, Napoli was significantly below league average defensively at first and, looking at advanced stats, Lonnie Chisenhall doesn’t look that good either. Considering the team was so good overall defensively, those runs had to have been saved by a small group of people. Like the Silver Slugger candidates, that group contains exactly two players who deserve consideration for this prestigious award.
The less likely of the two to win is Kipnis at second, who easily had his best defensive season ever after having his previous best in 2015. Where his range was once so bad it was worth -8.5 runs compared to the average 2B in 2014, he was worth 7.5 more than average in 2016 without losing his normally solid play on balls hit right to him.
While Kipnis did make 12 errors this year, he deserves credit for playing more games than all but Cano and Dustin Pedroia. Looking at everything together, Kipnis has two primary competitors, the four time Gold Glove winner Pedroia and a player who should already have multiple Gold Gloves, Ian Kinsler. While it depends on if voters look more at advanced stats and actual game film than simple fielding percent, Kipnis should easily surpass Cano to make it into the final three. Once there, however, Kinsler and Pedroia have the advantage.
Having seen Kinsler play more, I can verify how much he deserves this award, but Pedroia has the better advanced stats, saving 9.1 runs better than average due to range and 2.6 by completing the plays he gets to compared to 5.1 and 2.5 for Kinsler. Since it’s a defensive award, nothing else should factor in and as long as the final three are Kinsler, Pedroia and Kipnis, whoever the winner is would be a fair choice.
Finally, the one award that Indians fans could riot over if he does not win. Last year, Lindor saved more runs defensively at short than any other AL player, but was ripped off of his Gold Glove because not enough of his games came early in the season. This was a ridiculous arbitrary ruling and one he won’t have to face this season.
Not only did Lindor lead all AL short stops in runs saved again this year, he was second among all players at any position in baseball (behind Brandon Crawford of San Francisco) and saved almost double what he did last year. His 18 runs saved due to range alone were second in all of baseball at all positions behind Kevin Pillar (who should win one as well for the outfield, but that’s a separate argument altogether). These defensive statistics haven’t been around for too long, but in less than two full season he has already become the Indians best career defensive player since 2002. Lindor saved more runs in his first 2,230 innings than Grady Sizemore in more than 7,000 and late career Omar Vizquel in 3,087 innings.
While team records shouldn’t have anything to do with this award, the fact that there really aren’t any other competitors should. To begin, Lindor played more innings than all AL short stops except Bogaerts, Alcides Escobar and Marcus Semien and none of them had near the kind of defensive prowess of Lindor. The closest was his expected number one rival, Andrelton Simmons of the Angels, and he had nowhere near the range of Lindor. Filling out the three finalists should be either J.J. Hardy or Jose Iglesius and the Tigers SS should get the advantage since Hardy missed so much time with injury.
There is really no argument here, but to further push the point Lindor was not just the Indians best defender since 2002 or the American League’s best in 2016. He was literally the best defensive short stop in the entire American League since 2002. Orlando Cabrera in 2005 and 2008 was close, but no American League short stop has ever saved 27 runs above average with his glove and Lindor saved 27.8.
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