Rawlings released their finalists for Gold Glove awards and two Twins players are finalists.
Brian Dozier is one of the three finalists for second base and the same goes for Byron Buxton in center field. However, they did not include Joe Mauer at first base and that’s a shame.
It’s not exactly clear how the finalists are chosen, but we do know that winners are determined using fan votes and a stat called SABR Defensive Index (SDI), according to Rawlings.com.
SDI only has information through Aug. 27 of the regular season and Joe Mauer had the fifth-best rating among first basemen.
Carlos Santana, Eric Hosmer and Mitch Moreland are the finalists for this year’s award. Santana and Moreland are the top two SDI leaders for first base but Hosmer ranked 11th and even had a negative rating…
- 1st Carlos Santana, 4.8
- 2nd Mitch Moreland, 3.9
- 3rd Danny Valencia, 3.4
- 4th Logan Morrison, 3.3
- 5th Joe Mauer, 2.0
- 11th Eric Hosmer -1.1.
Again, the information is only through Aug. 27 so either things drastically changed over the final five weeks of the season or the way finalists are determined is severely flawed.
If were looking at just this information in a vacuum, we can determine Mauer was not one of the top-three first basemen this season, but how did Hosmer leapfrog from 11th to a finalist in such a short period of time?
Dozier was second in SDI for second base and Buxton was the top player in SDI for center field and it wasn’t even close.
Here’s the competition for Dozier:
- Brian Dozier
- Ian Kinsler
- Dustin Pedroia
Buxton should run away with the award and if he doesn’t I plan to riot in the streets.
- Byron Buxton
- Lorenzo Cain
- Kevin Pillar
Fans can start voting for the award on Nov. 7th and the voting lasts 48 hours.
