Major League Baseball recently announced the winners of the Gold Glove Awards, which are presented to the best fielder in each league at each position. The Gold Glove Award has been around since 1957, but is often subject to some debate. While most people know that Josh Hamilton led the league in batting average, not many could tell you who led second basemen in UZR.

As with years past, there are many repeat winners, along with some first timers. As always, some of the choices are more questionable than others.

Without further ado, this year’s award winners (number of Gold Gloves in parenthesis):

Catcher:

Joe Mauer – Minnesota Twins (3)

Yadier Molina – St. Louis Cardinals (3)

It’s hard to argue with the choice of Molina. He led the majors in caught stealing percentage and had the highest zone rating of any National League catcher. Mauer on the other hand, may be a little undeserving. Matt Weiters allowed fewer past balls, caught a higher percentage of runners stealing and finished just below Mauer in zone rating.

First Base:

Mark Teixeria – New York Yankees (4)

Albert Pujols – St. Louis Cardinals (2)

We are at the second position and I already have problems with both choices. Tex was a terrible choice, as he actually had a negative UZR (ultimate zone rating) (-2.9) on the season. Although Pujols was alright (1.1 UZR), there were better choices available in the NL as well. The two guys who should have won, who far and away led their leagues in UZR, were Daric Barton (12.1) and Ike Davis (10.1). Adam LaRoche was the only other first baseman above 5 in UZR.

Second Base

Robinson Cano – New York Yankees (1)

Brandon Phillips – Cincinnati Reds (2)

Phillips is a deserving winner, even if Chase Utley had a slightly higher UZR (10.3 to 9.7). Although UZR is probably the best fielding metric around, it’s not perfect, so I won’t have any problems when fielders are that close. It’s similar to MVP voting, in that you can’t pick solely on stats, but you should be able to eliminate a large amount of players. Cano on the other hand, has no business winning this award with a -0.6 UZR. Mark Ellis (9.9) and Orlando Hudson (9.8) would have been much more deserving candidates.

Third Base

Evan Longoria – Tampa Bay Rays (2)

Scott Rolen – Cincinnati Reds (8)

Both Longoria and Rolen had fantastic seasons (11.1 and 10.6 UZR, respectively) so it’s hard to find fault with the voters’ choices. If we went strictly by the numbers, the awards would be going to Kevin Kouzmanoff (16.1) in the AL and Chase Headley (16.5) in the NL.

Shortstop

Derek Jeter – New York Yankees (5)

Troy Tulowitski – Colorado Rockies (1)

Jeter may be the player that stands out most as an undeserving winner. While a player like Teixeira has proven in the past he is a good defender, Jeter has exactly one season (2009) in the past eight years in which he had a positive UZR. This year, he ranked seventh (out of ten) in UZR among all AL qualified shortstops. Alexei Ramirez (10.8) or Cliff Pennington (9.9) would have been much more deserving. Tulowitski wasn’t the most deserving fielder in the NL (that would be Brendan Ryan, with a UZR of 11.5) but he at least was a better than average defender on the year (7.1 UZR).

Outfield

Ichiro Suzuki – Seattle Mariners (10)

Carl Crawford – Tampa Bay Rays (1)

Franklin Gutierrez – Seattle Mariners (1)

Michael Bourn – Houston Astros (2)

Shane Victorino – Philadelphia Phillies (3)

Carlos Gonzalez – Colorado Rockies (1)

Ichiro now trails only Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays (12 each) in Gold Gloves among outfielders. Both he and Carl Crawford deserved the award, as they were among the top 3 in UZR in the American League. Gutierrez is a good centerfielder (7.3 UZR) but Brett Gardner would have been a much better choice, as he led the Major Leagues in UZR this past year with a rating of 21.9.

In the National League, Michael Bourn is the only deserving player. Shane Victorino had a rather average year defensively (2.6 UZR) and Carlos Gonzalez cost his team runs in the field (-2.7 UZR). Andres Torres and Jay Bruce, the NL’s top two in UZR would have been more deserving candidates. Bourn was third in the NL.

Pitcher

Mark Buehrle – Chicago White Sox (2)

Bronson Arroyo – Cincinnati Reds (1)

It’s hard to make a case for or against pitchers, as they don’t have large enough sample sizes to reliable calculate UZR or many other defensive metrics. A case can be made for Buehrle, as he led the league in pick-offs. Arroyo wasn’t among the league leaders in pick-offs, stolen bases allowed or UZR. Arroyo’s teammate, Johnny Cueto, was in the NL top 5 in pickoffs and allowed just one stolen base all year.

All in all, it was another year of the same for the Gold Glove. While some deserving players got the recognition they deserved, fielding is still in the back of most people’s minds, leaving some players to get awarded for good offensive seasons (Carlos Gonzalez) or because of their name recognition (Derek Jeter).

Used with permission of the author.

Along with contributing to Sports Climax, Brett Kettyle is the Atlanta Braves Community Leader on Bleacher Report and maintains a Braves column for MTR Media. Follow Brett on Twitter.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax, LLC