Thursday, November 6, 2008

AL Gold Glove Winners

And the AL Au goes to:

P: Mike Mussina;
C: Joe Mauer;
1B: Carlos Pena;
2B: Dustin Pedroia;
3B: Adrian Beltre;
SS: Michael Young;
OF: Torii Hunter;
OF: Grady Sizemore;
OF: Ichiro

Michael Young, eh? OK, fine. They gave it to Jeter a couple of years ago and the world didn't end, so I don't suppose I'll lose sleep over Young.

Otherwise, I don't suppose we can complain too much. If you go by John Dewan's system, Pena only trailed Teixeira in the AL, but since Teixeira spent half the season in Atlanta, it's understandable to pass him over. Pedroia was behind Mark Ellis at second, but Ellis played far fewer games than Pedroia did, so that's defensible as well. Beltre was, by all accounts, a stud at third this year. There weren't any fantastic American League shortstops, but you could have gone with Mike Aviles or, if you prefer a full season, Marco Scutaro there.

The outfield is always messed up in that they almost always single out centerfielders rather than give one to a player from each position. But even if you are looking at only centerfielders, Dewan had Carlos Gomez as the best in the business this season, and he's nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, neither Ichiro, Hunter, nor Sizemore are among listed among the best in the game. Like Maddux yesterday, they're simply inertia picks. Carl Crawford and Franklin Guiterriez would have been the choices if corners were considered.

(hat tip to Scout.com, who had the link to the winners before they were even officially announced. Remind me to go to Vegas with those guys sometime.)

UPDATE: Now it's all nice and official.

2 comments:

Mark S said...

Nice reference to chemistry and this one has notion to do with PEDs.

RoyceTheBaseballHack said...

Young actually had a pretty tidy year at SS. Only in the last week, when I was pondering the Golden Glove, and looked at who would be in contention, did it dawn on me that he even had a shot at it.
Ultimately, however, I think this came down to the nice people at Rawlings thinking that some recognition should come to Michael for beating the crap out of Sidney Ponson in the clubhouse showers.