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Wednesday, November 02, 2011
What did the Fans think of the Gold Glove winners?
C: Wieters and Molina? They were 1-2 with the Fans.
1B: Adrian/Votto? Great on Adrian, and decent (not great) on Votto.
2B: Pedroia/Phillips? They were 1-2 with the Fans.
SS: Aybar/Tulo? Great on Tulo, and decent (not great) on Aybar.
3B: Beltre/Polanco? Great on Beltre, and either decent or great on Polanco. The better fielders (Zimm, Rolen) missed more playing time than Polanco. So, Polanco rises to #1 with Fans in NL.
LF: Gordon/Parra? Great on Parra, decent (not great) on Gordon.
CF: Ellsbury/Kemp? FAIL. With such a huge group of great-fielding CF to choose from, it looks like there was alot of split-voting, and the tie-breaker was the best hitters? Or something.
RF: Markakis/Ethier: Good to great on Markakis, FAIL on Ethier.
Overall, 13 of the 16 are defensible to uncontroversial. The other 3 (Ellsburg, Kemp, Ethier) are not fan-favorites. Ethier did finish #4 among Fielding Bible voters for NL RF, so that might be defensible. Ellsbury finished #5 among the Fielding Bible voters for AL CF. So, you can add those two to being defensible if you want.
Kemp though received 0 top 10 votes from any of the 10 voters for the Fielding Bible. Fans had him at barely above league average. DRS had him at barely above league average. UZR had him at below league average. So, that one is the only clear indefensible choice. Kemp won the NL CF Gold Glove on the strength of his hitting. He won the Rawlings Golden Bat.
