Ryan Mountcastle and Colton Cowser are in the top three at their respective positions.
Gold Glove finalists for the 2024 season were announced on Tuesday morning, with two Orioles making the cut this time around: Ryan Mountcastle at first base, and Colton Cowser in left field. Could either of them end up winning?
These awards are announced officially as finalists. What today’s announcement actually represents is just the top three finishers from already-concluded voting, in presumably random order. One year, everyone who was listed first on the finalist list ended up being the winner.
75% of the results are determined by voting by MLB managers and coaches, with 25% of the results incorporating a sabermetric formula.
Two Orioles who were finalists for Gold Gloves a year ago did not repeat that. Adley Rutschman was a 2023 finalist for catcher, with Austin Hays in left field. Hays would have been ruled out for being a part-time player anyway, and his being traded mid-season made it even more certain he wouldn’t repeat. We all know about Rutschman and I don’t feel like figuratively beating the dead horse right now.
The last Orioles Gold Glove winner was Ramón Urías, who won for third base in 2022. Before him, it was Manny Machado, also for third base, in 2015. It’s been a while since Orioles were regularly winning. Maybe that will start to change as the team continues in a new era of hopefully consistent quality.
First Base
- Ryan Mountcastle (Orioles)
- Nathaniel Lowe (Rangers)
- Carlos Santana (Twins)
My position on Gold Glove awards is naturally that any Oriole is the most deserving and whatever jabroni on some other team is not deserving. It’s not an objective standard.
No one had more of a chuckle than me early in the season when commentators acted like Mountcastle might be a Gold Glove-level player this season. He kept on trucking through the season, though, making nice diving plays, making picks, stretching out the right way for errant throws. The absence was particularly felt when he was out for a month. Ryan O’Hearn wasn’t doing that stuff. Mountcastle was also a finalist a year ago.
Lowe was the Gold Glove winner at this position a year ago. There is a certain reputation that once a guy starts winning Gold Glove, he keeps winning for a while. This is less true than it used to be in the old days but inertia is tough to combat in all areas. Lowe comes across very well in the Statcast measure for first baseman range, rating at +7 Outs Above Average.
The veteran Santana just finished his 15th season in MLB. He’s never won a Gold Glove award before. If Lowe is crushing the Statcast measures for first basemen, Santana is REALLY crushing them, at +14 OAA, which is in the 97th percentile of all players. That’s impressive stuff. (Mountcastle is merely in the 78th percentile.)
Left field
- Colton Cowser (Orioles)
- Alex Verdugo (Yankees)
- Steven Kwan (Guardians)
Kwan has won the last two Gold Gloves at this position and he seems to have put together another good defensive season, based on the Statcast measures – 85th percentile range, 99th percentile arm value is a good combination.
Cowser is not a slouch in the Statcast measures either. That’s not too surprising to me, because a player who does well in the now-cavernous left field at Camden Yards should rate well on the metrics. Cowser does a good job out there. He rates even better with range (96th percentile, +11 OAA) and is also in the 96th percentile for arm strength, though he struggled at times with accuracy in his throws so his overall arm value is below Kwan’s.
Verdugo had a number of high-impact flops over the course of this season, including in a dramatic Orioles walkoff win just before the All-Star break. The coaches must have liked his defense anyway. In the metrics, Verdugo does well with arm value (96th percentile) but with only 58th percentile range (0 OAA) what is that really worth for contending for a Gold Glove?
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Those two guys are it. Are there any surprising snubs for you out of the players who didn’t make it? I’m a little bit surprised to see that Gunnar Henderson wasn’t among the shortstop finalists, because he certainly made some amazing plays this season. Unfortunately, Henderson also botched some routine ones, and on balance that seems to have knocked him out of potentially finishing in the top three. If he can clean up some of the routine errors next year, that’ll be a plus for the team and for his award potential.
The Gold Glove winners for this season will be announced starting at 8:30pm Eastern on November 3 during a special edition of ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. If you have to know immediately, you can watch it then and there. Or you could just look at social media or this website later that evening.