Alex Verdugo is a first-time Gold Glove finalist, Rawlings announced on Wednesday afternoon.
He’s also the only Red Sox player up for the prestigious defensive award this season.
Verdugo is up against Adolis García of the Rangers and Kyle Tucker of the Rangers, but has a strong case to take home the gold. He finished the season plus-1 in Outs Above Average (70th MLB percentile), behind García’s plus-3. His plus-9 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) tied for the lead among AL right-fielders, as good as García (plus-7) and Tucker (plus-2) combined.
Statistically, this should come down to Verdugo and García. Though Tucker led the AL with 13,23.5 innings in right field, he was minus-4 OAA and only plus-2 DRS. Verdugo was in the 95th MLB percentile in Arm Strength, and his 10.6 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) outranked all AL right-fielders (minimum 140 innings) by a wide margin; García placed second with 6.4, but Tucker came in at minus-1.1.
Gold Gloves are awarded through a combination of manager and coach voting (they cannot vote for their own players or players in the other league), and the SABR Defensive Index (SDI), which accounts for approximately 25 percent of the finalist tabulations. The SDI is a combination of play-by-play records and batted ball location-based data. Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA) and Total Zone Rating (TZ) are included in the former. The latter, which is weighted 70 percent, takes DRS, UZR, and Runs Effectively Defended (RED) into account. Several position-specific defensive elements are also factored in.
The Red Sox struggled defensively across the board this season, especially in the infield. As of the last published SDI rankings on Aug. 13 (final rankings come out after Gold Glove winners are announced in November), Rafael Devers’ minus-4.6 SDI put him at the bottom of the AL third-base rankings. Triston Casas’ identical mark was third-worst among AL first basemen. Devers finished the season with 19 errors, tied with Javier Báez for most in the AL; Kiké Hernández made 15 errors (14 at shortstop) before the Red Sox traded him to the Dodgers before the deadline.
Verdugo, however, had a 7.0 SDI at that point in the season, which ranked second to García (7.8) among AL right-fielders, eighth overall.
The only potential snub is Connor Wong, who led AL catchers with 11 errors, but was also a strong defender by several metrics. He wouldn’t beat out Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk (plus-17 DRS) for the award, but provided solid coverage behind the dish. Wong’s 2.3 SDI ranked fourth-best among AL catchers and he finished the season plus-4 DRS, tied for fifth, well ahead of finalist Adley Rutschman (0.6 SDI, plus-2 DRS). His plus-5 Catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average put him in the 92nd MLB percentile and tied finalist Jonah Heim, among others, for the second-best mark in the AL.
On the whole, however, revisiting the team’s defensive skill (or lack thereof) is moot; most Red Sox players didn’t even play enough to qualify for the award, which is an indictment unto itself. Per Gold Glove requirements, players must reach the following totals through their team’s 138th game of the season: a minimum of 138 innings pitched, at least 50 percent of games caught, or at least 698 innings fielded at one’s primary position. (Rawlings also added a Utility Gold Glove to each league last year.)
Trevor Story led the team with plus-8 OAA – the only mark better than Verdugo – but his January elbow surgery kept him off the field until Aug. 8, the team’s 113th game of the season. Nick Pivetta and Brayan Bello were the only two pitchers to clear 138 innings by the end of the season, let alone Game 138. Bello, who actually started that contest, finished the night exactly one frame shy of the requisite 138 innings pitched.
How fitting for an indefensible Red Sox season.
