Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim phenom Mike Trout will win his share of offseason awards after his first year in the major leagues. But a Gold Glove for the defensive star will not be one of them.
Trout may have been a regular on SportsCenter's highlight reels. His robbery of a home run by Baltimore's J.J. Hardy on June 27 caught a lot of people's attention, including Cork Gaines of Business Insider Sports.
Ironically, it was Hardy who won a Gold Glove today at shortstop while Trout came up empty-handed. The recipient of the award was Hardy's Oriole teammate Adam Jones, who won the center fielder Gold Glove, not Trout.
Not everyone agrees with the selection. Dayn Perry of CBSSports.com felt that Trout was more deserving of the Gold Glove than Jones.
And certainly in the history of the Gold Glove there have been some dubious award winners. Rafael Palmeiro winning the Gold Glove at first base in 1999 despite only playing 28 games in the field comes to mind. So does awarding Derek Jeter for essentially improving.
Adam Jones' selection shouldn't be looked upon as outlandish. Jones did play more major league innings than Trout this season. Jones had more putouts and played exclusively in center while Trout spent time in left field.
Jones' range factor was 2.75, neatly .3 ahead of Trout.
However Trout had the higher fielding percentage. And anyone who subscribes to Fangraph's UZR sees Trout with a large statistical advantage. Trout's overall UZR is 11.4 and in center it was 10.6. Jones amazingly has a -6.7 in the same category.
So either candidate can have numbers and highlights on their side.
Unfortunately for Trout the main number he did not have was the amount of Gold Glove votes.
No doubt before long Trout will start piling up Gold Gloves and maybe an MVP or two. Maybe at one point in his career Trout will win a Gold Glove he does not deserve. Perhaps then, Trout will feel vindicated for not winning this year.
