A few days ago, Major League Baseball announced the finalists of the Rawlings Golden Glove Awards.
Here we’ll see a few names we’ve come to expect – Nolan Arenado, Matt Chapman, Sean Murphy, Mookie Betts, Matt Olson, Carlos Correa. They are both great defenders who deserve to be recognized. Then there’s Juan Soto.
The Padres midfielder is not a good defender. He is not a woman. He’s good, well, below average. In fact, in terms of Score Above Average (OAA), Soto totaled -15 OAA 2022, the worst milestone of his career. Afterward 38 operators on the right are eligible (some are listed as center players, but also play for considerable time) in MLB, Soto finished with the worst OAA in five runs. Nicholas Castellanos of Philadelphia recorded -10 OAA this year. After him, it was Ronald Acuña Jr., who posted -6. Childish Bambino is nearly 10 places behind the third-worst right-hander in baseball, but somehow he was recognized as a Golden Glove finalist. HOW?!
G/O Media may receive a commission
Follow Rawlings website, certain qualifications must be met for a player to qualify for the Golden Glove. For domestic and foreign athletes, the requirements involve playing about 7.5 turns per game through your team’s first 138 games. While there is a way to look up that information and determine which players qualify for the right pitch after each team’s 138th game, I’m not being paid enough to spend the next six hours of my life. to do it for each player. Thankfully, there is another standard that states: “All domestic and foreign players with a total of at least 698 innings are eligible in the specific position he played the most innings (i.e. where the player has played the most innings). his manager uses him the most).”
In 2022, there are 39 National League Best Players who has played enough innings to qualify for the Golden Glove. Out of those 39 people, 12 of them mostly work as right performers (Soto, Mookie Betts, Randal Grichuk, Hunter Renfroe, Nick Castellanos, Starling Marte, Daulton Varsho, Seiya Suzuki, Acuña, Luis). Gonzalez, Lars Nootbaar and Avisail Garcia).
This is where Soto ranks among every qualified NL power holder on certain stats, according to FanGraphs:
- Above average: 12 (-15)
- Defense runs above average: 12th (-13)
- Last region rank every 150 plays: ninth (-2.7)
- Number of saved defenses: eighth (-2)
- Running range: eighth (-1,3)
- ARM Rating: ninth (-2.4)
- Percent shot: fourth (0.990)
- Outfield Assists: T-nine (3)
So sure, in terms of pure opacity, the Soto is fine, but it’s really the only category where Soto scores above average among qualified NL fillers.
By the way, I feel like I should explain ARM’s ratings. Basically, it is a measure of the strength of a player’s arm. I can’t really tell you how Soto got a -2.4 rating, but I can explain why it’s so low. Based on Baseball, of all the right wingers in the MLB, Soto’s average throw speed (excluding normal throws that are only thrown back after a single shot) when trying to throw a runner is 85.8 miles per hour. That ranks him 40th out of 44 qualified track and field athletes. Soto’s hardest off-court pitch this season is 93.2 miles per hour. That ties him to Houston’s Kyle Tucker for 35th. The low speed of Soto’s throws probably explains why he plays more innings than any qualified NL right puncher. , but still had the fewest assists out of the field.
Soto is not fast. He has no range. He’s not the surest, and he doesn’t have a great arm. He would be the perfect hitter designated if he wasn’t so young, nimble, and passionate about baseball.
I just want to be clear. This is not me extracting a new one on Soto. He’s legally my favorite player in baseball. That said, he doesn’t deserve the honor of being a Golden Gloves finalist, and I’d be damned if he absolutely won the award. This will be a case equal to The Rafael Palmeiro disaster in 1999 or any Derek Jeter Golden Glove award. MLB managers and coaches can still do the right thing. I’ll forgive everything if Soto doesn’t win the prize. But, if by some loathing Soto throws away the hardware, we should get rid of the Golden Glove altogether. That’s how strongly I feel, and deep down, no matter how big a Soto fan you are, you know it’s true.
