Gold Glove awards ... and the cliche argument

Very happy to see Brandon Crawford win the NL Gold Glove.

I have watched him for a few years now as a local fan, and he certainly has the tools. He can make any play, quite often the very difficult play, and has a strong and accurate arm. With Joe Panik, they are quite a pair, making some incredible double plays. He does have occasional lapses and will gain a quick 2-3 errors, and over 162 games that can cost you in gold glove voting.

Speaking of voting, one of the most often used cliché arguments is when referencing Rafael Palmeiro who won a gold glove in 1999 despite being a DH for the majority of the year. But, ...

Palmeiro was a Gold Glove winner in both 1997 and 1998

He switched teams in 1999. Perhaps the cliché argument should be on the new team's decision to make him a DH, not the writers who mistakenly did not research enough before they voted.

Ozzie Smith was certainly spectacular, but to me, the best SS I ever saw on a day to day basis was an aging Omar Vizquel, who played a few years with the Giants late in his career, winning two more GG despite his advanced age. Just a tremendous pair of hands and so smooth and athletic and he just did whatever it took to make any play. I would have died to see him when he was a few years younger.

Another player who came over to the Giants late in his career was Gary Carter. Seeing him every day made me appreciate his defensive skills, including his pitch framing.  Very impressed.

Then there are players with great defensive reputations that did not impress me (in limited exposure for me). Chase Utley was supposed to be a GG caliber 2B. In one game in 2009, I saw a routine ground ball eat him up, saw him be unprepared for a throw at second from the 3B causing an error on the 3B, and just generally not impressed. Ryne Sandberg was the same way. He was supposed to be great, but the games I saw him he did nothing spectacular and some routine grounders gave him trouble.

This year, Hosmer again won the Gold Glove. Really? He had ground balls eat him up in the world series, was out of position on some plays and made some crucial bad decisions.