No members of the New York Yankees or New York Mets were named Gold Glove Award winners when the recipients were named Tuesday night by Major League Baseball. That means two-time winner Mark Teixeira of the Yankees lost out at first base (to Boston's Adrian Gonzalez), Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano was beaten by Boston's Dustin Pedroia, Yankee left fielder Brett Gardner lost out to Kansas City's Alex Gordon and Mets' shortstop Jose Reyes saw Colorado's Troy Tulowitzki win that honor.
Out of all of those, the biggest injustice is the Yankees' Gardner not being voted his first Gold Glove. Voters were likely swayed by the fact that Gordon had 20 outfield assists, an extremely high total, to Gardner's seven. A deeper look at advanced fielding metrics, though, shows Gardner to be far superior to any left fielder in the American League.
Keep in mind that all of the statistics shown below were compiled with Gardner having played roughly 150 fewer innings than Gordon. Also, if you don't know what some of these new-fangled defensive metrics are, you can find the explanations at FanGraphs.
- Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) -- Gardner 22, Gordon 4
- Revised Zone Rating (RZR) -- Gardner .943, Gordon .923
- Plays Made Out Of Zone (OOZ) -- Gardner 113, Gordon 74
- Range Runs (RngR) -- Gardner +23.4, Gordon -2.1
- Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) -- Gardner 25.2 (best in the majors), Gordon 10.4
There are even more numbers that support the contention that Gardner, not Gordon, should be getting fitted for gold. Those, though, are enough to make the point. ESPN this morning offers even more evidence of how badly Gardner was robbed here, including a very telling chart that shows the much wider area Gardner in which Gardner made plays than Gordon during the 2011 season.
SB Nation New York has to agree with Rob Neyer, who wrote that it was "something of a crime" that Gardner did not receive this award.
Gold Glove Winners
American League
P - Mark Buehrle, Chicago White Sox
C - Matt Wieters, Baltimore
1B - Adrian Gonzalez, Boston
2B - Dustin Pedroia, Boston
SS - Erick Aybar, L.A. Angels
3B - Adrian Beltre, Texas
LF - Alex Gordon, Kansas City
CF - Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston
RF - Nick Markakis, Baltimore
National League
P - Clayton Kershaw, L.A. Dodgers
C - Yadier Molina, St. Louis
1B - Joey Votto, Cincinnati
2B - Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati
SS - Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado
3B - Placido Polanco, Philadelphia
LF - Gerardo Parra, Arizona
CF - Matt Kemp, L.A. Dodgers
RF - Andre Ethier, L.A. Dodgers