SAN FRANCISCO — As expected, the Giants have two Gold Glove Award finalists. But one of the names is a bit of a surprise.
Catcher Patrick Bailey is a finalist for a third time in three years in the big leagues and should pretty easily win his second straight Gold Glove, making franchise history. The other Giant, though, is pitcher Logan Webb, who made huge strides defensively after years of working on being better at holding runners. Matt Chapman, last year’s winner at third base, was not a finalist after a season impacted by a hand injury.
Bailey looks like a very strong bet to become the first Giants catcher to win multiple Gold Glove Awards and he could win the Platinum Glove, given to the best defensive player in each league. He led the Majors in Fielding Run Value and it wasn’t even close; Bailey finished at 31 and no other MLB player was higher than 22.
Bailey also ranked as the game’s best pitch-framer, and again it wasn’t close. At 25 Catcher Framing Runs, he was miles clear of NL runner-up Gabriel Moreno, who was at six. He also was among the league leaders in Caught Stealing Percentage and CS Above Average. He nearly doubled the Defensive Runs Saved (19) as the next closest catcher and led all NL position players.
Assuming Bailey wins his second Gold Glove, he would become the first Giant to do it in back-to-back years since Brandon Crawford in 2014-15.
Chapman was also looking for back-to-back wins, but a couple of IL stints put him in a hole statistically. He played just 128 games and finished second among NL third basemen in Fielding Run Value, fourth in Outs Above Average and fifth among NL third basemen in Defensive Runs Saved. The frontrunner is Ke’Bryan Hayes, the 2023 NL winner who led the league in just about every advanced metric this year while suiting up for the Pirates and Reds, but Chapman was also behind Chicago’s Matt Shaw and Ryan McMahon, who was traded from the Rockies to the Yankees in July.
Webb is the newcomer, but this is a long time coming. He has spent a long time trying to get better at controlling the running game, and he always has been strong on comebackers, a necessity as a groundball pitcher. The SABR Defensive Index makes up a percentage of the final voting and the last time their data was released to the public, Webb ranked as the leader among NL pitchers.
There aren’t a lot of great defensive statistics for pitchers, but Webb led the NL group in Defensive Runs Saved and tied for eighth in the league in Net Bases Prevented. He committed just one error in 207 innings. Rick Reuschel (1987) is the only Giants pitcher to have won a Gold Glove.
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