clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Giants have longest Gold Glove drought

Justin K. Aller

Carlos Gomez won a Gold Glove on Tuesday night. It was well-deserved. You might not think this means anything to you, except it kinda sorta does. Prior to Gomez, the Brewers hadn't had a Gold Glove winner since 1982, when Robin Yount won it at shortstop. He'd move to the outfield three years later, but that's not the point. The point is that the Brewers' long regional nightmare is over. That leaves the team with the longest Gold Glove drought as ... let's see ... I made a table ...

San Francisco Giants 2006 Omar Vizquel
Cleveland Indians 2008 Grady Sizmore
New York Mets 2008 David Wright, Carlos Beltran
Detroit Tigers 2009 Placido Polanco
Houston Astros 2010 Michael Bourn
Minnesota Twins 2010 Joe Mauer
Seattle Mariners 2010 Franklin Gutierrez, Ichiro Suzuki
Los Angeles Angels 2011 Erick Aybar
Los Angeles Dodgers 2011 Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier
Oakland Athletics 2012 Josh Reddick
Chicago White Sox 2012 Jake Peavy
Chicago Cubs 2012 Darwin Barney
Florida Marlins 2012 Mark Buehrle
New York Yankees 2012 Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano
Philadelphia Phillies 2012 Jimmy Rollins
Pittsburgh Pirates 2012 Andrew McCutchen
San Diego Padres 2012 Chase Headley
Washington Nationals 2012 Adam LaRoche
Tampa Bay Rays 2012 Jeremy Hellickson
Arizona Diamondbacks 2013 Paul Goldschmidt, Gerardo Parra
Atlanta Braves 2013 Andrelton Simmons
Baltimore Orioles 2013 Adam Jones, Manny Machado, J.J. Hardy
Boston Red Sox 2013 Dustin Pedroia
Cincinnati Reds 2013 Brandon Phillips
Colorado Rockies 2013 Carlos Gonzalez
Kansas City Royals 2013 Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon
Milwaukee Brewers 2013 Carlos Gomez
St. Louis Cardinals 2013 Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright
Texas Rangers 2013 Adrian Beltre
Toronto Blue Jays 2013 R.A. Dickey


There are only nine teams that haven't won a Gold Glove since last year. You can see how this is annoying from the Giants' perspective. It's not really important -- or, you know, important at all -- but I love trinkets. And baubles. The more hardware, the better. Do you know this is the first year since 2012 the Giants haven't had an MVP? And since 2010 they haven't had a Rookie of the Year? And since 2009 they haven't had a Cy Young? It's been a positively unbearable stretch for us Giants fans, and I'm pretty sure the rest of baseball feels our pain. The Gold Glove thing is just sad icing on the cake of despair.

The weird thing about the A's being up there is they have Josh Donaldson, a magnificent defender who couldn't even get nominated because of the impressive competition. That's just like the Giants and Brandon Crawford. In another era, both players would have at least been nominated. They probably would have each won in the right year, too. As is, they're fourth-place finishers in 15-contestant fields.

Edit: The other weird thing is that Josh Reddick won for the A's last year. Boy, howdy, that sure is strange. Also, I screwed up, like, six other things on that table. Most of them are fixed now. Most of them.

There probably isn't a Gold Glove coming soon for the Giants, unless they sign or trade for some crazy left fielder, or if Simmons gets hurt, or if Brandon Belt starts hitting enough to get Gold Glove consideration.

We'll end with happier Gold Glove memories. Here are the Giants who won a Gold Glove in 1993:

Kirt Manwaring - C
Robby Thompson - 2B
Matt Williams - 3B
Barry Bonds - LF

Ridiculously impressive, right? The Cardinals did that in 2002, when they lost the NLCS, and in 2003, but that's it. It's freaky-rare to get four Gold Glovers on one team. Now consider the players who didn't win a Gold Glove on the '93 Giants:

Will Clark - 1B
Royce Clayton - SS
Darren Lewis - CF
Willie McGee - RF

McGee was average. Everyone else was an absolute badass. Lewis was probably the best defender out of all of them, and he'd win the following year. That was the best defensive Giants team we'll probably ever see. Stupid Fred McGriff.

In conclusion, Gary Brown needs to learn how to hit, and I don't think Gold Gloves mean anything, and I don't even think about them anyway, and they're stupid, so, like, pfft, whatever, and man oh man oh man I just want a Giants player to win a Gold Glove.