The National League handed out their Gold Glove Awards, and as usual, there was a sense of comic relief because of some of the winners – specifically at third base. Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals took home his first Gold Glove, perhaps solely because the Nats needed anything with which to say 2009 was successful. He finished ahead of a much more deserving candidate from San Diego in Kevin Kouzmanoff. The suspicion is that Gold Glove winners – a defensive honor – are often chosen based on offensive statistics. A comparison between the two NL third basemen gives credit to that theory.

Defensively, Kouzmanoff was a better player than Zimmerman. In 311 total chances, Kouzmanoff made just three errors with 94 putouts, 214 assists, and turned 24 double plays for a .990 fielding percentage. Zimmerman, on the other hand, had 117 putouts and 325 assists with 17 errors in 459 chances, turning just 28 double plays. His fielding percentage was .963, just eight points above the league average. If you project each of Kouzmanoffs numbers to reflect 459 total chances, he has 138 putouts, 316 assists, four errors, and 35 double plays. Clearly, Kouzmanoff was the superior defender in the National League.

The winners are selected by the managers and coaches, who are not allowed to vote for their own players, and must vote within their own league. This being the case, the managers may not look deep into the statistics of the other players in the league. As a result, winners sometimes don’t deserve the hardware they are given. To truly say that one player is better than everybody else (and in the case of Greg Maddux, better for 18 years in a row) takes an in-depth look at all stats, including chances, errors, range, position, etc.  This is something coaches and managers apparently are not doing.

Sure the alliteration is kind of nice, but they say that “defense wins games,” and gold is certainly worth more than silver. Kouzmanoff played a hot corner in 2009, while Zimmerman’s was merely lukewarm. To even make the argument that Zimmerman’s defense was more important to the Nationals’ season than Kouzmanoff’s was to the Padres’ is ludicrous, and certainly Zimmerman did not outperform his colleague at an individual level. All that remains is offensive stats, where Zimmerman clearly tops Kouzmanoff. Baseball needs an athlete like Ryan to step up and say “I don’t deserve this,” but until somebody does, the farce will continue.