Award season approaches.
The biggest awards in baseball won’t be handed out until after the World Series is over, but the process of unveiling the game’s best defenders is already underway.
Rawlings announced the Gold Glove finalists Thursday, and the White Sox were well represented, with Lucas Giolito and Yolmer Sanchez both making the cut as one of three possible winners at their respective positions.
Sanchez’s place on the AL second base list was nearly a foregone conclusion considering how spectacular he was defensively in 2019. He led AL second basemen with 11 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), ranking second in baseball to Kolten Wong of the St. Louis Cardinals. Sanchez had a 98.7 fielding percentage and was part of 108 double-play turns.
Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros and D.J. LeMahieu of the New York Yankees are the other two AL finalists at second base.
Giolito’s inclusion as a finalist was more surprising but certainly not undeserved. As part of his top-to-bottom transformation from the pitcher with the worst numbers in baseball in 2018 into an All Star this season, the number of base-stealers against Giolito plummeted from 26 in 2018 to just three in 2019. He made zero errors on the year.
Jose Berrios of the Minnesota Twins and Mike Leake, who played 22 of his 32 games with the Seattle Mariners, are the other two AL finalists at pitcher.
MLB
No White Sox player has won a Gold Glove since Jake Peavy won in 2012 to make it four straight South Side hurlers to win that specific award, with Mark Buehrle winning in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Sanchez, should he win, would be the first White Sox position player to win a Gold Glove since his former manager, Robin Ventura, who won five of them at third base between 1991 and 1998. He’d be the first White Sox second baseman to win a Gold Glove since Nellie Fox in 1960.
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