ST. LOUIS – First baseman Paul Goldschmidt and four of his Cardinals teammates are recipients of the Gold Glove Award. It’s the first time in Major League history that a team has five Gold Glove winners.
It’s the fourth Gold Glove Award for Goldschmidt. Third baseman Nolan Arenado earned his ninth Gold Glove. He’s won the award every year of his career thus far.
Arenado is the first player to win nine consecutive Gold Gloves since outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Torii Hunter, and the second player in MLB history to win the award in each of his first nine seasons (Suzuki won 10 from 2001-2010).
Yadier Molina, himself a 9-time Gold Glove Award-winner, missed out on a tenth trophy to Jacob Stallings of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Second baseman Tommy Edman and center fielder Harrison Bader each won their first Gold Glove. Left fielder Tyler O’Neil got another Gold Glove Award after claiming his first last season.
The Gold Glove is given to players at each position in both the National League and American League who excel at fielding. Winners are selected via a combination of votes from the manager and six coaches of every Major League team and the SABR Defensive Index, which measures “the number of runs saved by a player’s defensive performance over the course of a season, compared to the average defensive player at that position.”
According to FanGraphs, the Cardinals led all Major League teams in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) in 2021 with 86, eight more than the next closest team.
From now until Thursday, Nov. 11 at 11 p.m., Cardinals fans vote Arenado, Goldschmidt, O’Neill, Bader, or Edman for the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award at Rawlings.com. A combination of the national fan vote and the SDI will determine who takes that honor. The winners will be unveiled on Friday, Nov. 12 on the MLB Network.
