Cody Bellinger is a Yankee who plays in New York. Ceddanne Rafaela is a center fielder in Boston most of the country never thinks about. Guess which one just won the American League Platinum Glove.
The numbers didn't settle this. Rawlings decides the Platinum Glove by blending a sabermetric index for each of the ten Gold Glove winners in a league with a worldwide fan vote. That vote opened November 1 and closed November 4. Four days. A click campaign. Then on Friday night at the Plaza, they handed out an award that's supposed to name the best defender in the league.
Look at the gloves. Rafaela put up 21 defensive runs saved and 16 Outs Above Average across 138 games, nearly all of them in center field. Bellinger's year was good: MLB.com credits him with 21 DRS, which happens to tie Rafaela, while another report card has him at +6 OAA, mostly in left field over 132 games after a hamstring strain cost him time in July and August. Center field is harder than left field. A center fielder who matches your DRS while covering more ground and playing more games is the better defender. That's just the position chart talking.
Bellinger can really play defense. A FanGraphs writer who votes on the Fielding Bible Awards ranked him the best left fielder in baseball this year, and the stat services can't even agree on his line: some slot him third in the majors in DRS, another buries him 42nd in fielding run value. The numbers are a mess. But being one of the best left fielders alive doesn't make you the best defender in the American League, and that's what the trophy claims to measure.
Bellinger won on name recognition, a big market, and a short poll that rewards both. The player did nothing wrong here; he fielded well and let people vote for him. Rawlings and MLB are the ones who keep bolting a fan referendum onto an award they sell as objective, then act bewildered every November when the fan referendum does what fan referendums do.
You can see the format working fine in the other league, which is why nobody's yelling about Pete Crow-Armstrong. He led the majors with +26 Outs Above Average for a second straight season, hit .280 with 45 home runs and 41 stolen bases to crack the 40/40 club, and he's an NL MVP finalist. When the spreadsheet and the crowd point at the same guy, the hybrid looks rigorous. When they split, you get this.
The fix is obvious and free. Strip the fan vote out and let the defensive index decide a defensive award. Until Rawlings does that, the Platinum Glove measures fame with a lab coat thrown over it.
