A’s third baseman, first baseman, catcher up for possible Gold Gloves!
Awards season is heating up, and the Oakland A’s have a few more players in the running for hardware.
On Thursday, finalists were announced for the 2021 Gold Glove awards. Each league has an award at each position, and there are three finalists for each spot. Three A’s are in the conversation for the defensive honor at their respective positions.
- C Sean Murphy
- 1B Matt Olson
- 3B Matt Chapman
Winners will be announced Nov. 7, which is a week from next Sunday.
This is familiar territory for the Matts, who have both won a pair of Gold Gloves in their careers and have firmly established their reputations as amazing defenders. They each won the award in 2018 and then repeated in 2019, but in 2020 they were bumped — Chapman had his season cut short by an injury, and Olson was snubbed when that year’s awards were based entirely on small-sample advanced metrics with no human voting element during the weird pandemic season. Chapman has also won the even more prestigious Platinum Glove twice, in 2018-19, as the best AL defender at any position.
As for Murphy, this is his first time being a Gold Glove finalist, but it’s not a surprise to see him here. He was billed as an elite defensive prospect all the way up the minors and has looked great so far in the majors. He only played a handful of games in his debut 2019 season, and then 2020 was shortened for everybody, so 2021 was his first proper full season in the bigs. The advanced metrics loved his work, including pitch-framing where he was one of the best in the sport.
More details coming, including how they stack up against the competition at each position!