I just read an article on how it was a no-brainer to give Omar Vizquel the Gold Glove. What a bunch of BS. How can they say that? Adam Everett once again had an amazing season (defensively that is). The only stat Omar was better at was fielding percentage.

Omar’s fielding percentage: .993
Everett’s fielding percentage: .990

Are you kidding me? Due to Omar having a better fielding percentage by .003 he is the obvious Gold Glove? Is this the only stat that matters? How about the fact that Everett fielded almost a hundred more balls than Omar. How about the fact that Everett had the highest Zone rating by a national league SS in the past 6 years. (It could be longer but I couldn’t find Zone ratings of players before 2000. And if you don’t know what a zone rating is, it is the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his defensive zone.)

Other than fielding percentage, I couldn’t find one defensive stat that Omar was better at. Is fielding percentage the only thing they look at? What about double plays turned? Or a players range factor? Is Rob Neyer the only person who cares about theses stats? When two players have identical fielding percentages shouldn’t the voters be looking at some of these other stats?

I think Everett didn’t win the Gold Glove because he makes playing shortstop seem way too easy and Omar has a career filled with Gold Gloves. That being said, this obviously was not a “no-brainer” and I think Everett got screwed.