Cal Raleigh, Dylan Moore named Rawlings Gold Glove finalists

The Josh Rojas disrespect is noted

With the MLB playoffs reaching their back nine, it’s time for #AwardsSeason to kick into gear. Today Rawlings announced their Gold Glove finalists, and there are a couple Mariners on the list—although maybe not the two you’d expect:

If you can’t squint to see that, Cal Raleigh and Dylan Moore each got nominated, for catcher and utility player, respectively. Cal is nominated alongside Freddy Fermin (KC) and Jake Rogers (DET), while DMo shares the category with Mauricio Dubón (HOU) and Willi Castro (MIN). This is Cal’s second time being nominated, the first being in 2022, and DMo’s first nomination, after he logged a career-high 135 games played this season.

Before we dig in too much further, let’s acknowledge the snub of Josh Rojas at third base. Rojas was tied for the second-highest Fielding Run Value (FRV) at the position in all of baseball (min. 500 innings), with +7, while he and Alex Bregman (who was nominated) tied for most Outs Above Average (OAA)*, with +6; José Ramírez, also nominated, had +2. He didn’t clear the innings threshold of 1,000, as both Bregman and José Ramírez did, both posting FRVs close to Rojas’s. But the third nominee, Ernie Clement (TOR), didn’t come anywhere close to Rojas’s innings, with just 661 to Rojas’s 952, while being at just +3 OAA. We declare shenanigans. Justice for Josh.

(An argument could also be made for Julio being excluded from the center field award, as he was once again Very Good—but CF was especially stacked this year, and J-Rod did miss time with the ankle injury. If this was a Rays blog we would definitely be yelling about José Siri being left off, though.)

Moving on to the UTIL position, a newly-added recognition in 2022, DMo has a tough field against Dubón and Castro. Dubón racked up +7 FRV, primarily playing left field (405 innings) but also playing every other position except catcher. Castro only recorded +3 FRV, but did so playing primarily the more demanding utility positions of SS (466 innings) and CF (211). DMo is neutral on FRV, and also doesn’t stack up well in OAA, with Dubón the clear leader there—although again, Dubón has the advantage of playing primarily a less-demanding outfield position vs. Moore and especially Castro, who was an underrated linchpin for the Twins this season.

The Mariners’ best shot at a Gold Glove winner this year is Cal Raleigh. Cal’s Fielding Run Value of 14 is eighth-best in all of baseball, and first among AL catchers—unless you count Alejandro Kirk, who only logged 766 innings at catcher in 89 starts. If we’re being picky about that, though, nominee Fermin, in a timeshare with Salvador Pérez behind the dish in Kansas City, logged about the same amount of time. In contrast, Cal’s 1,122 innings at catcher lead all of MLB by a significant margin, and he’s the only catcher in MLB who surpassed the 1K innings mark with a positive FRV. Raleigh leads AL catchers in framing, with +13 runs added, comfortably ahead of Rogers (+9) and Fermin (-1). He’s also ahead of Rogers in Caught Stealing Above Average (+3 to +1), although Fermin leads that category in the AL with +8. Raleigh also guided his pitching staff to a 3.30 ERA when he was behind the plate, best in the majors, although the humble Raleigh would give his pitching staff credit for that. The one area where Cal is weak is in blocking, where defensive metrics don’t like him as much while loving Rogers, who is the biggest threat to snatch this award away from the Big Dumper, especially as he’ll get that postseason boost that’s not supposed to be a thing but is totally a thing (see: Fermin being nominated over Kirk).

Hopefully, Cal will have an advantage in voting because the process skews heavily towards those who are on the field every day, which, conveniently, is also where Cal is every day. Major League managers and coaches vote within their league, accounting for 75% of the selection process. The other 25% of the vote comes from “the sabermetrics community.” Whether via the eye test or the stats test, here’s hoping voters will see what Mariners fans all know: Cal Raleigh was the best defensive catcher in the American League this season, and he deserves the award that says he was.

The winners will be announced November third.