The Slanch Report

The AL Gold Glove awards were announced today and Derek Jeter was awarded his 4th Gold Glove. 4, Derek Jeter has 4!!!! fucking Gold Gloves. The man who is a TERRIBLE fielder has won an award for excellence in defense 4 times. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.

Now, I’ll grant that this year Jeter’s defense increased significantly but there is simply no way you can tell me that Jeter is a better fielder than Detroit’s Adam Everett, the Angels’ Erick Aybar, Baltimore’s Cesar Izturis or even Tampa’s Jason Bartlett. The guy who probably most deserved this was either Aybar or Texas’ Elvis Andrus (but he’s a rookie and probably hasn’t received enough publicity yet.) I absolutely give Jeter credit for working over the winter at his lateral movement and improving as a fielder even in his mid-30s, but going from the worst fielding shortstop to the middle ground still doesn’t make you good. Jeter still can’t go to his right, anything a few steps to the left is definitely out of his reach too, basically, you hit it right at him and he’ll get it, otherwise, all bets are off.

The Gold Glove clearly means NOTHING these days — that’s been true for several years now, since at least Rafael Palmeiro won one for playing 16 games in the field — it’s almost not even worth getting upset about.

However, the only reason I do get mad is that other morons then cite the Gold Gloves as PROOF that someone is good, it’s even worse than the people who think Wins are a realistic barometer of a pitcher’s ability, or RBI show how good a hitter is; they don’t! Gold Gloves are voted by the players and coaches and at this point I think things like the Cable Ace Awards are a legitimately more respectable award.

[ESPN]