David Peralta and Kole Calhoun named Gold Glove finalists

Rawlings Sporting Goods announced today the finalists for the 2020 Gold Glove Awards, and National Leagues. The winners will be unveiled during a live, one-hour “Baseball Tonight” broadcast on ESPN Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, at 7 p.m. ET. Interestingly the way its determined will be different this year. The usual method relied on a vote from managers and coaches, with a small sabermetric component. But with teams typically facing only a small subset of other teams, that would mean a lot of indirect observation at best. So instead, here’s the rules for this year’s awards:

Award qualifications have been amended to rely solely on the SDI which draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. SDI utilizes MLBAM’s Statcast, Sports Information Solutions data, and STATS, LLC data as well as traditional statistics with advanced analysis. For 2020 Award consideration, pitchers must have pitched at least 50 innings, catchers must have played in at least 29 games and infielders/outfielders must have completed at least 265 defensive innings. Each player qualifies at the position he has played at most (SDI is only for play at qualified position).

Here are the National League finalists:

• P
  Max Fried - Atlanta Braves
  Alec Mills - Chicago Cubs
  Kyle Hendricks - Chicago Cubs
• C
  Jacob Stallings - Pittsburgh Pirates
  Willson Contreras - Chicago Cubs
  Tucker Barnhart -Cincinnati Reds
• 1B
  Brandon Belt - San Francisco Giants
  Paul Goldschmidt - St. Louis Cardinals
  Anthony Rizzo - Chicago Cubs
• 2B
  Nico Hoerner - Chicago Cubs
  Kolten Wong - St. Louis Cardinals
  Adam Frazier - Pittsburgh Pirates
• 3B
  Nolan Arenado - Colorado Rockies
  Brian Anderson - Miami Marlins
  Manny Machado - San Diego Padres
• SS
  Miguel Rojas - Miami Marlins
  Dansby Swanson - Atlanta Braves
  Javier Baez - Chicago Cubs
• LF
  Shogo Akiyama - Cincinnati Reds
  David Peralta - Arizona Diamondbacks
  Tyler O’Neill - St. Louis Cardinals
• CF
  Ronald Acuna Jr. - Atlanta Braves
  Cody Bellinger - Los Angeles Dodgers
  Trent Grisham - San Diego Padres
• RF
  Charlie Blackmon - Colorado Rockies
  Jason Heyward - Chicago Cubs
  Mookie Betts - Los Angeles Dodgers
  Kole Calhoun - Arizona Diamondbacks

Both Peralta and Calhoun have one before. The Freight Train is, in fact, the reigning Gold Glove left fielder in the National League, while Kole won one back in 2015 as a member of the Angels. There are a couple of former Diamondbacks mentioned as well. Unsurprisingly, Goldschmidt gets a nomination at 1B, though Christian Walker was not able to repeat making the final list there, which he did in 2019. And reigning, two-time champion at shortstop, Nick Ahmed, couldn’t even make the shortlist. Rubbing salt into that particular would, is the presence of former Arizona 1st-round pick Dansby Swanson there, now as an Atlanta Brave. #ThankYouDaveStewart...

Sure someone will take a look at those results in more detail and figure out whether the nominations - and omissions - are justified or not.