There’s Gold (Glove) in the Desert: Christian Walker wins his first Gold Glove

With a monstrous lead in all the metrics, these pointed to an easy win for Christian Walker in the National League Gold Glove awards this year. But there was always a sliver of doubt: after all, these were the same voters who inexplicably included Juan Soto in the top three fielders at his position. People are crazy, it appears. But there was no stopping Walker, who picked up his first Gold Glove, bringing the award back to Arizona, where it was last present at this position when Paul Goldschmidt won it in 2017. It’ll look nice on CWalk’s mantelpiece, alongside the Fielding Bible award - chosen across all of the majors, not just the NL. He beat out Goldschmidt, now with St. Louis, and Matt Olson of Atlanta.

It’s a startling turnaround, considering that at this point last year, he was named the team’s most likely non-tender candidate. Now, after 36 home-runs, 94 RBI and this award? Not so much. The SnakePit got this right, 82% of the voters picking Walker to get the honor. And if there was any doubt, I’ll just leave this here:

However, there was no luck at any of the other positions, where our trio of finalists were all shut out. To start in left field, where the award went to Ian Happ of the Cubs - Happ was picked to win in our poll, getting 48% of the vote. Right field also saw the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts (40%) win out over Daulton Varsho, though at least it didn’t go to Soto. So there’s that, I guess? Center field was given to the Padres’ Trent Grisham (57%), with Alek Thomas unable to overcome the rookie disadvantage. Finally, the new utility award went to Brendan Donovan of the Cardinals (11%), despite Varsho being a heavy favorite in our poll. I guess playing six positions is more utilitarian than three...