Wow, I didn't see that coming.

The last Pirate to receive the Rawlings Gold Glove award was shortstop Jay Bell in 1993. Center fielder Andy Van Slyke received it in 1992.

That's right--Nate McLouth has a Gold Glove. Jack Wilson has none.

McLouth's memorable throw in the All-Star game probably helped him, but other than that, I don't know what the voters saw here. McLouth, to my eyes, looked like an average centerfielder. Perfectly decent, but not great. Whatever--I'm happy for him anyway.

McLouth may soon become a mini Derek Jeter--a lightning rod for arguments about the viability of defensive statistics as opposed to traditional approaches. At least one defensive metric thought McLouth was a complete disaster this year, at least through August, and he's never been rated as a good centerfielder by any advanced metric of which I'm aware.

Here are the other NL Gold Glove winners, by the way.

UPDATE: Thanks to Dtoddwin and Thunder for steering me toward this from Rob Neyer:

Nate McLouth, though? Quite frankly, this is like some horrible joke, roughly on par with giving three Gold Gloves to Derek Jeter (2004 to 2006) or giving one to Rafael Palmeiro (1999) on the strength of 28 games.

Neyer then names some fielding stats in which McLouth graded terribly, then guesses that the coaches voted for McLouth on the basis of his low error total.