Starling Marte, Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole named Gold Glove finalists

Starling Marte, Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole have been named Gold Glove finalists at their respective positions.

Marte joins Justin Upton and Christian Yelich as finalists in for the NL Gold Glove award in left field. It's an award Marte deserves to win, particularly against Upton (who seems like somewhat of a random pick) and Yelich (who won a Gold Glove last year but didn't fare nearly as well as Marte by advanced statistical measures in 2015). If they're going to have a Gold Glove award for left fielders, it's about time Marte got one -- he's a center fielder playing in a corner, and he ably covers a huge amount of ground. Also, his arm is outstanding. I imagine this play before a national audience helped his case.

McCutchen won a Gold Glove in 2012 but has never been excellent by center field standards and shouldn't win the award this year. Billy Hamilton and A.J. Pollock are the other two options, and either one would be a worthy choice.

I'd honestly never given much thought to Cole's defense, but advanced statistical measures say he was good this year, and not noticing a pitcher's defense probably speaks well of its quality. The other two finalists at that position are Jake Arrieta and Zack Greinke, which means that a lot of Cy Young ballots are going to pretty closely resemble the list of Gold Glove candidates. In this case, though, it's hard to accuse Rawlings of just picking a bunch of famous names -- Greinke ranked first among NL pitchers in Defensive Runs Saved, and Cole and Arrieta tied with Jaime Garcia, Jacob deGrom, Mike Leake and Odrisamer Despaigne for third. Arrieta, Cole and Greinke also were the top three in Plus/Minus Runs Saved, with Garcia tied with Greinke for third.