SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh has bigger things to worry about than the Rawlings Gold Glove Award announcement that landed on Wednesday morning, with his Mariners just two wins away from advancing in this American League Championship Series against the Blue Jays.
Yet Raleighâ€s absence from the list of three finalists among AL catchers spurred intrigue, given that the Mariners†backstop won the Platinum Glove Award last year for being the ALâ€s top overall defender.
Rawlings announced that Detroit’s Dillon Dingler, Torontoâ€s Alejandro Kirk and Bostonâ€s Carlos Narváez were the ALâ€s finalists at catcher. Separately, Seattleâ€s Julio RodrÃguez was among the ALâ€s three finalists in center field for the second time (2023) as he looks to win his first Gold Glove.
Hereâ€s how the criteria is determined: The 30 MLB managers and up to six coaches from each team vote from a pool of players in their league, excluding players from their own team. These votes comprise 75% of the selection total, with the SABR defensive index counting for the other 25%.
Obviously, year-over-year production can change, and Raleigh had a dip in caught-stealings (32 to 21) and caught-stealing rate (from 28.3% to 21.2%) while seeing a slight decline in his framing numbers — though he was still above average in this category.
The one stat that was maybe his most remarkable was that Raleigh didnâ€t have a passed ball until Game 5 of the AL Division Series vs. the Tigers — and playoff numbers are not factored into the criteria for Gold Gloves.
Raleigh was asked whether he felt he was worse defensively this year.
“A lot of that is based off of numbers and analytics,†Raleigh said. “So I think this year with the new strike zone, it kind of changed a lot. You saw it early on and, obviously, that big article came out, and they mentioned they shrunk the zone for the umpires — or at least the shadow zone of what can and can’t be called down from two [inches] to 0.75. So I would say that was a big factor early on.â€
The article in question was published by The Athletic in May that detailed a smaller buffer zone that players, including Raleigh, said might have affected their framing numbers.
Raleigh was worth +7 catcher framing runs, which was tied with Dingler for fifth-best in MLB, while Kirk ranked second (+16) and Narváez tied for eighth (+5). Last year, Raleigh was worth +20, which was fourth-best.
On a month-by-month basis, Raleigh was worth +2 framing runs in March/April, +1 in May, +1 in June, zero in July, +2 in August and +2 in September. Those figures are calculated by converting strikes to runs saved on a .125 run/strike basis, and they include park and pitcher adjustments. To qualify, a catcher must receive six called pitches per team game.
“Right now, I’m not crazy looking into it,†Raleigh said. “We’ve obviously got bigger things ahead of us. So that’s something maybe I’ll address in the offseason, take a look at something I can do better, kind of dive a little deeper into that.â€
Thereâ€s also the reality that Raleigh is the backstop for a Mariners pitching staff that throws a ton of pitches that have downward movement and regularly force him to block balls in the dirt — such as the splitters from Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller and the slider from Andrés Muñoz, among many others. Over the entire strike zone, Raleigh ranked poorest at the bottom third in framing.
“When you look at some of the stuff that he has to deal with in terms of our pitching staff — a lot of split-fingers, particularly Logan — and then the amount of blocking he does, his throwing has been great,†said Mariners manager Dan Wilson, a former catcher. “There are some tough things that happen along the way, and you’d love for all your guys to be nominated for those kinds of things. But I think the season, the year that Cal has had, has just been outstanding.â€
While Raleigh wonâ€t bring home Gold Glove hardware, itâ€s still possible that he wins AL MVP — and the argument for him over Yankees two-time winner Aaron Judge is largely rooted in Raleighâ€s premium position and the fact that he hit 60 homers while playing in 159 games, most of them in the sportâ€s most demanding role.
And, as Raleigh noted, the ultimate award is still in front of him, too — the Commissionerâ€s Trophy for winning the World Series.
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