Congrats to the Rangers 2012 Gold Glove Finalists

The 2012 Gold Glove nominees were announced this morning and the Rangers have three on the list for this season.

Shortstop: Elvis Andrus is one of three finalists at the SS position. He is up against J.J. Hardy, of the Baltimore Orioles, and Brendan Ryan, of the Seattle Mariners. Andrus, in his third full season in the MLB, did ok overall, but still has defensive weaknesses to resolve. Hardy was a lot like Andrus: good, but has a lot of work to still do on the field. Ryan was big part of a pretty solid Mariners defense; Ryan went on to win the 2012 Fielding Bible. I feel that his offense will be held against him, though, considering that he ended 2012 with a .194 average and there has never been a player hitting below the Mendoza line to win a Glove.

Third Base: Adrian Beltre, once again and deservedly so, is up for his second consecutive award with the Rangers. He is up against Brandon Inge, of the Oakland Athletics, and Mike Moustakas, of the Kansas City Royals. This seems like an obvious choice, but nothing can be assumed with baseball. The only chance of an upset I see is with Inge, who did a lot to help out his Athletics club in the face of being released by the Detroit Tigers.  I can’t really comment on Moustakas, only because I wasn’t able to really observe much of his play. All in all, I do believe Beltre is a lock for the award.

Left Field: The award list was posted on ESPN at 11:15 AM. At 11:16 AM, there was a loud and collective, “What the what?!” heard all over when it was revealed that David Murphy was a Gold Glove candidate. It was a pleasant surprise to me, but a surprise none the less. He is up against Desmond Jennings, of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Alex Gordon, of the Kansas City Royals. Murphy did well, but he had a lot of holes defensively to start the season and it took him a while to get things right. Jennings was up and down as well, and considering these two are up against the 2012 Fielding Bible winner, I can’t see Murphy or Jennings having enough to edge out Gordon.