Ryan Lefebvre proposed a new rule for Gold Glove eligibility. Who would win?
During the top of the eighth inning against the White Sox on May 5th, Ryan LeFebvre had a funny comment about the pitcher Gold Glove award. My notes are not very detailed, but I am quite sure that since this was the only popout of the inning, his comment was related to this play:
Vinnie Pasquantino made a sliding over-the-shoulder catch on a popup. It was really quite a catch. He got back up and managed to fire the ball to Daniel Lynch, who ran over to cover first, to get a double play.
I do not remember the exact word-for-word comment Ryan made, but he said something that amounted to pitchers should be required to catch at least one popup per year to be eligible for the Gold Glove.
Naturally, I was curious and wanted to understand how that would affect the pool of pitchers that would, in fact, be eligible. I do not believe there are any explicit rules that govern how managers/coaches vote for the Gold Glove, but generally I think they would have plenty of implicit rules, most probably the number of innings pitched. They’re not going to give the award to a starter who threw 100 innings, nor to a reliever who threw only like 30 innings or something like that. The “Qualified” moniker applies here, I think.
Let’s take a look at 2024, just for the purpose of narrowing down the analysis. It appears that only 85 unique pitchers caught a popup last season. The vast majority of those pitchers caught only one popup; 11 of them caught at least two. Chris Bassitt is the only one who caught three.
Notably, Chris Sale and Seth Lugo, the Gold Glove winners in 2024, do not appear on the list.
Let’s for a moment imagine that Ryan’s rule were active. Gotta catch at least one popup. Who, then, would take home the awards in 2024? It’s hard to say, but one guideline we can use is Baseball Info Solutions’ Rdrs metric – a defensive runs saved calculation – listed on Baseball Reference. This more-or-less passes the smell test; Lugo ranked very highly, and Sale was just one run below him.
So, I’m just going to go down the Rdrs rankings and see who are the first AL name and NL name in the rankings who also caught at least one popup.
Your 2024 NL Gold Glove Pitcher-Who-Caught-A-Popup would be….Luis Severino!
Pitching for the Mets in 2024, Severino was right up there with Lugo in terms of Rdrs and threw 182 innings, so I imagine he was probably in consideration for the actual award anyway. This is probably not a result that would be considered “out there”. Boo.
One popup starts with Spiderman and Batman, and who DOESN’T love a popup that starts with Spiderman and Batman? Upon contact, Severino immediately backpedaled and then turned to track the ball in the air. When it came down, it was not immediately clear who caught it, but Severino did in fact come away with it. The second popup was a bunt popup; Severino kinda danced around the mound to get into the correct position, but he caught it and nearly turned a double play by throwing to second. Solid work.
Your 2024 AL Gold Glove Pitcher-Who-Caught-A-Popup would be….Tim Herrin! A reliever!
Pitching for the Guardians, Herrin appeared in 75 games and threw 65 2⁄3 innings, which counts as “Qualified” under the FanGraphs filter. In his relief role, though, he accrued enough Rdrs equal to Sale and was the only pitcher up there on the leaderboard not to make a start. I imagine his relief compatriots around him on the leaderboard were used as openers here and there, but there are very few relievers high up on this Rdrs leaderboard.
Anyway, Herrin’s popup was during the daytime and went sky-high. There was plenty of time for another fielder to call him off, and/or plenty of time for Herrin himself to lose the ball in the sun. In a funny maybe-not-a-coincidence with Severino’s popup, the Cleveland first baseman nearly takes Herrin’s fake-Gold-Glove away from him.
This was Severino’s popup under similar circumstances, but Severino did have another one in case this one was taken from him.
But for real, I don’t think a pitcher catching a popup should be a requirement to win the Gold Glove. It would dramatically restrict the player pool for voting, but the biggest thing is the not-coincidence with Herrin and Severino. On an infield popup, the pitcher is the last person you want catching the ball.
It would also take away Lugo’s 2024 Gold Glove. I don’t like that very much.
On the other hand, you’d have infielders actively trying to steal Gold Glove candidacy from pitchers to make an out. That would probably be hilarious and a gift that keeps on giving.
Maybe it should be a requirement? Baseball is for entertainment, after all.