Freddy Galvis & Clayton Richard Nominated for Gold Gloves

Two San Diego Padres players were named finalists for the annual MLB Gold Glove Award, as both shortstop Freddy Galvis and starting pitcher Clayton Richard made the cut. 

Pitcher Clayton Richard and shortstop Freddy Galvis are among the three finalists for the Gold Glove Awards at pitcher and shortstop, respectively.

Richard will be going up against four-time winner Zack Greinke of the Arizona Diamondback and Julio Tehran of the Atlanta Braves, while Galvis will be up against Nick Ahmed of the Diamondbacks and three-time winner Brandon Crawford of the San Francisco Giants.

This isn’t the first time that Galvis is up for nomination as he was up for the award last season when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies. However, he lost the award to Crawford. Now, he is back on the ballot after acting as a human highlight reel for San Diego and making the hard plays look easy. He was credited with making 40 “Good Plays” (or Web Gem-like plays), good for fifth in MLB and second in the NL.

On the season, Galvis carried a .986 fielding percentage and tallied up a seven DRS while committing only nine errors in 1401 innings. Advanced metrics weren’t as kind to him as he had a URZ of -4.4 after posting a 3.5 UZR in 2017 while his RngR (Range Runs) went from a -4.6 in 2017 to a -9.6 in 2018. Galvis was still able to make incredible plays look easy and is a strong contender to take the award.

Crawford beat him out last season, but had a bit of a decline this year, committing 16 errors in 1259 innings and compiling a .975 fielding percentage. Ahmed had himself a solid year with the glove, logging 1239.2 innings with nine errors and a .985 fielding percentage.

Richard committed three throwing errors in the 158.2 innings he played, good for a .932 fielding percentage. He also had three putouts and 38 assists before knee surgery ended his season. Tehran had a perfect fielding percentage of 1.000 in 175.2 innings with 33 assists and nine putouts. Grienke also had himself a perfect fielding percentage of 1.000 with 27 putouts and 30 assists.

If Richard comes out the victor, he will be the first Padres pitcher to win the award since Greg Maddux won in 2007. Galvis would be the first Padres position player to win the award since Chase Headley bagged the Gold Glove in 2012. Both players are deserving of the award, but it will be up to the managers of MLB to decide who gets the gold.

Jason Freund

I am currently attending San Diego State University while working on achieving a major in journalism. At SDSU, I write for The Daily Aztec while also hosting the sports radio show “Picked Off”, for KCR Radio. A loyal fan of San Diego sports, I hope to bring content that you will enjoy reading.