Rays Evan Longoria Wins Third Gold Glove, First Player to Do So in Franchise History
The Rays Evan Longoria on Tuesday became the first player in franchise history to win three Gold Glove Awards. Longoria won at third base, beating out Manny Machado and Jose Ramirez to take the American League award.
Longoria, who also won Gold Glove Awards in 2009 and 2010, was pleased to win the award. It’s the eighth Gold Glove Award in franchise history. Center fielder Kevin Kiermaier (2015 and 2016), right-handed pitcher Jeremy Hellickson (2012), left fielder Carl Crawford (2010) and first baseman Carlos Peña (2008) also have won Gold Glove Awards.
“The Gold Glove is one of the awards when I first started playing that I always wanted to win, so to win a third one is really cool,” said Longoria. “I definitely take pride in my defense. …It feels good to win it, and it feels good to win it in front of some really good players and some guys who put together good years.”
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Only 17 other third baseman have won three or more Gold Glove Awards, and Longoria is only the third active third baseman with three Gold Gloves or more. The others are Adrian Beltre (5) and Nolan Arenado (4, entering tonight).
This season, Longoria ranked second among AL third basemen with 11 Defensive Runs Saved, according to FanGraphs, his most since 2013 (12). DRS attempts to calculate how many runs a player saved or cost his team in the field compared to the average player at his position.
Longoria ranked third among AL third baseman in fielding percentage (.968), total chances (375), putouts (96) and assists (267). He also played a career-best 47 consecutive error-free games from July 5 to August 28.
Rawlings Gold Glove Award voting consists of two components: 75 percent of the vote comes from managers and coaches, who may not vote for a player on their own team, and 25 percent comes from statistical analysis in collaboration with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Pitcher Alex Cobb also was a finalist for the award.
