Each league has an award at each position, and there are three finalists for each spot.
They each won the award in 2018 and then repeated in 2019, but in 2020 they were bumped — Chapman had his season cut short by an injury, and Olson was snubbed when that year’s awards were based entirely on small-sample advanced metrics with no human voting element during the weird pandemic season.
He only played a handful of games in his debut 2019 season, and then 2020 was shortened for everybody, so 2021 was his first proper full season in the bigs.
Those are two big names in the world of catcher defense, as Perez has won the Gold Glove five times and Maldonado once.
He led all MLB catchers in FanGraphs’ Def rating, he tied for third in Defensive Runs Saved, and Statcast had him tied for second in pitch-framing value.
Verdict: Murphy has a chance, and personally I’d pick him, but he probably isn’t the favorite just because of the magnitude of the names he’s up against.
Neither of them has ever won the award before, though this is Gurriel’s third straight year as a finalist.
I’m not sure he’s a lock, because as I understand it Gurriel might be getting the stats nod, but humans are voting too so they can still pick Olson.
Does anybody have a chance against Chapman? Jose Ramirez of Cleveland, and Joey Wendle of Tampa Bay, will give it a try.
The incumbent is Isiah Kiner-Falefa of the Rangers, but he moved to shortstop this year so he’s out of the running for this position.
In the past Chapman has posted comically off-the-chart numbers, but this year he’s closer to the pack.
Over at SABR, as of late August, Chapman had a slight lead over Ramirez in their SDI metric, which is factored into the voting.
Chapman didn’t have his best defensive season, making a few more mistakes than usual, but he was still the gold standard and he has a uniquely massive impact on that side of the ball.
If Gurriel snags first base away from Olson, I’ll disagree and be bummed but I’ll more or less understand.