Carlos Gomez won a well-deserved Gold Glove last week. Prior to Gomez, the Brewers hadn’t had a Gold Glove winner since 1982, when Robin Yount won it at shortstop. Now that a Brewer has won a Gold Glove in 2013, the team with the longest Gold Glove drought is . . . let’s see . . . I made a table . . .
| San Francisco Giants | 2006 | Omar Vizquel |
| Cleveland Indians | 2008 | Grady Sizemore |
| New York Mets | 2008 | David Wright, Carlos Beltran |
| Detroit Tigers | 2009 | Placido Polanco |
| Houston Astros | 2010 | Michael Bourn |
| Minnesota Twins | 2010 | Joe Mauer |
| Seattle Mariners | 2010 | Franklin Gutierrez, Ichiro Suzuki |
| Los Angeles Angels | 2011 | Erick Aybar |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 2011 | Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier |
| Oakland Athletics | 2012 | Josh Reddick |
| Chicago White Sox | 2012 | Jake Peavy |
| Chicago Cubs | 2012 | Darwin Barney |
| Florida Marlins | 2012 | Mark Buehrle |
| New York Yankees | 2012 | Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 2012 | Jimmy Rollins |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 2012 | Andrew McCutchen |
| San Diego Padres | 2012 | Chase Headley |
| Washington Nationals | 2012 | Adam LaRoche |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 2012 | Jeremy Hellickson |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 2013 | Paul Goldschmidt, Gerardo Parra |
| Atlanta Braves | 2013 | Andrelton Simmons |
| Baltimore Orioles | 2013 | Adam Jones, Manny Machado, J.J. Hardy |
| Boston Red Sox | 2013 | Dustin Pedroia |
| Cincinnati Reds | 2013 | Brandon Phillips |
| Colorado Rockies | 2013 | Carlos Gonzalez |
| Kansas City Royals | 2013 | Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 2013 | Carlos Gomez |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 2013 | Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright |
| Texas Rangers | 2013 | Adrian Beltre |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 2013 | R.A. Dickey |
There are only nine teams that haven’t won a Gold Glove since last year. Of those, the Giants have been waiting the longest. The Giants have been pretty fortunate with some other individual awards. Our last league MVP was in 2012. Our last rookie of the year? 2010. And a Giant won the Cy Young Award in 2009. 2008, too, but who’s counting?
In a league where Andrelton Simmons is hurt, Brandon Crawford might win a Gold Glove. Brandon Belt might have a shot one day. But we have to recognize that it is unlikely the current crew of Giants will win a Gold Glove.
We’ll end with happier Gold Glove memories. Here are the Giants who won a Gold Glove in 1993:
Kirt Manwaring – C
Robby Thompson – 2B
Matt Williams – 3B
Barry Bonds – LF
Ridiculously impressive, right? The Cardinals did that in 2002, when they lost the NLCS, and in 2003, but that’s it. It’s freaky-rare to get four Gold Glovers on one team. Now consider the players who didn’t win a Gold Glove on the ’93 Giants:
Will Clark – 1B
Royce Clayton – SS
Darren Lewis – CF
Willie McGee – RF
McGee was average. Clayton was a great defender, although not so much in 1993. Lewis may have been the best defender out of all of them, and he’d win the following year. Clark was good if not great. That was the best defensive Giants team we’ll probably ever see.