Rollins wins Fourth Gold Glove; Chooch falls short once more

As Bob Brookover reports, Jimmy Rollins has won the fourth Rawlings Gold Glove award of his career. Carlos Ruiz was a finalist, but lost out to Yadier Molina who won for the 5th year in a row.

Rollins won three straight awards in 2007-2009. Troy Tulowitzki then took over and won the award in 2010 and 2011, but with Tulo limited by injury to only 47 games this year, the voting was down to finalists Rollins, Jose Reyes, Zack Cozart, and Brandon Crawford.

Rob Neyer calls the Rollins award "sort of a joke, honestly," but I wouldn't go that far. He probably won the award based on reputation, along with his league-leading fielding percentage this year, but he was also not a terrible choice based on Ultimate Zone Rating, at least in comparison to the other finalists. However the shortstop that was likely most deserving was not even a finalist.

Clint Barmes, who has been bouncing between second base and short stop for his career, had his third excellent season at short, and had the highest UZR in the NL. The other two years that he spent most of the season at short he finished 3rd (2006), and 1st (2011) in UZR. 2012 UZR rankings:

1. Barmes 14.4
2. Crawford 8.7
3. Cozart 7.7
4. Desmond 4.8
5. Rollins 4.4
...
9. Reyes -2.8

The rankings in BIS' Defensive Runs Saved were similar for most players, but differed sharply for Rollins:

1. Barmes 13
2. Crawford 12
3. Cozart 12
4. Castro 3
...
9. Rollins -8
10. Reyes -17

2012 Gold Glove Award Winners

NL:

P - Mark Buehrle (4th)
C - Yadier Molina (5)
1B - Adam LaRoche
2B - Darwin Barney
SS - Jimmy Rollins (4)
3B - Chase Headley
LF - Carlos Gonzalez (2)
CF - Andrew McCutchen
RF - Jason Heyward

AL:

P - Jake Peavy & Jeremy Hellickson (tie)
C - Matt Wieters (2)
1B - Mark Teixeira (5)
2B - Robinson Canó (2)
SS - J.J. Hardy
3B - Adrián Beltré (4)
LF - Alex Gordon (2)
CF - Adam Jones (2)
RF - Josh Reddick