Chicago Cubs net three well-deserving Gold Glove Award finalists

Three members of the Chicago Cubs are finalists for the 2018 Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. Never before have three Cubs won the honors in the same year.

Could the Chicago Cubs Anthony Rizzo (first base), Javier Baez (second base), Jason Heyward (right field) all win when the 2018 Gold Glove recipients are announced on Nov. 4?

First, some rules govern the process. According to the Rawlings site, the “Rawlings Gold Glove Award® represents overall fielding excellence, and it is not an award based solely on fielding metrics and statistics, nor does it factor offensive production.”

"“Only the manager and his coaching staff on each Major League Baseball team vote. Managers and coaches cannot vote for their own players and can only vote for players in their own League.”"

Now, people often wonder what metrics are used when determining awards such as these. In this instance, the SABR Defensive Index is employed. This is, according to Rawlings:

"“… the measure of the number of runs saved by a player’s defensive performance over the course of a season, compared to the average defensive player at that position.”"

One note here is that the latest available SDI rankings are through Aug. 19, 2018. The final SDI rankings will not be available until after the awards are announced.  Nonetheless, we can get a feel for each candidate based on roughly 75 percent of the season.