Did Brooks Robinson Deserve All 16 of His Gold Gloves?

 By JT    

Of course, he did. He was voted them fair and square. So, now, if we use dField does he come out on top all sixteen seasons?

Well, no. However, as we all know these advanced metrics were not available at the time and if they were would have likely been ignored. Also, in this, I may revisit this is FRAA and Win Shares and DRA. But for a quick-and-dirty look I used just runs saved.

Here is the AL just looking at Clete Boyer and Robinson, then later Graig Nettles and Buddy Bell. Then in the NFL Santo then Rader (who won five Gold Gloves) and then Schmidt. The National League is just posted for a looksie, I will break it down later. The purpose here is to see Robinson's run saved versus Boyer and later Nettles.

Again, I have not yet gone year-to-year to see who had the highest rField—will get to that at some point, but it does seem that Clete Boyer beat out Brooks four times in the 1960s. And in the 1970s Gaig Nettles had a higher rField number. (Additionally, Nettles had a big number in 1976 but lost out on teh Golden Glove to Aurelio Rodríguez for some reason—likely only 9 errors and 21 double plays. Nettles had 12 errors but 30 dps. Go figure. 

Regardless, going by rField only Robinson "deserved" roughly half of his Gold Gloves, and perhaps one in 1959. Nettles only won two in his career but seems like he deserved maybe six of seven. Clete Boyer won one (in the National League in 1969. He probably should have had another one in 1970 and maybe a handful in the American League. 

The NL is just a preview, we'll get to that soon.