Denzel Clarke and the Gold Glove Debate

According to the rules, in order to be eligible for the Gold Glove award, a player must have 698 total innings at their position in order to be considered for the award. When he landed on the IL, Clarke had totaled 383 2/3 innings, so he's not even particularly close to the threshold he needs to meet. The one added caveat is that those innings must be accrued by the end of the team's 138th game.

The cruel irony here is that if Clarke were healthy right now and he played nine innings in each of the team's next 35 games (138 games for the A's), then he would have 698 2/3 innings of defense in 2025, just squeaking by.

So mathematically, Clarke can't win the award at the end of the season because he hasn't accrued enough innings. He simply just won't be on the ballot.

But the question we wanted to pose to you today is this: Say Clarke was the best defender in the sport across something like 70 games according to Outs Above Average or some other advanced metric. He'd be short of the innings threshold, but the eye test backs up that he is in fact the best, and the advanced metrics also rank him at the top over the course of a full season--should he be allowed to win the award then?

The reason we bring this up is because Baseball Savant's OAA already has him ranked as the ninth-best defender in the sport, despite playing in just 47 games. That's at any position. When you focus on just American League centerfielders, that field dwindles quite a bit, with just Clarke and Boston's Ceddanne Rafaela in the conversation.

Clarke has a +12 OAA, while Rafaela is at +13 in more than double the number of innings (800 2/3 to be exact). Over that same number of innings, Clarke is on pace for +25, which would make him far and away the best defender in baseball. That title currently sits with Atlanta's Nick Allen (+18). In 70 games, Clarke's pace would put him at +20, while having accrued roughly 630 innings.

What we're saying is that it's completely possible for Clarke to lead all of MLB in the advanced metrics, and he has the eye-popping replay catches--but would he be stiffed on a Gold Glove award because he didn't have enough innings?

Should the award go to the best defender at their position, or the player that stayed the healthiest over the course of the year? Again, we're not saying that he should win it this year--47 games is that than one-third of the season. But those catches where he crashes into walls take their toll, too, and he's bound to miss some time now and again. Should he be penalized for those catches come award season?