Chapman, Arenado repeat as Platinum Glovers

NEW YORK—At the 2019 Rawlings Gold Glove Awards ceremony on Friday night, some of the best and brightest stars of Major League Baseball lit up Manhattan.

None shined more brightly than the Rockies’ Nolan Arenado and the Athletics’ Matt Chapman. The pair, whose journey from teammates at shortstop at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif., to two of the premier third basemen in the Major Leagues is well-known by now, repeated as Platinum Glove Award winners.

While the Gold Glove Awards honor the best fielder at each position, since 2011, the Platinum Glove Awards pit all 18 Gold Glovers against each other to determine the best defensive player in each league. The award is decided by a combination of fan votes and the Society for American Baseball Research’s defensive index, which considers a fielder’s range, his arm and his sure-handedness, along with his outstanding plays, using metrics such as reaction time, the amount of ground covered and the velocity of throws.

For the duo at the hot corner, it was a special moment made all the more poignant by the man who made the official announcement. In a moment orchestrated by Karl Ravech and Eduardo Pérez of ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, who were set to present the awards but whose envelopes didn’t have the winners’ names in them, Mike Gonzales—Chapman and Arenado’s high school coach at El Toro—made a surprise appearance on stage and did the honors himself.

So, would we agree with the suggestion that Arenado and Chapman are the best defensive players in their leagues, and, if not, who would we nominate instead?