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Sonny Gray and Josh Reddick are the two Oakland A's finalists for the 2015 Rawlings Gold Glove Award at their respective positions in the American League. The winners, selected by a vote of managers and coaches in each league, will be announced after the World Series.
★★★
Gray will be up against Houston Astros starter Dallas Keuchel and Mark Buehrle of the Toronto Blue Jays for the pitcher's Gold Glove. Keuchel is the defending award winner while Buehrle has won the award four times, most recently on the National League side in 2012 with the Miami Marlins. This is Gray's first nomination for a Gold Glove after he completed an errorless season where he recorded 37 putouts, most in the AL by 16, and 23 assists.
Houston's Dallas Keuchel has 53 assists as a pitcher this year, most in the AL by 22, and 18 putouts. Keuchel also has one error in his 72 chances for a .986 fielding percentage.
Mark Buehrle had 29 assists, fourth most in the AL, and 11 putouts. His three errors as a pitcher were tied for fifth most in the American League, and he finished 2015 with a .930 fielding percentage, his worst in a full season.
★★★
Josh Reddick will face Kole Calhoun of the Los Angeles Angels and J.D. Martinez of the Detroit Tigers for the right field award. This is Calhoun's second straight nomination in right field and Martinez's first. This is the third time Reddick has been nominated in the last four seasons after winning the award in 2012.
Reddick's nomination is a curious though defensible choice to be one of the three finalists. While he is in a three-way tie atop the American League for most errors as a right fielder with five, he is fourth in games played at right field, and it looks like perhaps only 10 players were eligible for nomination, depending on what this year's games and innings cutoffs for nominations were. There is a significant distance between the 143 games Reddick played in right field this year and the 130 games Avisail Garcia played (5th most), or the 105 games Alex Rios played (9th).
Advanced metrics also make this a defensible choice of finalist among fielders with at least 900 innings in right field, with Reddick third in Defensive Runs Saved with a plus-1 behind Calhoun (+6) and Martinez (+4). Ultimate Zone Ranking rates him fifth at minus-1.7. The only player with more games played in right field than Reddcik and not nominated, Shin-Soo Choo, performed worse in both metrics (-11 DRS, -3.9 UZR).
