Four Royals players who deserve Gold Glove Awards

The Kansas City Royals have prided themselves on their pitching and defense. In an era where teams tend to build around high powered offense, the Royals went out to build a team truly designed around run prevention.

In order to make such a plan work, two things need to happen. First, the pitching staff needs to perform well, keeping the team within striking distance. For the most part, that has happened for the Royals, as they have a 3.55 ERA and a 1.26 WHiP heading into yesterday’s games. Add in a stellar back end of the bullpen, and the Royals pitching staff has held up their end of the bargain.

Next, the team needs to have a stellar defense. The Royals certainly have that, as they have four of the top ten in terms of defensive wins above replacement. Almost every game, the Royals defense makes several plays that other teams just are not capable of making. Even with their defensive struggles over the past week, the Royals defense has still been worth 53.1 runs saved, third in baseball. Overall, the Royals defense is considered to be the best in baseball based on the combination of defensive runs saved and positional adjustment.

With the Royals defense performing as well as they have, it would make sense that they should have several candidates for the Gold Glove Award at the end of the year. With that in mind, let’s take a look at those four players that rank in the top ten in defensive WAR.