Miguel Rojas deserves a Gold Glove

The Miami Marlins potentially have a Gold Glove winner on our hands. Miguel Rojas may not be the best option at SS offensively, but he’s an elite defender with a 2.6 dWAR and deserves the award. Miggy’s main competition are Dansby Swanson from the Atlanta Braves and Ha-Seong Kim from the San Diego Padres. Does Rojas really deserve the award or not?

Miguel Rojas deserves the NL SS Gold Glove award.

Miguel Rojas is not an ideal option at SS for the Miami Marlins. We have better options in free agency, such as this elite contact hitter and this elite defender. We might not sign either one and stick with Miggy, which at least defensively won’t even be that bad. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s look at the Gold Glove award competition to see who should really win it.

As I already mentioned, Miggy has a 2.6 dWAR. This puts him in the lead among all SS’s in the National League. If MLB uses WAR as it’s supposed to be used, the decision here is pretty simple. Miguel Rojas is the best defensive SS in the National League and it’s not even close.

What about Miggy’s competition? Dansby Swanson may have had a better overall season, but this is strictly a defensive award and he had a 2.0 dWAR. It’s pretty clear that Miggy was better defensively. Ha-Seong Kim is the other challenger and has a 2.1 dWAR. He was better than Swanson, but not better than Miggy. It’s again not really close at all.

So who should win the NL Gold Glove at SS? It pretty obviously should be Miguel Rojas and it’s not even close. If Swanson or Kim wins, then it’s simply not fair and should not be seen as a real evaluation of who was the best defensively at SS.