Cleveland Indians: Reviewing the Tribe’s three Gold Glove finalists

Zach Plesac, Starting Pitcher

Other Finalists: Griffin Canning (LAA), Kenta Maeda (MIN)

Despite a brief demotion to the alternate site, Zach Plesac was still able to put together an impressive season for the Cleveland Indians, both from the mound and in the field. While the award is for stellar play in the field, it’s important to note that Plesac was dominant on the mound, maintaining a 2.28 ERA while striking out 57 batters over 55.1 innings.

In the field, Plesac was perfect on the season, having 13 chances to make a play and completing all 13 without an error. Of those, five were putouts while eight were assists. This illustrates Plesac’s ability to not only get over to first when needed, but make the throws over there as well. While those numbers are rather impressive, will it be enough to beat the competition?

While some might think that Plesac’s short absence might hurt him, he’s stats aren’t that far off from the other two. For the Angels, Griffin Canning had just 16 chances while Kenta Maeda matched Plesac’s 13 for the Twins.

With Maeda having the same amount of chances, we’ll start there. In his 13 chances, Maeda completed 12 of the plays, committing one error for a .923 fielding percentage. He had just one putout on the season while logging 11 assists.

As for Canning, he also had one error on the season with his 16 opportunities. Of the 15 he completed, seven were putouts and eight were assists while he was also part of a double play.

Of three finalists, Plesac is the only one that didn’t commit an error during the 2020 season. Given that he had a similar amount of chances in the field as the other two finalists, Plesac should have a strong case for taking home the American League Gold Glove Award for pitchers. Since the Gold Glove Award was introduced in 1957, the Indians have yet to have a pitcher receive the recognition.