Ian Happ is the Cubs’ sole 2022 Gold Glove finalist

The Rawlings company, which sponsors MLB’s Gold Glove Awards, made announcements today about this year’s finalists for each position.

Ian Happ, who made great strides forward defensively by playing pretty much exclusively in left field this year (146 games in left field, just three in center), is one of the finalists at that position for a Gold Glove. The other two finalists are David Peralta, who split 2022 between Arizona and Tampa Bay, and Brewers left fielder Christian Yelich.

Happ had 14 Defensive Runs Saved this year, far more than Peralta (-5) or Yelich (-2). He also had eight outfield assists. Yelich and Peralta had two each. Happ posted, per baseball-reference, 0.8 defensive bWAR and Yelich and Peralta were both negative in that category on bb-ref.

Thus I’d think Happ has a decent chance of winning this award. Remember that the “finalists” are simply the three players who got the most votes; there won’t be any more voting.

MLB announced the voting process is as follows:

To determine the winners of the 18 defensive position Awards, each team’s manager and up to six coaches on his staff vote from a pool of qualified players in their League and cannot vote for players from their own team. In 2013, Rawlings added the SABR Defensive Index™ (SDI) to the Rawlings Gold Glove Award selection process, which comprises approximately 25 percent of the overall selection total, with the managers’ and coaches’ votes continuing to carry the majority.

There is an additional award being given this year for a utility player, and that process is a it different:

To identify the utility Award winners, Rawlings collaborated with SABR to create a specialized defensive formula separate from the traditional selection process for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award position winners. Utilizing the SABR formula and additional defensive statistics, Rawlings will select one utility winner from each League.

As an example of Happ’s improved defense this year, here’s a heads-up defensive play from April 14 in Colorado in which he gets a force play at third on what appears to be a clean single to left [VIDEO].

(Incidentally, look who the batter is.)

Winners of this year’s Gold Gloves will be announced during a one-hour, special-edition “Baseball Tonight” on ESPN Tuesday, November 1 at 4 p.m. CT. The show will air on-field prior to Game 4 of the World Series.