Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons won the Rawlings Platinum Glove as the National League’s top defensive player, edging Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina and Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez for the prestigious award.
Simmons received the award along with the Gold Glove he won last week at a ceremony Friday night at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Orioles third baseman Manny Machado won the American League’s Platinum Glove.
In his first full season in the majors, Simmons had 41 defensive runs saved, breaking the previous major league record. (Diamondbacks outfielder Gerardo Parra also had 41 defensive runs saved in 2013.)
Gold Glove awards have gone to the best defensive player at each position in each league since the late 1950s. They are still based primarily on voting by managers and coaches, although a sabermetric statistical component was added this year for the first time accounting for about 25 percent of the vote.
The Platinum Glove award is given to just one player in each league regardless of position. It’s presented by the Society for American Baseball Research, which this year used sabermetric statistics for the selection process for the first time. Fan voting was used to select the winners in the previous two years.
Simmons won in the closest vote in the three-year history of the Platinum Glove award, with only 0.5 percent of the total vote separating the Braves shortstop and third-place finisher Gomez.
