Brewers shut out in Gold Glove awards

Brewers shut out in Gold Glove awards

Published Nov. 4, 2014 8:00 p.m. ET

After Carlos Gomez snapped the franchise's 31-year drought last season, the Milwaukee Brewers were shut out of the Gold Glove awards in 2014.

Finalists Jonathan Lucroy and Gerardo Parra were not announced as Gold Glove winners during an hour-long special aired Tuesday evening on ESPN2.

Despite missing nearly two months with a thumb injury, St. Louis' Yadier Molina won the Gold Glove at catcher in the National League for the seventh consecutive season, beating out Lucroy and Pittsburgh's Russell Martin for the award.

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Atlanta's Jason Heyward took home the honors in right field for the National League, finishing ahead of Parra and Miami's Giancarlo Stanton in the balloting.

Lucroy was shooting to become the first catcher in Brewers history to win a Gold Glove. Milwaukee has not had Gold Glove winners in consecutive seasons since George Scott's run of five straight ended in 1976.

Outside of Scott's five-year run at first base in the American League from 1972-76, Cecil Cooper (AL first base, '79 and '80), Sixto Lezcano (AL outfield, '79), Robin Young (AL shortstop, '82) and Gomez (NL center field, 2013) have won Gold Gloves for the Brewers.

Lucroy not only had a stellar season offensively, but the 28-year-old displayed vast improvement behind the plate.

Numerous baseball analytics outlets rank Lucroy as one of the best catchers in baseball at framing pitches and getting strike calls for his pitchers. According to FanGraphs.com's metric, Lucroy was also the best catcher at blocking pitches in 2014.

While Lucroy also threw out a career-best 25.9 percent of attempted base stealers last season, Molina led baseball by gunning out 21 of 44 (48 percent) attempted base stealers and Martin nabbed 39 percent (37 of 96).

Martin collected the Gold Glove at catcher in the National League in 2007, but Molina has won the award every year since.

Parra played 102 games in right field for the Diamondbacks in 2014, but he appeared in just seven games at the position after being traded to the Brewers on July 31. Most of Parra's playing time with Milwaukee came in left field, as he split time with Khris Davis.

The 27-year-old committed a career-high seven errors in 2014 with four of those coming in right field. Parra's defensive metrics dropped considerably in 2014, as FanGraphs.com shows his defensive runs saved dropping from 41 to -1, while his UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) fell from 31.1 to 0.1.

In right field, Parra had a UZR of 1.2 and was credited with two defensive runs saved. Heyward finished with an UZR of 24.1 with 32 defensive runs saved in right field, while Stanton had an UZR of 1.6 with seven defensive runs saved.

Parra has won two Gold Gloves over his six-year career, winning in left field in 2011 and right field in 2013.

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