Ian Happ Earns Second Straight Gold Glove in LF

I’m not sure how in the hell this happened, but Ian Happ has been named the NL Gold Glove winner in left field for the second year in a row. If last year’s win was somewhat surprising, this is downright shocking. The eye test told us he didn’t have a great season and the numbers aren’t very kind either. Though Happ’s 2 DRS mark ties him for seventh among all NL left fielders who logged at least 100 innings there this past season, his -7 OAA puts him 42nd.

I guess his 12 assists did lead all MLB left fielders, so there’s that.

While I’ve often stood up for Happ in the face of what I believe to be unfair criticism of his offensive production, this is something I just can’t fathom. But hey, freaking good for him. If nothing else, dude deserves it for tossing a baseball with a hundo rubber-banded to it up to Bleacher Jeff before the last home game of the season. The note written on it thanked Jeff for the support — not like how Eminem thanked Dave in My Name Is — and said to buy folks a round on him.

Happ now has more Gold Gloves than Christian Yelich, which may have just been the voters’ way of trying to balance the scales after all the lighting manipulation helped the latter win the NL MVP in 2018. I should also thank them for giving me one more thing to write about when I’d have otherwise been trying to drown out my back pain with bourbon and generic Biofreeze.