A Kansas City Royals catcher is a Gold Glove finalist, but it’s not Salvador Perez

Salvador Perez has won five Gold Gloves in his career, so it was no surprise to hear a Royals catcher was a finalist for the 2024 award.

But it was a bit of an eye-opener to some that Freddy Fermin, not Perez was the finalist for the award.

Perez and Fermin each played 91 games at catcher this past season, but Fermin started 72 games behind the plate. Perez had 90 starts as a catcher.

Ian Kraft, the Royals’ assistant director of public relations, noted that Fermin threw out 14 of 35 attempted base stealers (40.0%). That was highest rate among catchers, more than 10% higher than the next American League catcher (Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk, 29.4%).

The Royals said Fermin had led the American League in Statcast’s Catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average (8).

The other finalists for the award are Seattle’s Cal Raleigh and Tigers’ Jake Rogers.

Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. is a finalist at shortstop. He led the American League in Statcast’s Outs Above Average (16) and runs prevented (12).

FanGraphs’ Defensive Runs Above Average showed Witt (17.6) was second in the majors behind the Cubs’ Dansby Swanson’s (18.9).

Witt was only AL shortstop to start at least 160 games, and his 1,393 2/3 innings played were the fourth-most for a Royals shortstop. Alcides Escobar had more in (2014, 2016, 2017).

The Royals have two of the three finalists at the pitching position: Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo. The other finalist is the Angels’ Griffin Canning.

Kraft said Lugo was one of 10 American League pitchers who had 30 or more starts to finish the season without making an error. Lugo had 14 putouts and 29 assists.

Ragans had seven putouts and 19 assists.