Mets inching further away from their last Gold Glove winner in 2014

The New York Mets haven’t had a Gold Glove winner since 2014. When does the drought end?

Defense is an issue for the current New York Mets team. For a few years, it has been one of the reasons why they’ve struggled.

The organization is only a few years removed from their last Gold Glove winner. In 2014, outfielder Juan Lagares dazzled with his defensive skills. He could have probably won another since, but poor offense and injuries kept him out of many games in the last four seasons.

The Mets don’t exactly have a rich history of Gold Glove winners. Keith Hernandez leads the way with six. Behind him, we find Rey Ordonez and Carlos Beltran with three. No catcher has ever won a Gold Glove for this organization despite some productive seasons from Jerry Grote and John Stearns. We can blame Johnny Bench for the lack of gold in their glove.

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A Gold Glove doesn’t necesarilly equal a productive defense. Plenty of good defensive teams don’t have that one shining star.

Still, it’s nice to have one player you can lean on to grab those extra outs. No one on this team looks capable of even contending for the award and their philosophy in finding a guy who can appears non-existent.

The 2018-2019 free agent class does offer two very capable defenders who each won Gold Gloves in 2017. Second basemen Brian Dozier and DJ LeMahieu are both options for the Mets. However, the emergence of Jeff McNeil should put the idea of signing either to rest. The Mets need league-minimum players like McNeil on the roster to produce at the plate. As such, they will need to ignore the possibility of adding a Gold Glove-caliber player up the middle.

Around the rest of the diamond, we’re probably going to be left with an underwhelming feeling. At first base, we’ll see a mix of Jay Bruce, Wilmer Flores, and Peter Alonso if we’re lucky. On the left side of the field, there’s Amed Rosario and Todd Frazier. Frazier is an above average defender yet still far away from ever winning a Gold Glove.

The outfield doesn’t offer too many candidates to end this drought either. Though we’ve seen Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo make the occasional spectacular play, neither is an elite gloveman.

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It’s going to take a while before we see a Mets player win a Gold Glove. Maybe their best shot is for one of the pitchers to take home the award.