2007 NPB Golden Gloves

The lists are out. The CL is dominated by Dragons, which should come as no surprise to anyone, and the PL is completely Fighters and Marines, which would seem more wrong if I could actually come up with good arguments for other players to have won the awards, but I can't.

Announced here (in Japanese):

     Central League                         Pacific League
(3)  Kenshin Kawakami    (CD)    P     (1)  Yu Darvish          (NHF)
(3)  Motonobu Tanishige  (CD)    C     (2)  Tomoya Satozaki     (CLM)
(3)  Andy Sheets         (HT)    1B    (3)  Kazuya Fukuura      (CLM)
(4)  Masahiro Araki      (CD)    2B    (2)  Kensuke Tanaka      (NHF)
(6)* Norihiro Nakamura   (CD)    3B    (3)  Toshiaki Imae       (CLM)
(4)  Hirokazu Ibata      (CD)    SS    (2)* Tsuyoshi Nishioka   (CLM)
(2)  Norichika Aoki      (YS)    OF    (2)  Hichori Morimoto    (NHF)
(7)  Yoshinobu Takahashi (YG)    OF    (2)  Atsunori Inaba      (NHF)
(2)  Tatsuhiko Kinjoh    (YBS)   OF    (2)  Saburo Ohmura       (CLM)

The number in parentheses is how many golden gloves they've won.

(*This was Norihiro's first GG in the Central League after getting 5 of them in the Pacific League, and Nishioka got a GG in 2005 as a second baseman, so this is his first one as a shortstop. I haven't detailed the players' consecutive GG streaks.)

I really have to protest two choices in the CL. One is Andy Sheets for first base. Does that mean that none of these baseball writers took notice of a kid down in Yokohama named Yuuki Yoshimura, who was actually a FANTASTIC first baseman? I know I'm really high on Yoshimura, but seriously, he was great this year. Another fantastic candidate would have been Hiroshima's Kenta Kurihara. And if not either of those super-qualified kids, then why not, dare I say it, Yomiuri's Seung-Yeop Lee? (There, I said it.) I'm sorry, but, ANDY SHEETS? Is this the contest for WORST first baseman in the league?

The other one, sadly, is Norihiro Nakamura. I really don't think he's that great a defensive third baseman anymore, but I guess GGs aren't REALLY based on defense. The guy who probably should have gotten it was the Hiroshima Carp's third baseman Takahiro Arai, who was all over the news tonight for filing for free agency and crying because it was so painful to leave the team he grew up watching. (Psst! Come to Chunichi! Then they can have a full set of Arai brothers AND Donoue brothers! Of course, there'd be a logjam at third base, but so what?)

Oh, hm. I just saw the GG voting and at least it appeared that Sheets only BARELY won, 52 votes to Lee's 49 and Kurihara's 43. Though the second-place vote-getter for CL 3B was OCD, not Arai, sadly.