Here’s that list of 10, their slash stats and primary position (along with home runs).

If you didn’t already realize it: There is a huge stack of 1B in the top 10. Had Justin Morneau stayed healthy he would probably also be here (I would guess Zobrist would be the one bumped). You’ll also notice that the 1B have pretty similar stats.

There’s a reason for that: If you play 1B you are expected to produce offense that is much better than if you play anywhere else. You know that guy, who can hit, but can’t field? He’s playing first base where his defense can’t hurt the team as much. It’s true, there are some players like Kevin Youkilis who are athletic enough to play 3B or in the outfield but Youkilis is some kind of mutant designed for playing baseball which makes him an exception to the rule.

Players who can field a somewhat competent position up the middle (C/SS/CF/2B, traditionally) and hit like maniacs are really hard to find. It’s hard to find a bat exactly like Mark Teixeira’s at 1B but you’re far more likely to find a decent replacement there than if you try to find a shortstop who hits anything like Derek Jeter. The same goes for Zobrist at 2B, where he played most of his games this year.

I really don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about positional differences because it’s the kind of thing where if you think about it for two seconds it makes sense. Ask anyone: Why is Joe Mauer so great? Because he hits like he does and he’s a catcher. It’s there in the back of people’s minds, they know what it means something. Just like they know that it means something for Jeter to hit like he does at shortstop.

But then when the people with MVP ballots get their votes in, this all goes out the window and it seems to mostly become dingers! dingers!! dingers!!! Which means a lot of 1B (because you stick people who hit a lot of homeruns and can’t play elsewhere there, see?)

It’s insane that Ben Zobrist received so little attention and it’s pretty crazy that Teixeira got more second place votes than Derek Jeter. I’m not even going to discuss the NL ballot with Chase Utley finishing 8th. Just, please, stop with the dingers and the first basemen BBWAA. Please.

The Gold Gloves pretty much lost all legitimacy when Rafael Palmeiro won for his slick first base skills in a season where he was DH for almost the entire year but it’s always interesting to see the absurdity of some of the winners. The biggest issues with Gold Gloves is that they are really biased in favor of incumbency (Sizemore, Ichiro and Hunter are examples of this), and that they generally get awarded to people who are superior hitters. Which is ridiculous as they are fielding awards.

I’ve broken them out further using my own subjective means into three categories: Good choices, not terrible choices, and those who make no sense:

Overall, not really bad as it could be. Although Beltre isn’t a huge slugger (anymore) he benefits from the incumbency brain disaster, which is good for him as he is pretty much the best fielding 3B in baseball! Everyone who falls under "okay" isn’t the best choice, but obviously isn’t a terrible one. No means no, as you may have heard in high school.

Addressing the "Nos", briefly:

1. Nate McClouth was a really bad Center Fielder by pretty much every metric except fielding percentage/errors, which is what winds up being important to the guys who make the Gold Glove decisions (managers and coaches–that’s right, guys like Joe Torre are the ones who decide this).
2. Michael Young is a pretty below average shortstop and even though the AL shortstop fielding class is pretty thin it’s clear that either Orlando Cabrera or Jason Bartlett should have been given the thing.
3. I know everybody loves Ichiro but he is not one of the three top fielding outfielders in baseball this year. And he wasn’t last year either. Alex Rios deserves it more than any of the three who won it but especially Ichiro. Here it seems to be simply a matter of celebrity and reputation–Rios lead Ichiro in allt he things that voters look at like Fielding Percentage and Outfield Assists.
4. Adrian Gonzalez is not a terrible fielder, but Albert Pujols is so much better than him, that it makes this pick terrible. I don’t know if it’s because Pujols is so good at everything baseball related or what but he really gets stiffed all the time.

In a nutshell, everyone knows that the Gold Gloves are sort of dumb but there have been worse decisions than this year’s winners.

You can (and should) also read Joe Posnanski’s look at this thing because he does a much better job than me of analyzing the blips in the results.

The first year it was given out, the Hank Aaron awards were determined by using magical objective formula based on some combination of homeruns and hits. In 2000 they changed the ballot system so that–get this–it was voted on by each team’s TV and radio play-by-play guys and color analysts. That’s right, it means that Michael Kay, Buck Martinez, John Sterling and Hawk Harrelson vote on the award. If that wasn’t bad enough in 2003 they changed the ballot system again and this time the fans get to vote and their vote counts for 30% of the total tally, with the TV and radio guys accounting for 70%.

What’s the point of an award that is given out in such a random fashion?

Getting down to it–and getting past the bizarre selection system–it really does swing towards the guys who lead (or were very close) to the top of the league in homeruns:

So if it weren’t an award for the "most outstanding offensive player" with no critera beyond that given, and instead an automatic stats based award you wouldn’t see that much difference regarding the winners anyway. 2008 stands out as being very different from the rest (Aramis Ramirez? Fans and sportscasters are both crazy I guess) and if MLB doesn’t want it to turn into a complete joke instead of the mild joke it currently is they should probably take a look at changing things. Or at least taking Hank Aaron’s name off of it until they figure out a better way of honoring him.

If MLB’s concern is that a stat based award takes away the specialness of winning an award, or that it would be hard to find a sponsor because there’s no surprise, that is easily solvable by giving it a nice ceremony instead of giving the guys a big TV on the field before the game and having Joe Buck mention it during the broadcast.