Can Alex Bregman add to his, Cubs’ Gold Glove haul? ‘This has got to be one of his best seasons defensively’
MIAMI – Pete Crow-Armstrong is perhaps the best defender in baseball, and he showed why in Friday’s Cubs win over the Marlins, making an outstanding leaping catch at the center-field wall.
A few days earlier, it was second baseman Nico Hoerner – playing shortstop with Dansby Swanson on the IL – making a highlight-reel diving catch against the Brewers.
The Cubs are baseball’s best defensive team, but with all the web gems Crow-Armstrong and Hoerner and Swanson turn in on such a regular basis, someone is perhaps getting lost in the shuffle.
“Breggy’s been outright Gold Glove caliber at third,” Crow-Armstrong said Thursday.
Yes, Alex Bregman’s bat is not the only thing the third baseman is impressing with right now. He’s played spectacular defense at the hot corner for much of the campaign, in line with all the other sparkling glovework around the diamond for this Cubs team.
“Alex has had a quietly excellent defensive season,” manager Craig Counsell said Saturday. “When you’re playing on a defense with Pete and Ian [Happ] and Dansby and Nico, it’s hard to talk about everybody. But Alex, the first two weeks of the year, he probably didn’t like, and then since then, he’s been really incredible.
“He’s played a Gold Glove level third base, I think.”
Make it two votes, then, for a Gold Glove.
“He’s made hard plays. He’s made every routine play. He’s thrown very accurately,” Counsell said. “I haven’t seen previous Alex Bregman seasons, necessarily, daily, but this has got to be one of his best seasons defensively.”
This wouldn’t be a first. Bregman won a Gold Glove during his final year with the Astros in 2024.
But Counsell’s suggestion that this might be the best season the 11-year major league veteran has had is backed up by defensive metrics. In fact, according to some of those numbers, it’s far and away the best defensive season Bregman’s had in the big leagues.
He started Saturday with 13 Defensive Runs Saved, a career high that’s more than double the mark he posted during his Gold Glove campaign in 2024, when he had six in that department.
He came into Saturday with seven Outs Above Average and a Fielding Run Value of six, figures bested only once previously in his career, in his hardware-winning season of 2024.
This is a Cubs team built on defense, and Jed Hoyer’s front office stuck to that script when it spent big on Bregman last winter.
If this group is going to achieve its ultimate goal, it’ll be by getting the type of plays Bregman & Co. have made all season long, perhaps earning them another trophy case full of Gold Gloves.
Z saves the day
The Cubs never trailed the Marlins in Saturday’s 6-5 win, but it was a bumpy ride for the bullpen, which allowed two homers.
Righty Ryan Zeferjahn, though, shut the door with a five-out save.
After posting a 7.20 ERA through his first 11 outings as a Cub, he’s been near perfect in his last two.
“Even when I was still struggling, toward the end of that struggle, the process was still there for me,” Zeferjahn said after the game. “Everything was working, just sometimes results weren’t there. We stayed on course with that, and we’re going to keep doing that, keep hammering that home.
“Hopefully, we stay on this roll.”
Assad returns
The Cubs brought righty Javier Assad up from Triple-A to start Saturday, seeing an opportunity in the final weeks of the regular season to get an extra day of rest for their starters.
Assad struggled a bit Saturday, walking a season-high five batters.