Guardians' Tanner Bibee Named Gold Glove Finalist For American League Pitcher

The votes are in, and Tanner Bibee is a Gold Glove finalist among American League pitchers. Bibee is in the final running for the award, along with Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob deGrom and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher José Soriano.

2026 was an up-and-down year for Cleveland's 27-year-old starting pitcher. In 33 starts, Bibee went 7-15 with a 4.36 ERA and a 1.223 WHIP. Bibee needed 14 starts over two calendar months to record his first win of the year, pitching eight shutout innings against the Texas Rangers on June 6.

However, the Gold Glove doesn't evaluate a pitcher based on pitching stats; it focuses on fielding stats, and that's where Bibee excelled.

On 32 defensive chances, Bibee recorded 11 putouts, good for 12th among American League starting pitchers. He also recorded 18 assists and committed just 3 errors, for a .906 fielding percentage. Compared with the other finalists, Bibee falls in the middle in most categories.

José Soriano was a perfect 39-for-39 when given the chance to field. He totaled 18 putouts, 21 assists, and no errors for a 1.000 fielding percentage.

Jacob deGrom had the fewest chances, yet he was perfect when he got them. On 18 opportunities, deGrom had 9 putouts, 9 assists, and zero errors for a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage.

However, the decision of who is named the Gold Glove winner goes much deeper than baseball statistics.

For starters, to be eligible for the award, "All pitchers must have pitched in at least 149 innings by their team’s 149th game," according to Rawlings.

Then the selection process combines coaching votes with the SABR defensive index (SDI).

For coaching votes, all 30 MLB managers and up to six coaches per team will vote for the candidate they believe should receive the award. Each team is given seven total votes. The combined coaching votes combined account for 75% of the decision on who will be named the winner.

The other 25% comes from the SABR defensive index, a metric that uses multiple data sources to measure a pitcher's run-saving value relative to the average MLB player, yielding their overall SDI. The full 2026 season SDI reports have not yet been released.

Tanner Bibee led the way among the finalists when the last SDI reports were released with a 2.1 SDI. Jacob deGrom measured 1.7, and José Soriano measured 1.4.

Despite not having the best raw statistics among the three finalists, Bibee makes things interesting with the highest SDI as of the latest release. The race will largely come down to MLB coaches' voting.

The award winner will be announced on November 1 during ESPN's exclusive Baseball Tonight Broadcast.