Our MLB Monday look at Gold Glove winners continues, as we started last week with the 1950s, or at least three seasons of that decade in which they began awarding the trophies. So, now we get the full decade of the 1960s to parse, and it promises to be fun. We’re using dWAR marks as a uniform measurement, for better or for worse. This will help uncover the mythos around MLB fielding legends, if required … right?!

We’re also going to break each decade now into two pieces each, one for the American League and one for the National League. Otherwise, it just gets too time-consuming for us to do on a weekly basis. Apologies!

Editorial Note: Some pitcher defensive data is incomplete for this initial time period, so we may not be including those positional winners in these initial analyses; eventually, this will be remedied.

Here are the “worst” American League GG winners of the Sixties, in reverse order:

10. Bobby Richardson, 2B, 1965 (-0.5 dWAR): He also didn’t deserve the 1961 GG he won with a -0.4 dWAR, but that didn’t make this list. He was a positive defender for his career (4.9 dWAR), but of the five consecutive GGs he won from 1961-1965, only the middle three were warranted. That can happen when a guy gets a “reputation” going, as Richardson did from 1957-1960 when he totaled 2.6 dWAR in those years.

9. George Scott, 1B, 1967-1968 (-0.5 dWAR): In both seasons noted, he was a below-average fielder, and we’re just going to leave it at that. He was a positive defender in 1966, and he was good with the bat in 1967, so we assume voters just were a year behind with the GG vote. But as we will see often, lazy GG voting for a big bat at a position is a pattern, too. Scott benefitted something else altogether in 1968, when his bat died.

8. Joe Pepitone, 1B, 1969 (-0.5 dWAR): He also had two GG-winning seasons (1965-1966) where he posted -0.4 dWAR marks, so that’s three undeserved awards for this guy. Brutal glove, career wise, for him, too, with -8.7 dWAR. So, how did he win three GG votes?! No idea. In 1967 and 1968, he combined to post -2.9 dWAR, so maybe mildly sucking in these other seasons deceived the clueless voters? We’re out of ideas.

7. Vic Davalillo, CF, 1964 (-0.7 dWAR): This was an odd vote, since it was his only negative dWAR season of his 20s. He finished a long career with 1.4 dWAR combined, so he was never a great fielder. He posted 0.8 dWAR in his 1963 rookie season, and he put up 1.4 dWAR in 1965—but this was the season the voters decided he’d get the Gold Glove? Whatever. Alas, his 2.7 oWAR in 1964 was the best of his career. Ding!!

6. Vic Power, 1B, 1961/1963 (-0.7/-0.8 dWAR): Two seasons of his make the list, in order, after he also appeared in our 1950s analysis. He won seven GGs, but as far as we can tell, he only really deserved two or three of them? This is an interesting case study, as he never reached 1.0 dWAR in any single season, nor did he ever descend to -1.0 dWAR in any specific year. He was always just right around the middle. Safe vote?!

5. Carl Yastrzemski, LF, 1965 (-1.0 dWAR): He had only two negative dWAR seasons in the 1960s, and this was the worst one; he didn’t win a Gold Glove in the other one, however. What were the voters thinking?! Yaz had compiled 1.9 dWAR in the three seasons combined before this one, so maybe they thought he was due. But then he posted 1.5 dWAR in 1966 and didn’t win a GG. Go figure. He deserved his other six GGs.

4. Al Kaline, RF, 1965 (-1.3 dWAR): This was a case of the voters rewarding a once-good fielder with a GG trophy they did not earn, specifically in that season. He also won another GG in 1966 with -0.5 dWAR, and the 1965 season was his age-30 season. From 1954-1964, Kaline only had two negative-dWAR seasons combining for -0.7 dWAR. But things changed at age 30, as one might expect, and this was the start of that.

3. Tom Tresh, CF, 1965 (-1.4 dWAR): This was the only Gold Glove of his career, and it’s mystifying since hitherto in his first four seasons, he had compiled a negative dWAR total (-1.5). So, he was especially bad this season, almost as much as he’d been in his full career to this point. But he’d had a “lesser” season at the plate in 1964 than he did in his All-Star seasons of 1962-1963, and his bat did return this year. See that one?

2. Minnie Miñoso, LF, 1960 (-1.5 dWAR): At age 36, he won the last of his three GGs, and this one was a farce, clearly. In the subsequent three seasons combined, he’d put up a -3.8 dWAR overall, so the decline had begun here, and the voters just went one year too far—another pattern we have known to exist over the decades of voting (get the first one a year too late, get the last one a year after the fall has begun). Just weird.

1. Mickey Mantle, CF, 1962 (-1.8 dWAR): He won the MVP vote this season, despite the bad glove. But it was his only GG vote win, and we think the voters must have taken pity on him at age 30 knowing he was in defensive decline. Prior to this year, he’d compiled 0.3 dWAR over all or parts of 11 seasons (1951-1961); after this, the Mick stumbled to an aggregate -8.2 dWAR across six seasons (1963-1968). We get it, but still? Ugly.