Our ongoing MLB Monday Gold Glove miniseries continues into the 1970s today, starting with the junior-circuit offenders of the worst magnitude. We started with the brief 1950s analysis and have moved through the Sixties, seeing some surprising names show up here. But again, it’s not the players’ fault(s): it’s the voters who did us all wrong with some terrible choices based on flawed logic and habit that persisted. Eeek!

Here are the “worst” American League GG winners of the Seventies, in reverse order, with two Honorable Mentions to start off the parade of mistakes:

HM. Dwight Evans, RF, 1978 (-0.1 dWAR): Winner of eight GGs in his career, the last four were not deserved at all, since voters were just seeing his arm strength and not his diminished range in the field. This was his second vote win, and it was based on the reality that he accrued 5.2 dWAR in the four seasons before this one combined, and he still wasn’t horribly bad in this season. Still, it’s an award he didn’t deserve.

HM. Chris Chambliss, 1B, 1978 (-0.1 dWAR): This was the only GG vote win of his career, which ended up at -7.9 dWAR overall. In only three seasons did he finish as a positive defender, so it’s not like he had a reputation here. In fact, he’d “earned”minus-4.4 dWAR up to this point in MLB. His team’s big pennant comeback may have had something to do with this vote win, in truth: we’re really not sure why, otherwise.

10. Rick Manning, CF, 1976 (-0.2 dWAR): The only GG of a career that saw him finish with -0.8 dWAR, his glove was a puzzle, alternating positive years with negative seasons from 1975-1984. So the 0,3 dWAR he earned as a rookie in 1975 carried over to this vote, we suspect. Yet he never won another vote, so the ballot casters probably realized what was going on here. His best dWAR mark was 0.5 which he earned four times.

9. Fred Lynn, CF, 1978 (-0.3 dWAR): He’d had a 1975 season for the ages, but he did not deserve this Gold Glove. Of the four GG votes he won, this was the only suspect one. His 0.9 dWAR in 1975 set the bar high for him in subsequent years, yet it’s not too much to think that if he had played better with the glove in 1978? That maybe his team doesn’t cough up the AL East Division title the way it did. He shares this shame, obvi.

8. Mickey Stanley, CF, 1970/1973 (-0.4/-0.3 dWAR): He is here as a two-time bad choice for GGs, our first repeat offender in today’s piece. He won a legit Gold Glove in 1968 when he posted 1.0 dWAR, but he wasn’t very good by the time the 1970s arrived. His 1969 GG vote win was due to a 0.2 dWAR, so his fade on defense actually began earlier than this. Thus, of his four Gold Gloves, perhaps three were unwarranted. That’s ugly.

7. Joe Rudi, LF, 1974-1976 (-0.5/-0.5/-0.6 dWAR): So, he makes this amazing catch in the 1972 World Series, and it establishes his “reputation” for years on defense. He won these three consecutive GGs a few years later, and none of them were deserved, sadly. His career -2.8 dWAR mark mostly happened at the end of his career, but he certainly was an inconsistent outfield glove man, regardless of that highlight reel. Lazy votes.

6. Doug Griffin, 2B, 1972 (-0.6 dWAR): He had posted 1.2 dWAR in his 1971 rookie year, and for his brief career, he compiled 2.7 dWAR total. But he did not deserve this GG vote win in 1972. It came a year too late, although his bat certainly made a big leap from 1971 to 1972, so perhaps that’s what swayed the voters erroneously. Otherwise, we have no idea what the voters were thinking, which is usually the case here, too.

5. Jim Spencer, 1B, 1970/1977 (-0.7/-0.8 dWAR): With -9.2 dWAR, he was never a good glove man at first. But twice the voters gifted him a GG, anyway. He literally had one single season in positive dWAR territory (1968), and that season saw him have just 73 plate appearances. In no other year for the rest of his career did he finish with a positive dWAR mark. Therefore, this is just as bad as it gets, really, unless … no. Just no, no.

4. Cecil Cooper, 1B, 1979 (-1.1 dWAR): One of our favorite players from childhood, he certainly wasn’t renowned for his defense. However, he had the best year of his career hitherto at the plate, so we figure that was enough for the voters. He won a second GG vote in 1980 with a 0.0 dWAR mark, which isn’t great—but it did not earn an “Honorable Mention” from us above, either. But again, maybe first base is a crapshoot.

3. Sixto Lezcano, RF, 1979 (-1.1 dWAR): The Milwaukee Brewers had it bad on the field but good in the awards room at the end of the decade, didn’t they? This GG voting travesty also came with a high-offensive output from the player, a career best at that point. Ding dong! He had totaled -0.6 dWAR in his first five seasons, and this year he just got even worse, while being “rewarded” with the GG and all that implies.

2. Amos Otis, CF, 1973 (-1.3 dWAR): We’d later give him our 1978 AL MVP nod, but five years prior? He won a second of three GGs, and the only one he didn’t deserve. His 1971 Gold Glove was the result of a 0.7 dWAR effort, but he sunk low in 1972 with a -1.1 dWAR, didn’t win the vote, and then got even worse this season. At the time, this was his worst defensive season ever, and he wouldn’t do as bad again until 1982, actually.

1. George Scott, 1B, 1975 (-1.6 dWAR): His career dWAR mark (-1.2) is better than this singular season, so why did anyone vote for him? This was the fifth of a six-year run winning the GG vote; he won eight Gold Gloves overall, but three of those eight wins came with negative dWAR marks. This was by far the worst one, of course, at age 31. He would go on to post a slightly positive number for his final GG vote win in 1976.