Our MLB Monday miniseries on bad Gold Glove voting gets closer to its end today with the National League’s worst GG winners of the 2010s. What is most rewarding for us in doing this piece today is that there really was only one really bad vote in the entire decade (you will see what we mean below). Oh sure, there were a lot of “wrong” votes, as demonstrated on this list, but in the end, only one truly terrible choice.

Here are the “worst” NL GG winners of the most-recent full decade, in reverse order:

10t. Adam LaRoche, 1B, 2012 (0.0 dWAR): For a guy with -10.1 dWAR combined for his career, it’s impressive he won this vote with even-zero defensive value. He actually only posted two full seasons of non-negative dWAR in his 12-year MLB tenure. This was obviously one of them, and it came in the season where he posted his best-ever oWAR mark, too. Coincidence? We think not. That has been a distinct pattern.

10t. Marcell Ozuna, LF, 2017 (0.0 dWAR): He’s primarily been a designated hitter since the 2022 season now, so it’s a surprise to realize he ever won a GG vote. And guess what? This was his best oWAR year ever, too! That’s why voters gave him the Gold Glove despite his even-zero defensive value. He has earned just one positive dWAR mark since then (2021), and we really don’t expect him to ever do it again, obviously.

9. Albert Pujols, 1B, 2010 (-0.1 dWAR): This was the second of two GG vote wins in his storied career, where he compiled -4.2 dWAR over 22 years. He earned the first Gold Glove with position dWAR, but this one was obviously not the best decision by voters. He topped the majors, however, in overall position-player WAR, so the voters—once again—got carried away with offensive numbers in this voting decision.

8. Joey Votto, 1B, 2011 (-0.2 dWAR): The only GG vote win of his career, he actually had not posted positive dWAR in any season up to this point. Ironically, he would earn 0.4 dWAR the following season without winning the vote. His -7.7 dWAR overall hides the fact he had only three seasons in his 17-year career where he was not a negative defender. The voters just picked the wrong offensive-explosion year to give him this.

7. Andrew McCutcheon, CF, 2012 (-0.2 dWAR): He has been a hit-or-miss guy in the outfield for his whole career (-9.9 dWAR so far). So, this was his only GG vote win, and it came in a season where he topped the National League in oWAR for position players. Shocker. Oddly, the following season, he was tops in oWAR again, yet he didn’t win the GG vote despite 0.7 dWAR. But he did win the MVP vote, to compensate. Right.

6. Freddie Freeman, 1B, 2018 (-0.2 dWAR): What is with these “bad” seasons that are the only GG vote wins in someone’s career? Well, here is another one. He’s been on an incredible offensive-value roll since 2013, so maybe the voters just decided to throw him a defensive bone at some random point in his career (-11.3 dWAR so far). Just seems arbitrary since every full season of his career has produced negative dWAR.

5. Matt Kemp, CF, 2011 (-0.4 dWAR): Despite his negative glove here, we still gave him the NL MVP for this season. He earned a 2009 GG vote win, too, with 0.0 dWAR, but you can read about that elsewhere. With an aggregate -17.0 dWAR for his 15-season career, no one would ever accuse this guy of being good in the field. But his 8.7 oWAR mark in this specific year certainly helped him win this GG vote, as we have established.

4. Anthony Rizzo, 1B, 2018-2019 (-0.4/-0.2 dWAR): The middle two of four GG vote wins, these two should not have happened, obviously. With a mere -1.8 dWAR throughout his 14-season career so far, he’s been a decent defender just as often as not, really. But his dWAR in the other two GG vote-win years was only 0.5 combined, so he’s never been a great glove guy. The first year here actually started an oWAR decline.

3. Andre Ethier, RF, 2011 (-0.5 dWAR): We are stumped on this one, as (again) it was the only GG vote win of his defensively challenged career (-8.1 dWAR). And it was an average oWAR year for him, too (2.0), so it’s not like there was any specific reason to vote for him in this specific year. Overall, he had just two seasons of positive dWAR, too, so it’s not like it was owed to him from a prior effort. We are stumped, truly, here.

2. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, 2013 (-0.5 dWAR): This was the first of four GG vote wins for him, and it could be argued that only the second one (0.6 dWAR, 2015) was “deserved” as the others are all suspect in their own way. Yet again, this was a breakout offensive year for him, resulting in a lot of MVP votes, so voters just went along with the GG traditional there, clearly. But even at -0.5 dWAR, it’s not that bad of a vote, right?!

1. Carlos González, CF, 2010/2012 (-0.1/-1.9 dWAR): With a breakout oWAR year in 2010, we understand how that vote could happen, as it was a lazy habit of GG voters to reward the offensive effort with defensive icing. But the second vote is, by far, the worst vote of the NL decade, clearly. His -2.5 dWAR career mark mostly is comprised of that one season, too, so we wonder what happened in Coors Field that year. Ouch.