Two Cardinals are finalists for Gold Gloves. What are their chances of winning?

Rawlings and Major League Baseball announced the finalists for the 2025 Gold Glove Awards on Wednesday, and it came as little surprise that the two players who comprised almost the whole statistical mass of the St. Louis Cardinals’ accumulated defensive achievements this season were named among the top three finishers at their positions.

Masyn Winn is a finalist for the Gold Glove at shortstop, alongside Atlanta’s Nick Allen and Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Victor Scott II is a finalist in center field, as are Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs and Jacob Young of the Washington Nationals.

The acknowledgement is Winn’s second in his two full seasons in the big leagues, as he finished behind Colorado’s Ezequiel Tovar in 2024. Scott’s nomination comes at the end of his first full season, though he did appear enough in the majors in 2024 that he was not considered a rookie this season.

Gold Gloves are handed out based on two selection criteria. A vote of managers and coaches (who are not allowed to vote for players from their own team) counts for 75% of each player’s total, and the remaining percentage is based on the Society For American Baseball Research’s defensive index.

SABR holds off on publishing their end of year totals in order to preserve some suspense for the award announcements, but the totals accumulated through the end of play on Aug. 10 reflect the broadly held consensus that Winn is perhaps a favorite to win his award, while Scott is more of a longshot. Winn and Allen were tied atop the NL shortstop leaderboard as of that date, while Scott was in fourth among center fielders, trailing the other two finalists as well as Tyrone Taylor of the New York Mets.

Statcast’s fielding run value leaderboard tells a similar story.

With 17 fielding runs, Winn ranked eighth in all of baseball and first among NL shortstops, four ahead of Allen and 14 ahead of Betts. Scott turned in a similarly superlative total, recording 12 fielding runs. Crow-Armstrong, however, racked up 21, and Young recorded 15. Despite finishing tied for 13th among all players, Scott again was third among his peers, tied with fellow center fielder Andy Pages of the Dodgers.

The coach balloting, however, carries the majority of the weight, and it is there where Winn could run into some trouble. There are factors which work in his favor; Allen held a relatively anonymous profile for one of baseball’s most disappointing teams in Atlanta, and he was a dreadful offensive performer, which perhaps ought not matter in a consideration for a defensive award but does consistently seem to leak in through the outside atmosphere.

Betts was far and away the third-best defender of the three by most commonly accepted metrics, but the weight of those metrics among coaches – while climbing – is perhaps less impactful than that of reputation and narrative. Having spent most of his career as a superstar-level outfielder, Betts already has six Gold Gloves. The voters may well be inclined to reward his undoubtedly impressive positional transformation in the midst of what is likely to be a Hall of Fame career.

Betts also racked up more than 150 more innings than Winn at short, largely as a result of Winn being placed on the injured list with two weeks to go in the season after his right knee meniscus tear progressed to the point where he was no longer able to play on it. Winn’s innings total, while relatively low for a Gold Glove winner, is higher than that of some winners and shouldn’t be a sufficient detraction on its own, though in combination with other factors, could be a complication.

Both Scott and Young are likely to receive hearty handshakes of congratulations before the award is handed to Crow-Armstrong, who was the top defensive center fielder by nearly every measure in the NL this season as well as putting up the kind of offensive numbers which will see him appear on MVP ballots. Scott, though, won the minor league Gold Glove – covering all levels – in center in 2023, and his outstanding play there was more than enough to justify keeping him on the field even as his offense lagged later in the season.

As the Cardinals seek to build their next generation of a winning team, both Scott and Winn have carved out roles which put them firmly in the discussion for remaining at the core of that team in the coming years. Winn, especially, put up the kind of offensive performance despite a season-long lagging injury that suggests a great deal more ceiling to come, while Scott’s first half was a tantalizing vision of his potential that tapered off with his second half struggles.

While perhaps only one is likely to win an award when they are announced on Nov. 2, both more than earned their respective places among the finalists. Repeating that success – building upon it – is what will cement them in St. Louis for years to come.

This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 3:15 PM.