Chicago Cubs Left Fielder Ian Happ has won a Gold Glove for the 3rd straight year!
The MLB awards are one of the most underrated parts of all the MLB season. Of course Opening Day and the Post Season have their appeals, but the MLB Awards are just as exciting because it’s a showing of all the hard work put into the season coming to fruition. Even though Chicago Cubs didn’t make the post season, there is something to be excited about with the news of long time Cub Ian Happ winning his 3rd Gold Glove.
Ian Happ who has been with the Chicago Cubs for his entire 8-year career has just won his 3rd straight Gold Glove award for Left fielders. Offensively Happ has had two down years, but at least those offensive struggles haven’t bleed itself over to affect him in the field where he’s just been outstanding. In 640 career games in Left Field (4773.0 innings) Happ has a career fielding percentage of .992 which is very respectable.
For 2024, Happ played a total of 144 games in Left starting in all 144 of those games. In those 144 games (1248.1 innings) Happ recorded 307 putouts, 11 outfield assists, only committing 1 error, and managed to turn 2 double plays from there. When looking at Happ’s Baseball Savant page he ranks in the middle of the pack for Range (35th percentile), Arm Value (55th percentile), and Arm strength (48th percentile/84.7mph).
Even though Happ is considered in middle of the pack for those categories according to MLb.com writing, “Since the start of 2022, Ian Happ led all left fielders with 31 outfield assists and ranks second in the majors with 23 defensive runs saved. He also leads all left fielders with 445 games played, 3,280.0 innings played at the position and 834 putouts while having committed the fourth-fewest errors (7) in that span.”
For this season Ian Happ’s competition for the Gold Glove were Lourdes Gurriel Jr. of the Arizona D-backs, and Brandon Marsh of the Philadelphia Phillies. Both are respectable defensive players in their own right, but with Marsh primarily being a platoon player only playing 97 games in Left Field and recording 3 errors this year while also posting a .978 fielding percentage at the spot. Gurriel Jr. however is more in Happ realm playing 127 games in Left this year, making 5 errors and recorded a .980 fielding percentage.
Congratulation to Ian Happ and his family for his 3rd straight Gold Glove award. It couldn’t have gone to anyone one better. Hopefully next year we’ll be talking about a 4th straight one and a World Series ring to go with it!
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