Diamondbacks’ Christian Walker, Gabriel Moreno win Gold Glove Award
Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Christian Walker won his second straight Gold Glove Award and catcher Gabriel Moreno took his first, MLB announced on Sunday.
Walker beat out fellow National League finalists Carlos Santana of the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman after leading all first basemen in outs above average (12), finishing second in defensive runs saved (nine) and committing two errors in 1,309.1 innings.
Moreno beat out San Francisco Giants rookie Patrick Bailey and Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto. He was tremendous with his arm all year, finishing with a league-leading +9 caught stealings above average.
Walker was a Gold Glove finalist in 2019 before winning the award for the first time in 2022.
“He works as hard as anybody that you see out there,” manager Torey Lovullo said of Walker during the World Series. “He doesn’t miss a day of ground balls, despite being known as somebody who can hit 30 home runs and drive in 104 or 105 runs. He wants to be a complete baseball player. That means a lot to this organization.”
Walker paired another stellar defensive effort with his first career 30-homer, 100-RBI season offensively. He also played in 157 games, leading the team. Over the past two seasons, Walker took the field in 317 of 324 games in the regular season and all 17 postseason games this year.
The 32-year-old joined Nick Ahmed, Paul Goldscmhidt, Zack Greinke, Gerardo Parra, Orlando Hudson and Steve Finley as D-backs to win multiple Gold Gloves.
Walker was claimed off waivers by the Diamondbacks in March 2017 after he was let go by three other organizations during the lead-up to the regular season.
Approaching his 30s while looking for a long-term home in the league, Walker looked at where in his game he could provide value consistently.
“Obviously offense is important, but defensively, I had to figure out a way to bring something to the table every day,” Walker said at World Series Media Day. “It’s easy to go to a batting cage and spend two hours hitting and take 500 swings and talk about everything, but I had to find a way to buy into that defensively, as well.”
The Diamondbacks have had Gold Glove-caliber defense at first base for a long time, as Walker’s predecessor, Goldschmidt, won the award three times with Arizona.
Walker said he learned a lot from watching Arizona’s franchise player work in 2017 and 2018 before the D-backs traded Goldschmidt ahead of the 2019 campaign.
“We would take ground balls together at first and we would have conversations and I would ask him questions, but you don’t want to get in a guy’s way, try to let them do their business,” Walker said during the World Series.
