After winning Gold Glove in 2014, Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager fails to make cut as finalist

Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager came off the gold standard Thursday in terms of defensive excellence.

Seager failed to make the cut when Rawlings Sports announced the three finalists at each position for its annual Gold Glove awards. The winners will be announced Nov. 10.

No Mariners are among the finalists at any position, but Seager, a 2014 recipient, was generally viewed as their only likely candidate.

The American League winner at third base will instead be either Texas’ Adrian Beltre, Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria or Baltimore’s Manny Machado. All three are previous recipients.

The award is determined through a vote of the managers and coaches in each league (75 percent) and a sabermetric component (25 percent). Voting took place in early September.

Managers and coaches are prohibited from voting for their own players.

When Seager won the award a year ago, he became the Mariners’ first recipient since outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Franklin Gutierrez in 2010.

Beltre won the first two of his four Gold Gloves while playing for the Mariners in 2007 and 2008. He also won in 2011 and 2012 at Texas.

Longoria was the 2009 and 2010 recipient, while Machado was the 2013 winner.

Advanced defensive metrics show Beltre and Machado as strong candidates and suggest Longoria and Seager as a close match.

Beltre led all AL third basemen with 18 runs saved and was second in zone rating at plus-11. Machado was second in runs saved (13) and fourth in zone rating (eight).

Longoria was minus-1 in runs saved but led all third basemen with a 14 zone rating. Seager had a zero in runs saved and an eight in zone rating.

FRONT OFFICE MOVES

Joe Bohringer is returning to the Mariners’ front office as a special assistant to the general manager after spending the last four seasons with the Chicago Cubs as their director of professional scouting.

Adding Bohringer is the latest in a series of moves by new Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto to surround himself with familiar faces.

Bohringer worked as a pro scout from 2006-11 at Arizona, which coincides with Dipoto’s time with the Diamondbacks as their vice president of player personnel and interim general manager.

Prior to joining Arizona, Bohringer spent five years (2002-06) with the Mariners as an area scouting supervisor, first in California and later in the upper Midwest.

The Cubs reassigned Bohringer to an unspecified scouting role in September after replacing him with Jared Porter, whom they hired from Boston to serve as his replacement.

The Mariners also confirmed several other front-office moves that had been previously reported:

▪ Jeff Kingston was promoted to vice president and assistant general manager of baseball operations.

Kingston is the highest-ranking member retained from the staff that served under previous general manager Jack Zduriencik. In his new duties, Kingston will oversee the player-development department (the farm system).

▪ Tom Allison was promoted to vice president of player personnel after serving the previous three years as the director of pro scouting. Allison will now oversee all aspects of the Mariners’ scouting operations.

▪ Lee MacPhail IV was promoted to Allison’s former job as director of pro scouting after spending the last three-plus seasons as a major league scout. MacPhail will report to Allison as will Tom McNamara and Tim Kissner, who were retained in their roles as director of amateur scouting and director of international operations.

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 9:50 PM with the headline "After winning Gold Glove in 2014, Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager fails to make cut as finalist."