Royals had one player near top of Defensive Runs Saved list and two at the very bottom

The Gold Glove Award winners will be announced Tuesday, and Royals center fielder Michael A. Taylor is hoping to repeat.

The last American League center fielder to win the Gold Glove Award in consecutive years was Kevin Kiermaier in 2015-16 with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Bolstering Taylor’s résumé are the Fielding Bible’s Defensive Runs Saved statistics from Sports Info Solution. Taylor had 20 runs saved, which tied for the fourth-highest number and was best among all Major League Baseball center fielders.

Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes was first with 24 runs saved.

Defensive Runs Saved is not the only measure for a Gold Glove Award. In fact, Cleveland’s Myles Straw made the 2022 Fielding Bible Awards all-defensive team at center fielder. Taylor, Straw and the Orioles’ Cedric Mullins are the finalists for the Gold Glove Award.

While Taylor was near the top of the Defensive Runs Saved list, two of his Royals teammates were at last. Both are rookies.

At the very bottom of the defensive stats list is catcher/outfielder MJ Melendez at minus-23. Hurting Melendez was a negative-10 for Strike Zone, which is the “Value added/lost in strikes vs expected strikes (essentially pitch framing for catchers).”

Melendez also had a negative-3 for Adjusted Earned Runs Saved (minus-3).

One spot ahead of Melendez on the list: shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. While Witt had a great season at the plate, his Defensive Runs Saved of negative-22 is a reason he likely won’t be in serious contention for the Rookie of the Year Award.

Statcast’s Outs Above Average had Witt tied for 256th place with four others. That’s out of 268 players who were ranked.