Geraldo Perdomo picked up his first Gold Glove on the night of November 1, 2026, when MLB announced the Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners live on ESPN. The Dominican shortstop from the Arizona Diamondbacks beat out Dansby Swanson (Cubs) and Masyn Winn (Cardinals) with the strongest defensive numbers of any shortstop in the National League: 16 Outs Above Average — 98th percentile across all of MLB — and 362 assists, leading the NL in both categories. The glove didn’t just talk. It gave a speech.
What the Numbers Say
Context first, because it matters: the Gold Glove is a defensive award. The bat doesn’t vote. And on that front, Perdomo had no real competition in the NL in 2026.
The Arizona shortstop logged 1,372 innings at short — more than any other shortstop in the majors — and finished with 16 Outs Above Average. In plain terms, Statcast says he turned 16 balls into outs that the average big-league shortstop would have let drop. That lands him in the 98th percentile league-wide. His 362 assists led every NL shortstop as well.
FanGraphs backed it up with +11.0 defensive runs and 13 Fielding Run Value (FRV) at the position. Elite by any measure.
The voting process splits 75% from managers and coaches around the league and 25% from the SABR Defensive Index. When the human eye in the dugout and the statistical model both land on the same name, that’s not a coincidence — that’s a verdict.
The Diamondbacks celebrated accordingly. Domo officially became what the organization already knew they had: the best glove among shortstops in his league.
The Offensive Dip That Doesn’t Really Matter Here
Perdomo finished 2026 with a .262/.370/.377 slash line, a .747 OPS, 9 home runs, 59 RBI, 21 stolen bases in 157 games, and a 5.1 WAR by Baseball-Reference — five wins above a replacement-level player, keeping him firmly in the valuable column even in a quieter offensive year.
It’s a step back from his explosive 2025 campaign, when he won the NL Silver Slugger with 20 home runs and 100 RBI. But that comparison belongs in a different conversation. The Silver Slugger rewards the best bat; the Gold Glove rewards the best glove. Two awards, two different seasons, two different questions. Mixing them up is a mistake worth avoiding.
What connects both years is the same Perdomo: a 26-year-old born October 22, 1999 in the Dominican Republic, who now has one award for hitting and one for not letting anything hit the dirt.
Franchise History: Arizona’s Three Gold Gloves in One Night
Perdomo wasn’t the only D-back on stage in St. Louis. Gabriel Moreno won the Gold Glove at catcher (his second straight), and Corbin Carroll took home the award in right field (his first). Three Gold Gloves in the same season for the same franchise — that’s only happened twice in Arizona history.
The first time was in 2019, with Zack Greinke, Nick Ahmed, and David Peralta. The fact that the D-backs matched that mark in 2026 speaks to an organization that has built defensive talent consistently over the years.
As for the shortstop spot specifically, Perdomo becomes only the second shortstop in Diamondbacks history to win the award. The first was Nick Ahmed, a cornerstone of that 2019 defensive generation. Domo has earned his place right next to him in the franchise record books.
