Pittsburgh Pirates: All-Time Award Winning Team

Right Field – Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente takes home the award in right field. The legendary Pittsburgh Pirate won 12 consecutive Gold Glove awards from 1961 all the way through 1972. He may have won more if his life wasn’t tragically cut short when he was delivering supplies to Nicaragua, which had recently been hit by an earthquake on New Year’s Eve, 1972. To go with all those Gold Gloves, he added on an MVP award in 1961.

Throughout his career, Clemente was a good hitter. He batted .317/.359/.475 with a .365 wOBA, and 129 wRC+. He finished his career with exactly 3000 hits. He also went yard 240 times. While he wasn’t known for his massive power, from 1960 up through his final season, he reached double digits in home runs, which is still a very good feat nonetheless.

But as good as he was at hitting, those 12 Gold Gloves weren’t because he was popular. His ability to field pales in comparrison to his ability to hit. Clemente had +201 outfield total zone runs. The only other players to reach 200+ TZ are Brooks Robinson (294) and Ozzie Smith (239). Clemente was known for his rocket arm. Calling it a rocket may be an understatement. He had 283 career outfield assists, which is the 11th most all-time. But no outfielder comes even within 50 assists since the end of World War II. The next closest since 1945 is Braves’ all-time great Hank Aaron with a still-impressive 219.

Clemente ended up with 80.6 career fWAR. That’s the 16th most of any outfielder of all time. Though he could have conceivably passed Joe DiMaggio and Al Kaline if it weren’t for the tragic plane crash. The only Pirate to have more fWAR is Honus Wagner at +127.2.