With the World Series ending the worst playoffs since there weren’t any in 1994, the baseball awards season is upon us, which can only mean that some of them are going to get royally screwed up. This was the case this past week, when the Gold Glove award winners were announced, proving, as it does every year, that even managers of actual baseball teams can get things just as wrong as baseball writers can…maybe even worse. At least when writers mess up the MVP, they are debating as to what the meaning of the word “valuable” means, Bill Clinton style. The Gold Glove is for the best fielder at his position, and it ends up not being chosen that way. This week’s Top 7 looks at the worst winners of this award, and the theme that comes along with such selections.

7. Russell Martin
Many times, voters think about who is the best hitter at their position, and vote for them as the best defensive player. This makes absolute, complete, total sense. Martin was unquestionably the best hitter at his position in 2007, but he’s not so much the defender. There are plenty of other catchers in the National League that would have been better selections, including one in particular that is going to be mentioned two more times on this list, so we won’t make it three. This same phenomenon occurred this year with Adrian Gonzalez (this could be an entire entry but I’ll save the Pujols love this week and just say that he was robbed) and Nate McLouth, and it has happened plenty of times before.

6. Brad Ausmus
Many times for a player, it’s reputation alone. That’s how Greg Maddux has won 18 Gold Gloves in his career. The thought process is this--“Who was a good fielding pitcher this season? Eh, I don’t feel like thinking about it, I’m sure Maddux was fine.” Ditto Andruw Jones. That’s also how Ausmus won the Glove in 2006 even though he only threw out 12 of 72 baserunners during the season, while Yadier Molina was playing some of the most insane catching defense in baseball history. You could almost put Mike Matheny’s 2005 award into this category too.

5. Yadier Molina
It works the other way too. Sometimes people are late to the party. Yadi did deserve it this year, but he makes the list because it’s beyond ridiculous that it took him this long to get the award. He lost out to Martin because of his hitting and Ausmus because of his reputation. The funniest part is that this was probably Molina’s least awesome defensive season, but he hit a career high .304. Now that he has established himself as worthy of the award, he will probably continue to win them even when he doesn’t deserve it.

4. Chuck Knoblauch
Yes, he actually won the 1997 Gold Glove…the same guy who would hurl the ball 65 feet over the first baseman’s head, occasionally into Keith Olbermann’s mother. Fine, he may have deserved it prior to becoming Smalls from Sandlot before receiving the Jet’s help, but in such extreme cases, perhaps awards should be taken away.

3. Derek Jeter
Enough cheerleading, politicking, and worship can get players Gold Gloves, and Jeter leads the way in this respect. Many, many in-depth statistical analyses say that Jeter is not only one of the worst shortstops defensively in the majors, but he is one of the worst at any position in baseball. But Jeter is Jeter, and as long as enough people keep repeating that he is a great defender, while he does a couple of those leap-throw plays every year, plenty of people are going to believe it, stats be damned. Jeter is also an example of another Gold Glove voting trend, but it is best evidenced by the next guy on the list.

2. Aaron Rowand
Sometimes a guy makes an amazing play during the season, and it wins him the Gold Glove. He could basically Chuck Knoblauch his way through the rest of the year and it wouldn’t matter. For Rowand, it was the amazing crash-into-the-wall catch that he made in 2007 that clinched the award for him. For the aforementioned Jeter, it was his jump into the stands against the Red Sox that paved the way for an inexplicable three awards.

1.Rafael Palmeiro
Sometimes, Gold Glove winners are simply mind-boggling. Palmeiro won the Gold Glove in 1999 at first base. In 1999, he played 28 games at first base, or just 22 more than Craig Paquette. They might as well had given the award to a full-time DH.