Former Angels' Pitcher Jose Soriano Nominated For Gold Glove Award

The Los Angeles Angels may soon have a chance to bask in some reflected glory.

On Wednesday, MLB announced the three finalists at every position for the 2026 Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. This is the 60th consecutive year that MLB and the glove manufacturer will team to honor the best defensive players in the game.

And lo and behold, one of the three pitchers who is up for the award is erstwhile Angels' starter Jose Soriano, who was dealt to the Toronto Blue Jays at the MLB trade deadline on Aug. 3, for a package of prospects headlined by Double-A shortstop Arjun Nimmala, who was Toronto's No. 2 prospect and the 35th overall at the time of the deal, according to MLB Pipeline.

That deal, along with the others the Angels executed at the trade deadline, earned high grades from outside observers while helping to revitalize a farm system that had consistently ranked worse than 25th among MLB's 30 teams in recent years.

The fact that at the time of the deal Soriano, whose 2026 Gold Glove nomination is the first of his four-year career, was 9-6 with a 3.29 ERA and 127 strikeouts in 22 games started and 123 innings pitched - coupled with having a contract that also gives the Blue Jays control of his services for the 2027 and 2028 seasons - are the most obvious reasons that Toronto was willing to include Nimmala, along with two other minor-league prospects, in the trade.

But don't overlook his defensive contributions.

In a total of 32 games started in 2026, Soriano fielded 39 chances and had an MLB-best 21 assists, all while committing zero errors, which translates into a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage. In fact, it was the second straight season that Soriano was perfect in the field after he recorded 22 assists without an error in 31 starts for the Angels in 2025.

By comparison, the average fielding percentage for MLB's other starting pitchers was .943 in 2025 and .949 this year. He also allowed only six stolen bases in 11 attempts for a caught-stealing percentage of 45.5, more than twice as good as the league average of 22.7%.

When considering Soriano's Range Factor, a metric that attempts to measure a fielder's defensive ability in relation to how many outs they help record, not just how often they make "clean" plays, which is what fielding percentage tracks, he also stands out.

For 2026, Soriano led all major-league pitchers with a 1.98 range factor per nine innings with the league average standing at 1.29.

Joining Soriano on the shortlist for the AL Gold Glove for pitchers are Tanner Bibee of the Cleveland Guardians and Jacob deGrom of the Texas Rangers.

The Gold Glove winners will be announced on ESPN on Sunday, Nov. 1.