Reputation Effects in Gold Glove Award Voting

Reputation effects have been thought to influence how candidates in an election are viewed by the electorate. Using data from Major League Baseball, I attempt to quantify the effect that reputation plays in voting for the Gold Glove award. While the award is designed to reflect current-year defensive accomplishments, two other hypotheses have been suggested to explain voting behavior. The first is that voters use current-year offensive accomplishments in lieu of defensive accomplishments. The second hypothesis is that voters rely on the past performance of the players when casting their ballots, implying that reputation effects exist in the minds of voters. Results from probit estimation show that while reputation effects appear to have a significant effect on the outcome of the election, current-year offensive accomplishments do not.