2019 Positional Power Rankings: Center Field
Our yearly project of ranking each team at each position continues with center fielders, the position of Mays and Mantle, the position at the crossroads of the offensive and defense parts of baseball’s positional spectrum. Let’s get straight down to the business of ranking the players who come after Mike Trout.
Nowadays, center field is largely seen as a position made up of Mike Trout and Everybody Else. And with a major identity crisis, that conclusion isn’t so far off. There’s no clash of center field greats, with Trout largely lapping the field. Looking at many of the leaders in WAR at the position over the last five years, a great many won’t play center field in 2019 or have already moved off the position: Andrew McCutchen, Charlie Blackmon, Adam Jones, Marcell Ozuna, Christian Yelich, and so on. After Trout and Lorenzo Cain, who jumps out as an all-around star at the position, the way a Carlos Beltran or Jim Edmonds did?
Nor, with baseball’s traditional roles changing, can center field claim to be the most popular home for leadoff hitters. In 2018, leadoff hitters played centerfield only 24% of the time, the lowest figure in the Split Leaderboards (which go back to 2002) and well off the 41% mark for 2013, just six years ago. Center fielders hit .253/.319/.407 in 2018, the position’s second-worst OPS since 2002, and amassed -3.4 wRAA, also their second-worst.
Where the highs of center field aren’t very high after Mike Trout, the position does still have impressive depth, with few teams having truly desperate situations there. Looking at the ranks, if I’m running a contender, I wouldn’t be terribly upset about my center field situation until I’m down around No. 21 or so. It’s a position defined by workaday adequacy; unless Ronald Acuña reclaims center, by rest-of-career WAR in ZiPS, Trout is the only one in the top 50, with the next 50 only adding Victor Robles and Ramon Laureano. Someday, a new crop of center fielders will challenge an aging Trout in the twilight of his career, but they may be in middle school right now.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
So the Indians were 3 spots behind the O´s in left field, and are 1 spot ahead of them in center. As an Indians fan, all I can say is….thank God we play in the AL Central!!!
On a more serious note…assuming the Indians make the playoffs, would this be the worst ever playoff outfield? Granted they could overperform their projections, but at least on paper, I’m thinking the answer has to be yes. And that it’s probably not even close…
In some circles they’ve started pools betting on when Mercado gets the call.
(Unlike Diaz, he did change his launch angle.)
That would still leave a couple holes in the OF.
Indians are pretty crafty at the trade deadline and position players are relatively cheap. They won’t go to the playoffs with this outfield.
In 2003, the Yankees made the World Series. Their three primary outfielders were worth a combined 2.6 WAR, with 2.4 of that coming from right fielder Raul Mondesi. Hideki Matsui put up 0.2 WAR in 695 plate appearances, on the back of one of the worst defensive seasons of all time; center fielder Bernie Williams was worth 0.0 WAR in 521 plate appearances, on the back of the one of the other of the worst defensive seasons of all time.
The next year, the Yankees picked up Gary Sheffield. He was a great hitter. That year, Fangraphs shows the Yankess’ primary outfielders (Matsui, Williams, and Sheffield) being worth -28.8, -29.2, and -21.1 runs, respectively. Matsui and Sheffield, at least, had good enough offensive years to overcome that defense. That’s the Yankees team that infamously lost to the Red Sox in the ALCS after blowing a 3 games to none lead.
In 2005, the Yankees decided to keep the band together, and Matsui, Williams, and Sheffield put up -22.0, -30.2, and -34.1 runs defensively. They ended up losing to the eventual champion White Sox in the ALDS that year. Those three were also worth a combined 2.6 WAR, with Williams’ total of -2.3 cancelling out the combined 4.9 put up by Sheffield and Matsui. Incidentally, Fangraphs shows the Yankees as a whole being worth -160.9 defensive runs that season, with Robinson Cano, Jason Giambi, and Tony Womack all being between 15 and 20 runs below average, and Tino Martinez, Derek Jeter, Ruben Sierra, and Matt Lawton all also being pretty terrible.
Great stuff! Though to be fair, the Yankees at least had outfielders with a track record of success. The Indians don’t have that. And Baseball Reference has that 2003 Yankees team with 6.3 outfield WAR. Which was still more than the team they lost to in the World Series, as the Marlins only had 4,6 BR WAR.
BR gives that 2004 Yankees outfield 10.0 WAR. And then the 2005 team plumetted to 3.6.
So maybe it’s not that unusual to have a playoff team composed of outfielders who don’t contrbute much. What I think is unique is that a team that everyone projects to win their division only has a single OFer on their 40 man roster with more than 2.1 career WAR – Martin with 11.6.
Or just think of your left side of the infield and starting rotation, and then look at the O’s.
I think Nimmo plays most of the year in CF and far outpaces his steamer projections. I could see Lagares starting out the season in CF before Lowrie and Frazier returns and McNeil moves to LF. I could see Lagares and Broxton starting vs lefties and McNeil and Nimmo sitting vs lefties. Nimmo improved vs lefties last year and was fine vs lefty starters he just couldn’t hit lefty specialists and McNeil didn’t have issues vs lefties, so I’d play both vs most lefties.
Angels better enjoy themselves while they can.
Because that team and all its fans are going to seriously regret that Trout contract when he’s 35 and falls off a cliff to become a 7 WAR player.
Even the great ones fall to only being stars and not the best player ever.
Trout projects for more WAR than all the AL Central center fielders combined, 9.2 to 7.9.
Thank you Dan, very cool!
It’s not the steak’s fault if someone puts ketchup on it.
Truer words have never been spoken.
I’m surprised Dan’s subconscious didn’t go with: “It’s not the chillies fault if someone puts beans in it”
Is this a commentary on the Oakland Athletics’ coaching staff in the early 2010s?
Pfft, it may not be fancy, but ketchup is still a better option than nasty steak sauce. As for me, just give me some salt and let me enjoy it in its natural juices.
Hey Dan, there’s a typo in your write up of Cincinnati CFs. You spelled “best chili” wrong. Its okay though, I still respect you as a writer.
This is one of those positions where most teams are set because they’ve got good players under control for a little while. But that means anyone looking to upgrade, you don’t have a lot of options unless you develop someone internally, and most of the guys who will hit the free agent market at CF (like Springer in 2020) may need to move back to a corner at some point shortly thereafter. So teams like the Mets, Cleveland, Royals, and Giants are going to be waiting for a while.
SF and KC have plenty of other issues, they need not worry about making CF their first priority.
Mets gonna Met, I guess.
CLE is always capable of dangling a SP in a trade for any other position if they feel that they must address it. For another couple of years at least.
ZiPS projecting Joey Gallo for 126 PA in CF is something
Gallo had nearly 100 innings at center last year and with Tocci’s demotion, it doesn’t look like the team will roster any backup OF that can play center, at least at the start of the year. The beat guys have been referring to Gallo as the team’s backup centerfielder for weeks now (there’s no intention to have Gallo play center on a permanent basis).
Mets fan here, so I was surprised to see Gallo here and Dan’s response that he logged some innings there last year. Just curious, any eyeball evaluations of him out there?
I just checked his metrics, and they actually think he’s fine in CF. Which is one of those “can that really last?” things. He has a negative range factor for the outfield overall, so it doesn’t seem likely. But maybe he just gets better reads in CF than in left? He definitely has enough offense to profile there, so if he’s even close to league-average in CF he’d be awesome.
Geez, Mike Trout is always jaw dropping when you see him lined up like this.
He’s no Lucroy or McCann, but still.
Why is Duggar predicted for below average defense? He was worth a couple DRS last year in like 50 games.
How did Tyler O’Neill not make it into the mix for Cardinals CF? I find it very unlikely the Cardinals would play Fowler there at all this year unless a horrible bunch of injuries happened at once.
Buxton has made zero progress against righties in 4 years, which is his biggest problem. His career wRC+ against righties is 76 in over 700 PA. He hasn’t really made progress in any area against them, with nearly identical K:BB ratios, high BABIPs without much room to go higher, and only a small spike in power in 2016.
He’s made some progress against lefties (before last year), but he’s looking like an upper-middle-class Billy Hamilton unless he learns to hit righties.
I think it is too early to call Mallex Smith a fumble by the Braves. That trade netted them Luiz Gohara. And while Gohara has experienced significant set backs on his path to the Majors, his upside remains as tantalizing as ever.
I’m talking about their larger handling of Mallex. The Braves played a lot of old and/or terrible outfielders in 2015-2016 ahead of him. That a rebuilding team ended up giving more at bats to Jeff Francoeur: The Return and Jonny Gomes than they ever did for Smith. The rotting husk of Matt Kemp’s career got more PA than Mallex in 2016 even though they didn’t even acquire the former until the trade deadline.
Sounds like the Braves adopted a tried and true Mets playing time strategy, except it unfortunately did not hurt their record.
lol, what? I know you like trolling the Royals due to some weird grudge or something (I honestly dont know why) but this is just silly.
The Royals plan is pretty clearly to be cheap and bad until the next wave of prospects comes up. No one anywhere thinks that base running is the plan to lead them back to the playoffs lol.
There are plenty of legitimate things to make fun of the Royals about. Attributing something that clearly isn’t true isn’t really necessary.
The front office and most of the team has spent most of the offseason spazzing out to the media about team speed.
So the alternative scenario is that they’re lying and don’t really think team speed is super-important. Calling them liars is way meaner than calling them deluded. I took the fair more charitable position, IMO.
Of course they are lying. Its called marketing. lol. Do you also believe that the Jays really think Vlad Jr needs more time in the minors?
They are in the middle of being a terrible team and trying to generate something for fans to be excited about. Like half a dozen teams do every single year. Having alot of fast guys is an easy (and probably the only) marketing angle for them.
I don’t believe for a second that you are as naive as you are trying to seem here.
If that’s the case, why didn’t they trade Merrifield? Why bother signing Hamilton? Why not trade Duffy for whatever they could get (even salary relief)? They have to know that Keller was a mirage, right? Why not trade him to some team that believes in him?
If they are trying to lose on purpose, they aren’t doing that great of a job of it. (I happen to think they are going to lose by accident, but that’s not the same thing)
Ender Inciarte projects for a wOBA of .315 and a Fld of 6.1. Mallex Smith projects for a wOBA of .306 and a Fld of 0.6. Yet Inciarte’s WAR projection is 2.7 and Smith’s is 2.6. Why are they so close? Park factors? Baserunning?
It looks like a combination of park factors and baserunning.
Trout wasn’t healthy for a full season
Indeed, I think 140 games doesn’t count as a full season. That said, Betts only played in 136 games himself, making his MVP season all the more remarkable.
I thought I clicked on the DH power rankings and saw the graph and was confused why LAA had such a giant advantage at the position.
I think the Nats are looking for a little more from Robles than this projection, though the recent injury makes this projected performance seem reasonable. Fans will be disappointed though. The Nats depth table above only had three names in it to begin. With Michael Taylor injured, it doesn’t seem like the Nats have a viable (replacement level) backup center fielder. Might have to take the under on the team ranking.
Great atmospheric quote from The Count of Monte Cristo. That, and the Gatsby reference, are why I still come to FanGraphs, hoping to be surprised and delighted by the greater possibilities of baseball.
Great writeup, Dan! Always enjoyable to read your stuff. I hope Meg is doing one of these again this year?
Hey Big Z! Trout did miss a bunch of time in 2018…i want to say at least 3 weeks?
as a white sox fan, i would vastly rather read The Count of Monte Cristo, an excellent novel I enjoy, rather than watch anything regarding a Sox center fielder until one of the many Luis center field prospects (Basabe, Robert, Gonzalez, etc.) stakes a claim to it
Trout was not healthy for a full season last year. He missed two weeks with another base sliding injury, and was clearly not himself for another week plus, when he played DH. Not to mention a week lost when his brother-in-law died. Had he not lost all that time, he would have led the league in WAR, though to be fair, Betts lost just as much time to injuries of his own.
Well, I didn’t mean as in perfect health! That’s kinda rare after all. I meant in the sense he didn’t “miss a third of the season.”
Even if you believe Bader’s offense is going to fall that far (although, there’s no real evidence it will), why would you expect his defense to also decline? He’s always been a fleet-footed defensive wiz in the minors as well, so there’s no reason not to expect that to continue. With good health, last year’s 3.5 WAR should be his expected FLOOR going forward.