2019 Positional Power Rankings: Right Field
We wrap up the position player portion of the positional power rankings with a look at the right fielders.
The top half of this list features some of baseball’s brightest stars, including two reigning MVPs (Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich), a $330 million man (Bryce Harper), and one of the game’s most vivacious personalities (Yasiel Puig), not to mention one of its literal biggest stars (Aaron Judge). There are a number of very talented young guys here (Cody Bellinger, Eloy Jimenez, Michael Conforto, Mitch Haniger) some of whom can boast of hardware of their own, and all of whom could become part of that star tier, even if their wattage isn’t nearly as bright as that of the Betts and Harpers of the world. There are also some platoons that could bear fruit, but outside of the top five teams, I’m struck by how much sameness there appears to be in the middle, as many teams are fielding aging veterans playing out the string, some of which are interested in winning, and others of which are decidedly not. An extreme to note: the Marlin’s right field situation is the only position player group currently projected for negative wins. Poor Curtis.
Meg is the editor-in-chief of FanGraphs and the co-host of Effectively Wild. Prior to joining FanGraphs, her work appeared at Baseball Prospectus, Lookout Landing, and Just A Bit Outside. You can follow her on Bluesky @megrowler.fangraphs.com.
Thank you Meg, very cool!
Prediction – Adam Eaton will have a higher WAR than Bryce Harper this season.
Judge is being projected to be a considerably worse hitter this year than he has been during his brief career. He is being projected for career worse OBP and SLG here.
It kinda makes sense, he’s a pretty extreme outlier and he doesn’t have a long track record of success— he’s played fewer than 300 career games at 27 years old. The projections just see his strikeout rates and crazy-high BABIP and assume some pretty steep regression. We know that he’s probably good enough to maintain his level of play, but for reasons that aren’t captured in a standard statistical model.
I was going to post the same thing. But as Eltneg said, Judge is a pretty extreme outlier. If you look at the 200K per season guys Judge is the only one that has kept a solid batting average. All the other 200K guys hit for very low batting averages.
Mark Reynolds hit .260 in 2009, the year he set the strikeout record, which was his personal best until he hit .282 in 2016. But he had a measly 25.4% strikeout rate in 2016, and he also played in Colorado so it doesn’t count.
Chris Davis hit .286 and struck out 199 times in his big 2013. He actually had a pretty solid batting average in his productive years with Baltimore.
What any of this means, I haven’t got a clue.
It basically means you have room for error if you hit the ball really damn hard when you don’t miss.
Judge is likely to have a very high true talent BABIP because of his extreme exit velocities.
Seriously, if he were slower, he might lose singles from getting thrown out from RF. It is disturbing how quickly some of his hits travel through the infield.
I’m still of the mind that 2018 represents Judge’s true performance going forward pretty well, at least until the injuries catch up to him. But it’s worth noting that last year he had a career-worst OBP and SLG, at least if you throw out his tiny cup of coffee in 2016.
It was only his second full year, so it either had to be his career worst, or his career best. When you consider how good his 2017 was, chances were good that 2018 was going to be a “career worst”.
Yeah, but the computer might think he’s on a downward trajectory!
This is delightfully written.
I looked up Austin Meadows’ stats for last year because I was curious. He hit okay! I mentally calculated out what his wins would look like over a full-season, and it was less than 1. The reason is that UZR hated his defense. Just hated it. Did anyone see him play out there? Was his range really that bad?
It’s the Rays, I’m not sure a single person saw it other than the people in the dugouts and the umps. Tree falling in the woods, and so on and so forth.
FREE TYLER O’NEILL
Jose Martinez deserves freedom (preferably as an AL DH) even more than O’Neill.
Anyway, Ozuna will probably walk after this season, which will leave the door open for at least one of them.
“Andrew Stevenson is a human person whose mother loved him enough to name him.”
This was so perfectly placed. The obnoxious cackling that followed probably shouldn’t have happened in the middle of my physics lecture, but I’m not entirely sorry.
The Blackmon writeup: “” The move to left will help him to recoup some of his value on its own, and the bat is still plenty valuable even if last year’s dip settles into a more permanent swoon. Either way, he’s likely have another “legit” season, even if it is one that looks more like last year than 2018.”
He’s moving to right, not left (pretty big error given that this is a ranking of right fielders that he’s appearing in). As for looking more like last year or more like 2018, I find that the two look awfully similar to each other, for some reason.
Ah the dangers of being one’s own (tired) editor. Should be all sorted now– my apologies.
The note about the Rays makes it seem like you’re talking about left field rather than right. Is this just a typo, or was this meant for the other column?
Also, I believe a math needs to be done here:
“Meanwhile, the outfield is projected to be the 20th best in baseball, with Cleveland tied with the White Sox, and trailed only by the Tigers, Orioles, Royals, Giants, and Marlins.”
Having ties ahead of you does not change your placement.
While it wouldn’t be surprising to see Martinez get the majority of the at bats in RF for St. Louis, Fowler is still the starter to begin the season. If he falters (again), then Martinez is the next man up, not the other way around.
yeah, was coming here to say this. the given PA totals could easily pan out if fowler struggles again, but the writeup talks about martinez like he’s currently the starter and he’s not
also he’s literally given away his 1B glove so unless some real craziness ensues he’s not getting any reps at first this year , let alone third, which, {shudder}
Quick Question: How is it that Michael Conforto is projected to get 546 PA’s in LF and 455 PA’s in RF for the Mets? He must have one heck of an offseason workout program to prepare for that kind of durability! 🙂
The Angels should petition the league to allow Trout to play two positions and get to bat both times.
You can bat Trout 2 times in the lineup, but he’s automatically out if he’s on the bases when his second time up comes to bat. Do you take that deal? Take into account shenanigans like the other team will IBB there way end an inning if Trout gets a leadoff hit and the next 2 guys make an out without driving him in.
#FREELOY
1,000 PAs for Michael Conforto? From your projections to God’s ear …
A few notes on Jose Martinez — manager Shildt said Martinez won’t see any time at first this year, and I don’t think he’s ever played third base for the Cardinals.
he he he he