2025 Positional Power Rankings: Right Field

Aaron Judge is back where he belongs. After spending the majority of his time in center field in two of the past three seasons, Judge is a full-time right fielder again. Sorry, scratch that. I meant to say Judge is the greatest right fielder in the world right now, bar none. Judge is coming off the best season of his career, somehow surpassing his 11.1-WAR, 62-homer 2022 campaign with 11.2 WAR, 58 homers, and a career-high 218 wRC+. For all the talk of whether the 6-foot-7 giant’s body would break down sooner than that of smaller players, he’s played at least 148 games in three of the last four seasons (were it not for a design flaw in the right field wall at Dodger stadium, that number would be four), and he’s only gotten better. He’ll have to slow down at some point and maybe the decline will come fast, but if it does come this season, it will be without any warning.

If anyone other than Judge is seeing extended time in right field, something has gone horribly wrong. With Cody Bellinger, Jasson Domínguez, and Trent Grisham on the roster, Judge should finally be excused from center field duty. He may DH occasionally, but the only reason someone else would see regular time in right is an injury, an unthinkable catastrophe for a Yankees team that has lost Luis Gil for half a season, Gerrit Cole for a season and a half, and Juan Soto for all seasons hereafter.

The contracts of the top two entries on this list are worth a combined $1.125 billion. Then again, do you have any idea how much rent costs in New York City right now? Like his former teammate, Soto is coming off a career year, an 8.1-WAR campaign in which he launched a career-high 41 homers and ran a career-high 180 wRC+, then kicked it up to 203 in the playoffs just for fun.

Soto graded out as an average defender in 2024 according to both FRV and DRS, but DRP thought he cost the Yankees a career-worst 10.7 runs. To be safe, we should assume he’ll be bad in right but so good at the plate that it won’t matter much.

In a certain way, Soto is the most boring superstar in baseball. It’s not just because he walks nearly 20% of the time, but because of what those walks guarantee: a floor so high that it still requires climbing ropes and cramp-ons. Sure, the 2024 season demonstrated Soto’s incredible upside, but the reason you sign him for more than the gross domestic product of Dominica is that he’s never missed more than 13 games in a season, and the last time he ran a wRC+ as low as 143, he wasn’t old enough to drink (not in the US, anyway — he would have been fine in Dominica). Oh yeah, and he only just turned 26 four months ago. Ceilings are supposed to be sexy, but Soto’s floor is banned in 23 states.

Fernando Tatis Jr. is a star, and he’s once again on the rise. In 2024, three years after the 2021 shoulder injury that had sapped his power, Tatis finally got most of it back. He hit a ball 116 mph for the first time in three years, and regained most of what he’d lost in terms of average and 90th-percentile exit velocity. Tatis was excellent even without that top-end power, but with it, he’s a force of nature.

Still, Tatis is projected for 630 PA here, a total he’s hit just once in his career. Due to a litany of injuries and poor decisions, it’s hard to count on his durability. He missed the entire 2022 season, and after notching 635 PA in 2023, Tatis was limited to 109 games in 2024, including seven in the postseason. The culprit was thigh pain that was originally assumed to be a quad injury but turned out to be a stress reaction in his femur. Even while playing through it, he put up 3.2 WAR and a 135 wRC+. If he gets his 630 PA, by all means, pencil him in for this 5.7 WAR and then some. The “if” is the thing.

We’ve got Jason Heyward projected to get the lion’s share of reps in left field, but he’d likely slide over to right to cover for Tatis if necessary. While Heyward has put up solid offensive numbers over the last two seasons, that’s in large part thanks to the fact that he’s almost never faced lefties, which might change if he’s pressed into starting right field duty. Connor Joe is solid too, but there’s only one Fernando Tatis (Junior).

We’ve been here before. Ronald Acuña Jr. tore his right ACL in 2021, and returned very quickly – almost certainly too quickly – at the end of April 2022. He struggled to 2.4 WAR before exploding for a 40-70 season and an MVP trophy while fully healthy in 2023. He never quite looked right in 2024, and he tore his left ACL after 49 games. So are we back in 2022? Will Acuña return in diminished form the moment he’s capable of doing so? So far, it seems like the answer is no.

Reports indicate that Acuña is already blasting tape measure home runs and running (though only in a straight line) at 90-95% on the back fields, but he isn’t playing in spring training games and isn’t expected to return until early to mid-May. In the meantime, we expect Jared Kelenic and Bryan De La Cruz to start the season platooning in right. Kelenic is still just 25 years old and it’s probably not out of the realm of possibility that he could finally figure it out. Little spoon De La Cruz is perfectly serviceable out there too, and it’s at least conceivable that Marcell Ozuna could borrow a glove for a couple innings if necessary.

Yesterday, the team signed Alex Verdugo, who will start the season in the minors. Acuña is an all-world talent, and all three of Verdugo, Kelenic, and De La Cruz are capable of putting together solid stretches, but this may be a spot where some amount of caution is called for along with fans’ optimism.

If you’ve ever grown tired of seeing professional athletes bristle at the obvious misconception that they succeed by pure talent rather than hard work, you’ll love Kyle Tucker. “He keeps it simple,” Tucker’s new manager Craig Counsell recently told reporters. “His routine is very simple, doesn’t hit a lot either — doesn’t need a lot of swings.” That approach seems to be working out just fine for Tucker, who has quietly been one of the best players in baseball over the past five seasons. In 2024, a broken leg interrupted a career year, and he returned three months later like nothing had happened, somehow hitting even better down the homestretch.

Thanks to a 180 wRC+ and his usual excellent defense, Tucker put up an absurd 4.2 WAR over 78 games. The projection systems, unconvinced by a 339-PA Ted Williams impression, expect him regress to a wRC+ around 145 – his average over the past four seasons. If they’re right and he just keeps on Kyle Tuckering, he’ll put up roughly the same amount of value he did in 2024, but over something approaching a full season. If he really did level up last year, he’ll be a legitimate MVP candidate and make a whole lot of friends in the Wrigley Field bleachers.

Tucker’s arrival will push Seiya Suzuki from part-time to full-time DH, and while Suzuki’s glove (or lack thereof) certainly merits the change, his bat is more than enough to make him an adequate fill-in.

Carroll started the 2024 season in the dumps, running a wRC+ of 52 through May 17. However, he slowly started figuring things out in the summer, and during the second half, he nearly tripled his ISO and ran a 147 wRC+. Despite his miserable start, and despite finishing with a full-season wRC+ of just 107, Carroll still ended the year with 4.0 WAR, fourth-most among all right fielders. That made him one of just five players this century to put up a four-win season with such a low offensive output, joining Mookie Betts, Randy Winn, former teammate Daulton Varsho, and Ichiro Suzuki (twice). That’s some extremely fast company.

Neither computers nor humans expect Carroll to put up another 107 wRC+, but the fact that he could be an All-Star-level player while doing so is borderline absurd. Because projection systems tend to be conservative when it comes to baserunning value, and because Carroll projects to pick up another 0.3 WAR in center, feel free to push the Diamondbacks up a spot in your own personal rankings. He’s one of the game’s brightest young stars, and he’s still just 24. In Pavin Smith, Randal Grichuk, and Jake McCarthy, the Diamondbacks have plenty of solid backups behind Carroll, but if those guys are going to make an impact this season, pray they don’t do so in right field. Along with Ketel Marte, Carroll is the one who makes the team go, and he’s all the more irreplaceable now that Christian Walker is gone.

Well this is bittersweet. Last year, I wrote a heartfelt eulogy for Mike Trout’s tenure atop the center field positional power rankings, and now here I am writing about him again as he drifts down the defensive spectrum. Multiple meniscus tears limited the erstwhile greatest player in baseball to 29 games in 2024, during which he ran a 139 wRC+. It was the second season in a row that Trout had been below 140. Before 2023, the last time he’d hit that poorly – the last time he’d even been below 160 – he was a 19-year-old rookie. Still, those two injury-shortened seasons constitute a small sample size. It’s hard to know what to expect from him.

One principle of this exercise is that the more players you have on your depth chart, the more trouble you’re in. If you’ve got seven right fielders, you probably don’t have a right fielder. The Angels are in the odd spot of definitely having an excellent right fielder and definitely needing a better supporting cast. Behind Trout, we’ve got Jorge Soler, who can’t play defense and is set to be the team’s primary DH. Jo Adell is starting in center, and Luis Rengifo is slated to start the season at third. That leaves Mickey Moniak, Matthew Lugo, and Ryan Noda, all of whom project to be right around replacement level. The Angels don’t seem to have a plan in place for one of the most tragically predictable outcomes in baseball.

Lawrence Butler answered the bell in 2024, serving up 22 home runs and 18 stolen bases, and delivering a 130 wRC+ en route to 3.3 WAR over 125 games. Even more impressive, he did nearly all of that in the second half after posting just a 57 wRC+ through June. Amazingly, Butler only ever reached the 130 wRC+ mark in one of his nine minor league stops en route to the majors – a 14-game sample in High-A in 2021 – but he ran a 167 wRC+ from July onward. He leveraged that star turn into a seven-year, $66.5 million contract extension. He’s probably not a true-talent 130 wRC+ guy going forward, but he’s just 24 and he hits the ball awfully hard in the air. That should work out just fine even if pitchers do figure out how to do a better job of exploiting his contact issues, especially up in the zone.

There’s approximately nothing behind Butler. Miguel Andujar is slated to start in left, and if you’ve never heard of Drew Avans or Colby Thomas, you’re not alone. Neither has played in the majors, even though Avans has spent the past four seasons in Triple-A.

Colton Cowser put up 4.0 WAR and finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, running a 120 wRC+ to go with sterling defense in left field. With Tyler O’Neill in the fold, we project Cowser to shift over to right for the most part, but to put up pretty much the same offensive line he did in 2024. Cowser is good for some genuinely scary whiff and strikeout rates, but he doesn’t chase much and he hits the ball extremely hard, going yard 24 times last season.

It’s worth keeping an eye on Cowser’s launch angle. He posted a 39% fly ball rate in 2024, significantly higher than he’d run at any stop in the minors, so it’s fair to wonder whether he can keep that up. If he can’t continue to launch his hard-hit balls in the air, Cowser’s hard contact might not be able to offset all those strikeouts.

Heston Kjerstad will be pressed into starting duty should either Cowser or (more likely, historically speaking) O’Neill go down with an injury. Although he struggled to end the season, Kjerstad impressed in earlier looks and absolutely raked at three minor league levels in 2024. The Orioles signed Ramón Laureano to a one-year deal, and he should make for a perfectly solid depth piece, getting time at all three outfield spots.

Josh Lowe broke out in 2023, running a 130 wRC+, hitting 20 homers, and ending up with 3.5 WAR. In 2024, Lowe was sidelined by hamstring and oblique injuries and dogged by a left hip issue through the entire season. He got into just 106 games and put up a roughly league-average batting line, but he did show some interesting changes.

First, the hobbled version of Lowe was much less aggressive in 2024, knocking nearly five percentage points off his zone swing rate. That’s not a great thing, and it contributed to an even bigger jump in his strikeout rate. When Lowe did swing, his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity increased, but his max and 90th-percentile EVs were down. It would be logical to assume that all those nagging injuries were robbing Lowe of his top-end power, in which case a healthier version of him might be able to marry those two abilities — top-end power and more consistent hard contact — to take another step forward. The projections (all of them except PECOTA) see Lowe returning to the land of above-average hitters and providing a solidly above-average performance in 2025.

Richie Palacios put up a quietly solid 2024 season and should make a very solid backup. Jake Mangum and Jonny DeLuca are glove-first players who will see more time in center, while Kameron Misner should be able to hold the position down in a pinch. Eloy Jiménez hasn’t been a regular outfielder since 2020.

Matt Wallner got off to an ugly start in 2024, running a wRC+ of 60 through April 15 and earning a demotion to Triple-A. Things worked out just fine. He got right in St. Paul and put up a 169 RC+ with 12 home runs after returning to Minneapolis just before the break. Across three years and a bit over one full season’s worth of games, Wallner has a career wRC+ of 144 and 3.8 WAR. Trevor Larnach – like Wallner, a graduate of the Minnesota Finishing School for Humongous Left-Handed Corner Sluggers (unaccredited) – put up a 121 wRC+ in 2024, and superutilityman Willi Castro was at 108.

So why couldn’t the Twins crack the top 10 here? Because all three are projected to take a step back in 2025. So far, Wallner has succeeded despite striking more than a third of the time because he’s mastered the subtle art of clobbering the baseball, but he lives in Joey Gallo territory, and that’s unstable ground. Should his whiff rate creep up much more, his whole profile could come crumbling down. (Luckily, Wallner has notched throws upwards of 98 mph, so like Gallo, he could always fall back on pitching.) Larnach broke out after an approach change, but he’ll need more than one successful season to convince the projections. Moreover, Wallner and Larnach give up a lot of value in the field — defense is an elective course rather than a part of the core curriculum at the Minnesota Finishing School for Humongous Left-Handed Corner Sluggers.

Here’s what Jay Jaffe wrote about Teoscar Hernández a year ago: “While he hit an uninspiring .258/.305/.435 (105 wRC+) overall last year, escaping T-Mobile Park, where he slugged .380 and struggled to see the ball, should help.” And, wouldn’t you know it, Teoscar Hernández looked like Teoscar Hernández again in 2024. He ran a 35% chase rate in Seattle – the first time he’d ever even hit 30% — but in Los Angeles, it fell right back down to his career norms. Hernández hit a career-high 33 home runs and put up a 134 wRC+, nearly identical to the 132 mark he posted from 2020 to 2022. However, his exit velocity numbers did take a small step back, which is something to keep an eye on going forward. As for his defense, well, would you like to talk about his hitting some more?

The Dodgers are still the versatility kings, so should Teoscar Hernández go down with a serious injury, any number of players could end up taking his spot. Andy Pages has gotten the nod as the fourth outfielder over James Outman, and the projections are quite high on him, expecting a wRC+ around 110. The same cannot be said for Enrique Hernández.

We’re moving into a different tier here. You could easily see any of those first 12 starters putting up a five-win season. While Sal Frelick is an extremely fun player – an excellent defender and baserunner who makes tons of contact, lays down bunts, and saves his home runs for the playoffs – he’s not that kind of guy. He’s got a career 88 wRC+, and there’s no indication that he’s about to discover better bat speed. In 2023, he managed an excellent 12.6% walk rate, but he saw a lot more pitches in the zone in 2024 and pitchers will continue to do their best to simply overpower him.

Jackson Chourio, one of the most exciting players in baseball, gooses the projections here a bit because we have him splitting time between right and left as he did last season. Garrett Mitchel is the starting center fielder, and at this point in his career, Mark Canha doesn’t look like he’ll see much time in the outfield.

Wilyer Abreu won a Gold Glove as a rookie. He launched 15 home runs, notched 16 Defensive Runs Saved, and racked up 3 WAR. Still, you can see why the projections distrust him. When he was forced to face left-handed pitching, he batted .180. Moreover, a huge chunk of Abreu’s defensive value came from his nine outfield assists, a very volatile stat. Compare the 2023 and 2024 outfield assist leaders, and you’ll find almost no overlap.

Abreu also got a late start in camp thanks to a gastrointestinal virus and may not be ready for Opening Day. He platooned with Tyler O’Neill and Rob Refsnyder last season; with O’Neill now an Oriole, Refsnyder will get the chance to prove his own breakout season wasn’t a fluke. Trayce Thompson has been obliterating spring training pitching (a pastime we should probably just rename “Trayce Thompsoning” at this point), but he’s not on the 40-man, so unless the team shakes things up, he’ll likely need an injury to make an appearance in Boston.

Oh, and then there’s Roman Anthony, the top prospect in all of baseball (sort of). Anthony slugs, runs absurd walk rates, and has a good enough glove that on a team with fewer excellent outfield defenders, he might end up in center. You have to imagine that the Red Sox will prioritize Anthony’s development over any temporary needs, only promoting him when they feel he’s got the best chance of succeeding. Whenever that happens, the outfield will require rejiggering.

It’s not yet clear to which of the corners George Springer and Anthony Santander will be assigned. Both spent time in right last season, and while Santander is the team’s big free agent acquisition, mashing 44 home runs in Baltimore, Springer is better defensively, making him a better fit for right. That said, the 35-year-old Springer’s not providing all that much defense at this point in his career, and he’s been league-average at the plate for the last two seasons. ZiPS sees him as the seventh-best outfielder on the team, behind every name on the table above except for Jonatan Clase. Maybe that’s just because players without much track record get the benefit of the doubt as replacement level, but it’s definitely not ideal.

Joey Loperfido didn’t hit during his debut in 2024, but he has performed at every stop in the minors and appears likely to play center should Daulton Varsho be unable to start on Opening Day. Concerns about Alan Roden’s swing path, plate discipline, and athleticism kept him off our Top 100 Prospects List, but he’s done nothing but hit in the minors, and he’s raking in spring training. Addison Barger and the 30-year-old Nathan Lukes are better suited as outfield depth, but they’re getting a lot of playing time (and, for what it’s worth, hitting well) this spring.

Victor Robles is the only player in recent memory to arrive at T-Mobile Park and suddenly start seeing the ball better. After putting up 0.3 WAR with the Nationals from 2020 to 2024 and being released on June 1, Robles blossomed in the other Washington. He ran a 141 wRC+ and put up an absurd 3.2 WAR in just 77 games after the Mariners picked him up, earning a two-year deal in the process.

Robles made a series of mechanical adjustments in Seattle, increasing his zone contact rate, improving his contact quality, and running by far the best barrel rate of his career. Still, he ran an awfully high BABIP, and his contact quality was still way below the league average. How much are we supposed to believe in those changes? One clue: Among our projection systems, OOPSY, which factors in bat speed, is the lowest.

We have Mitch Haniger, currently dealing with shoulder discomfort, projected to spend a slight majority of his time DH’ing. Haniger is now two seasons removed from the player he was from 2017 to 2022, the guy who ran a 124 wRC+. After spending most of his time in the outfield last season, we have Raley projected to spend most of his time at first base this year. In 2024, Dylan Moore played every non-pitcher or catcher position except right field, but he should once again hit well enough while appearing all over the diamond. Dominic Canzone will start the season in the minors.

At this point, Bryan Reynolds’ superlative 2021 season, during which he put up 6.3 WAR with a 140 wRC+, is three years in the rearview. We should no longer be holding out hope for a renaissance. (A Bryanaissance? A Reynaissance? Yeah, that’s the ticket.) However, Reynolds has put up a wRC+ between 109 and 123 in each of the last three seasons, and there’s no reason to expect the 30-year-old to fall off a cliff at the plate. His defense is another story. According to Fielding Runs Value, Reynolds cost the Pirates 12 runs in 2024, tied for fifth-most in baseball, and with Tommy Pham joining the team, we now expect him to shift from left to right.

Behind Reynolds, there’s Jack Suwinski, who, for one glorious season, was able to make it all work. He put up 2.6 WAR in 2023 thanks to solid center field defense and an offensive line dominated by the Three True Outcomes. All that fell apart in 2024. Both the power and the walks dried up, leaving only one outcome in their wake. Suwinski’s defense also fell off, and he ended up with an almost impressive -1.1 WAR in just 88 games. Behind Reynolds and Suwinski, the only player in the table above who’s even projected to be replacement level is Joshua Palacios, whom we expect to start the season in the minors.

The Rangers have fallen a full 10 spots from last season’s ranking. A year ago, Adolis García was coming off a 4.6-WAR campaign in which he slugged 39 home runs and ran a 126 wRC+. In 2024, he ran a 92 wRC+ and put up -0.2 WAR, thanks to an enormous -11 fielding runs, just one spot below Reynolds and tied for seventh-worst in baseball. García is likely to bounce back some — he still launched 25 home runs (his fourth straight season doing so) and hit the ball plenty hard — but his average bat speed took a big step back, which doesn’t seem like a good sign.

It’s not just García either. After exploding onto the scene in 2023, Evan Carter got off to a slow start and his season ended after just 21 games due to a lumbar sprain. There have been reports this spring that Carter’s swing has looked tentative, and it’s hard to blame him. Carter should be spending most of his time in center. Kevin Pillar is still technically an outfielder. He posted a 139 wRC+ against lefties last year.

This season, Luis Matos looks set to be the small spoon in right. Big spoon Mike Yastrzemski has now put up either 1.5 or 1.6 WAR in each of the past three seasons. Yastrzemski’s plate discipline suffered a bit in 2024, however. His chase rate, while still very good, crept upward, and his contact rate on pitches in the zone took a dip. In all, his .301 xwOBA was the worst of his career, and his 40.8% hard-hit rate was the second-worst. For now, it’s just something to watch, but as a lefty in San Francisco, the 34-year-old Yastrzemski will need all the power he can get.

Last month, Eric Longenhagen wrote that he was “still keen on Matos who, despite some relevant flaws, is a special contact hitter with unique pull power characteristics.” Eric also acknowledged that Matos has not exactly impressed at the big league level, posting a 75 wRC+ over two seasons and 121 games. That’s a small sample, but his defense has also graded out poorly, and he’ll need all that contact to start finding grass.

Oddly, the best offensive projections belong to the fill-ins here. All-Star Heliot Ramos has the left field job, while first basemen LaMonte Wade Jr. and Jerar Encarnacion will likely continue to get a couple games in right.

We’ve been hearing Dylan Crews’ name for so long that you could be forgiven for forgetting that he’s still a rookie with just 30 big league games under his belt. But he is. He just turned 23, and he just came in at no. 3 on our Top 100 Prospects list as a 60-FV prospect. His blurb even name-checked one Mike Trout. Crews hasn’t yet put up massive power numbers in the minors, but he’s got the swing. He has the speed (if not the feel just yet) to cover center on most teams, but most teams don’t have Jacob Young. Eric Longenhagen predicted that, like Jackson Chourio, Crews might need an adjustment period before he takes off, but he’ll be someone to watch all year.

Alex Call started the 2024 season in the minors and got into 30 games in Washington before tearing the plantar fascia in his left foot, which ended his season. He should make for a solid fourth outfielder. Amed Rosario played right field for the first time last year, and it did not go well. Robert Hassell III could end up as a late-season call-up if things go well in Triple-A.

Right field projects to be one of Miami’s worst spots on the field, which is saying something. Jesús Sánchez will start the season on the IL with an oblique strain and miss at least the first two weeks. He’s put up about 1.4 WAR in each of the past two seasons, by way of hitting, running, and fielding at just about a league-average level. The left-hander has more than enough power to blast the ball over the fence, and he pairs it with just enough chase and swing-and-miss to keep the whole package from being noteworthy.

While Sánchez is out, Griffin Conine should get the majority of the starts against right-handers. The younger Conine had an excellent BABIP-fueled 30-game debut in 2024. The projections are having none of it. In 2024, Dane Myers spent some of his time as the small side of the platoon with Sánchez, and with Avisaíl García gone, he looks likely to get a real shot at that role. We’ve got Kyle Stowers starting in left field, and we project that Miami will get even less value there than in right. Look, it’s going to be a season.

Chase DeLauter dropped from our 29th-ranked prospect to 55th, as injuries limited him to just 39 games last season. Still, he’s hit at every stop and unless something goes wrong, he should make it to Cleveland this year. The following is all subject to DeLauter either grabbing the job or earning a shot toward the end of the season.

Will Brennan will return as the big spoon of the platoon. Although it’s only March, it’s probably not too early to pencil him for his third straight appearance in the Replacement Level Killers series. Brennan has put up a combined 0.9 WAR in just over two big league seasons, providing near-competence in all phases of the game. The 23-year-old Jhonkensy Noel will be the little spoon, and the projections really don’t think that he’ll come close to repeating the 118 wRC+ he put up in his debut last season. Noel launched 13 homers in just 67 games, running a .268 ISO, and most of the projections expect him to come in somewhere beneath .200 this year. That will probably happen. He’s a boom-or-bust slugger with major contact issues, and he ran a .233 ISO in the minors.

Daniel Schneemann will continue his utility role, playing both infield and outfield. Johnathan Rodriguez doesn’t have Noel’s height or the cool nickname, but he’s got the same affinity for long balls and strikeouts, launching 29 home runs in each of the last two seasons at the minors.

The 34-year-old Mike Tauchman makes a perfectly passable strong side of a platoon. He’ll walk enough to put up an line that’s about 10% better than league average, and he’ll catch the occasional fly ball in the outfield. The problem is that Tauchman is in desperate need of a dance partner. When he was on the Cubs, he had Seiya Suzuki. On the South Side, that job looks like it will fall to Austin Slater, who served as a lefty-masher par excellence in San Francisco for years, but saw his production collapse and his address change twice in 2024. Should Slater recover from some persistent elbow injuries, he and Tauchman could combine to make a solid right fielder.

Slater is currently dealing with an oblique injury, so we expect Oscar Colás to jump in to start. In 2022, we had Colás as the team’s third-ranked prospect, but he hasn’t really hit since then at any level.

With nothing to play for but the future, why not hand right field to Jordan Walker, give him the longest runway possible, and see if he can finally put it together? Walker is still just 22, and he did hit better after he returned from his demotion to Memphis last year. Unfortunately, the bar was so low that better meant an 89 wRC+. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but Walker combines a lot of power with a very high groundball rate. He ran a 116 wRC+ over 117 games in 2023. In 2024, his strikeout rate exploded to 28.1%, far above anything he’d posted in the minors, thanks to an enormous whiff rate outside the zone. That seems slightly fluky. It’ll be hard to keep running Walker out there day after day if he continues struggling, but at this point, it’s not like the Cardinals have a better option.

Lars Nootbaar is a treasure who should own left field this season, Alec Burleson will DH and fill in with above-average offense at whatever corner makes the most sense, and Brendan Donovan will continue to put the “super” in “superutility.” Michael Siani is a center fielder by trade, and as of now, we don’t have him, Matt Koperniak, or Jose Barrero projected to make the Opening Day roster.

Turns out trading Kyle Tucker does not exactly do wonders for your right field production. After coming in fourth last season, here lie the Astros, buried at 24th.

Chas McCormick ran a 120 wRC+ with 50 home runs over his first three seasons. In 2024, everything stopped. Maybe an April hamstring issue was to blame, but McCormick started swinging more and making less (and worse) contact. He stopped lifting the ball, he stopped pulling the ball, and he stopped hitting it hard. It’s possible a healthy McCormick will regain his stroke. Earlier in the offseason, there was talk of platooning him, but it seems the job is his… for now.

Enter Cam Smith, the prize prospect who came with Isaac Paredes in the Tucker trade. Smith was Chicago’s first-round pick in 2024, and he put up a 179 wRC+ across 32 minor league games, making it to Double-A. He has so thoroughly impressed during spring training that there was talk of him making the team out of camp. That chatter hasn’t quite died down, and as of this morning, Smith is batting .419 with four home runs this spring. He has yet to play in Triple-A (or play an official game in the outfield, though he’s seen limited time in right this spring), but he could find his way to Houston soon, whether it’s Opening Day or after.

In the meantime, Ben Gamel looks to be the fourth outfielder (though he’d certainly nestle in nicely with McCormick to form a platoon duo). Gamel had a career year at the plate in 2024, but he’s mostly a steady fill-in.

With both Matt Vierling and Parker Meadows suffering injuries, Detroit’s outfield is a mess. The way things look, the right field job will be Vierling’s once he returns from a rotator cuff strain, and the switch-hitting Wenceel Pérez will fill in from time to time, primarily against righties. Because Vierling is capable of playing third base, he could spend more time there (especially now that the team has optioned Jace Jung), meaning Pérez would spend even more time in right. That’s once everyone’s healthy.

In the meantime, we see Kerry Carpenter and Jahmai Jones platooning in right while Pérez starts in center because Parker Meadows is dealing with his own arm injury. However, that’s just our best guess. Justyn-Henry Malloy is still in the mix. The team could also try to get Carpenter into the outfield more in order to give Spencer Torkelson more time at DH. Is your head spinning yet? This stuff is really much simpler when you’ve got an Aaron Judge out there.

As for what to expect when these guys do take the field, let’s start with Vierling, who looked very different in 2024, trading some exit velocity for a gain in contact rate. However, he also increased his power because he did a better job of pulling and elevating the ball. We’ll see if he can keep baseball’s one weird trick going when he returns. Carpenter exploded in 2024, running a 160 wRC+ and ducking lefties almost entirely. Jones has gotten into 69 major league games with four different teams, and while he has hit in the minors, his career strikeout rate of 36% is dangerously close to his career wRC+ of 50. Pérez is also fine. I’m way past my word count here.

As the strong side of a platoon, Jake Fraley has put up somewhere between 0.8 and 1.1 WAR in each of the last four seasons. However, his offense took a step back in 2024. After running a career swing rate below 50%, he was at nearly 58% in 2024. His hard-hit rate and his ISO collapsed, and he put up a 95 wRC+, but even that was boosted by a .331 BABIP. Fraley was bad. However, the job seems to be his, and he’ll share it with Stuart Fairchild, who has a career 88 wRC+ and has been worse over the past two seasons, but does hit well against lefties.

Will Benson will start the season in the minors and Austin Hays looks set to start in left field, leaving Blake Dunn as the fourth outfielder. Dunn excelled in the lower minors, but struggled mightily in Triple-A and Cincinnati last season.

At least Hunter Renfroe gets to finally stick around somewhere. Renfroe has played for seven teams in the last six years, but he’s on the second and final year of his deal in Kansas City. Year one didn’t go particularly well. Renfroe dealt with a back injury, a broken toe, and a hamstring strain in 2024, ending up with -0.1 WAR. Consider this his chance to get back into the black in Kansas City before he makes his next stop. Unfortunately, Renfroe’s 92 wRC+ was the exact same as the one he put up in 2023, which should make us worry that even when healthy, he won’t go back to being an above-average hitter.

Drew Waters and Joey Wiemer look likely to start the season in the minors, and Dairon Blanco and Nelson Velázquez look like platoon options for MJ Melendez in left and Kyle Isbel in center. In other words, if Renfroe goes back to hitting, the right field job should be his. If not, well, there isn’t a name behind him on the depth chart that looks much more promising.

Even at his best, when Nick Castellanos was putting up offensive lines that were 20% better than the league average, his defense dragged his value way down. The 33-year-old has surpassed 2.3 WAR just once in his career, and he turned it into a five-year deal with the Phillies, becoming the charter member of the Bats Not Gloves Guild. Over three seasons and 455 games in Philadelphia, Castellanos has put up just 1.4 WAR. He won’t reach free agency until 2027, and the Phillies will keep rolling with his projected 0.5 WAR, championship aspirations be damned. Not only is right field the worst spot on the team’s depth chart, every other position but one is projected to outpace it by at least 2.0 WAR.

Free agent signing Max Kepler is ticketed for left, while Kody Clemens is a utility fielder who doesn’t meet the minimum requirement for either half of the term. Cal Stevenson and Weston Wilson are 28 and 30, respectively, and it’s hard to imagine either forcing their way into the lineup from the minors. Right field belongs to Castellanos.

Oh dear. The Rockies have eight right fielders. Which of them is the right fielder? You already know the answer.

Jordan Beck parlayed a .188 average during a 55-game cameo into a shot at a starting job. According to reports, Nick Martini, who put up -0.5 WAR in 2024, is challenging Beck not just for the starting spot, but for a spot on the roster.

Eric Longenhagen has Zac Veen as the Rockies’ 16th-ranked prospect, and even if he (Veen, not Eric) never hits or taps into his raw power, he’s got game-breaking speed. However, injuries have limited Veen to just 111 games over the past two seasons, and he’s played just 21 games at Triple-A. He’ll need time no matter what.

Sam Hilliard spent most of his time in the minors last season, but he hit both there and in Colorado. He looks like he’s got a good chance to be the team’s fourth outfielder. Sean Bouchard might have won the right field job last season if not for a strained oblique. Hunter Goodman looks set to be the team’s utility player. Greg Jones could provide above-average defense at some point. Kris Bryant is under contract for three more seasons.

If you added up the Steamer600 projections for all eight of these players – that is, if you gave each of them an entire season in right field and then added up their total projected value – it would equal exactly 2.0 WAR, one league-average right fielder.