How I Voted for the 2025 Fielding Bible Awards: Outfield, Pitchers, and More

Yesterday, I published the first half of my votes for this year’s Fielding Bible awards, which will be released at 2 PM ET today. This morning, I’m going to cover my ballots for the three outfield positions, as well as the pitchers, multi-positional defenders, defensive player of the year, and defensive team of the year.

If you’re curious about the methodology I used to help guide my voting, you can read about it in yesterday’s article, but here’s a bite-sized refresher: I used a weighted blend of DRS, FRV, and DRP (the three flagship public defensive metrics), with the weights based on how well each metric did on reliability and consistency. I created different weights for catcher, first base, the non-first-base infield positions, and the outfield. That gave me an initial rough order. From there, I used my own expertise, both in terms of deeper statistical dives on individual players and the copious amounts of baseball I watched this year, to assemble my final rankings. I deferred to advanced defensive metrics when the gaps were big, but for close calls, I leaned heavily on my own judgment.

That’s the kind of explanation that I have to put in front of any article outlining my ballot; if you don’t know what I’m looking for, my votes wouldn’t make as much sense. With that out of the way, we can get to the good stuff: the actual players who played the defense I’m writing about. So let’s get right to my last seven ballots — it’s a voluminous set of awards!

Left Field
1. Steven Kwan
2. Cody Bellinger
3. Wyatt Langford
4. Tyler Soderstrom
5. Ian Happ

Kwan was awesome in left this season. Actually, let’s try that again: Kwan is always awesome in left. I’m not sure if I buy DRS’ claim that he was 22 (!) runs above average out there, but my disagreement is one of magnitude, not direction. His 12 FRV is actually the most for any left fielder since Statcast started up in 2015. These recaps are going to get plenty repetitive, but guess what? Kwan does everything well. He has some of the best routes in the game, and his defensive instincts are impeccable; those two combine to make his average foot speed play way up. The real highlight here, though, is his spectacular arm. He throws hard and isn’t afraid to unleash the thunder, which is how you can lead the league in assists even though every opponent’s advance scouting report includes “Don’t get got by Kwan” in bold. He holds runners with dekes. He hits the cutoff man. He made eight throwing errors this season, but that’s the kind of aggression I’m looking for in my outfielders, honestly; outs are much more good than base advancements are bad, and Kwan’s defensive numbers show it.

Bellinger might feel like a weird choice for second, given that he only played around 500 innings in left, but fielders only qualify for this award at the position they played most, and he was so good defensively this year that I felt I had to vote for him. On a rate basis, he was nearly Kwan’s equal, believe it or not, with DRP particularly loving his efforts. Langford, too, was somewhat less than full-time in left, because he played 45 games in center. I have him about even with Bellinger; he’s really good, and has the tools to continue improving after coming into the league as a poor fielder.

I’ll admit that I did not expect Soderstrom to excel in left; he’s a converted catcher/first baseman who just didn’t have anywhere else to stand as the A’s kept finding more bat-only options. But he was great! I watch a good number of A’s games, and Soderstrom unquestionably passes the eye test to me. It wasn’t always pretty out there in the first month of the year, but he looked better with each passing week, and all three defensive systems agree that he was above average. By the second half of the year, he looked comfortable, and his arm is eventually going to be a big strength – as a former catcher, he obviously has a cannon, he just hasn’t turned it into in-game value yet.

Happ played a full year and DRP really loved his defense, while FRV was skeptical and DRS was somewhere in between. That broad spectrum of opinions matches mine; I’ve never been convinced that he’s an elite defender, but the competition in left just isn’t that great, and he won a many-way tiebreak for that last spot. I also considered voting for Jarren Duran (great DRS, poor FRV), Isaac Collins (DRS hated him), and Brandon Nimmo, but quite frankly, the bottom of this position is a bit of a weak crop, as is often the case in the outfield corners.

Center Field
1. Ceddanne Rafaela
2. Pete Crow-Armstrong
3. Jacob Young
4. Julio Rodríguez
5. Victor Scott II

Rafaela is so fun to watch in center. He’s a speed demon who has absolutely no concept of “out of range.” I can’t remember anyone with such an elite first few steps, and luckily, we can even measure that now. Statcast measured Rafaela as covering 5.3 more feet than average in his “jump,” the first three seconds after bat hits ball. That’s the best mark ever recorded (back to 2016), and by an outlier amount. Rafaela’s defense is probably underrated, in fact, because he’s so good at closing distance that he’s often decelerating by the time he gets to the ball, so pure and instant are his reactions. Oh yeah, he also has a massive throwing arm and loves showing it off. Rafaela’s 2025 outfield work was truly one of the great defensive seasons in recent memory. Just don’t ask about the 165 innings he played at second base if you don’t want to make me angry.

Crow-Armstrong would be a deserving winner of this award most years. He’s a lot like Rafaela, in fact; his 2025 placed third on the jump-feet-above-average leaderboard. He’s a faster straight-line runner than Rafaela, he takes courageous routes and isn’t afraid to dive, and he too has a huge arm that keeps runners planted to the bases after he makes the catch with his inevitable, globe-spanning range. That said, he racked up fewer runs saved in each of the three defensive metrics despite playing 200 more innings in center; Rafaela’s year was just that good. No shame in second here.

Young, Rodríguez, and Scott look like the clear choices for spots three through five, but I wouldn’t quibble with any ordering of them. I ended up putting Young at the top of the trio because he had similar numbers in meaningfully fewer innings, and then I gave Rodríguez the nod over Scott in a very close one because he limited baserunner advancement better, but I thought these three were clearly ahead of the rest of the pack as the second tier in a very good year for center field defense.

Right Field
1. Fernando Tatis Jr.
2. Wilyer Abreu
3. Corbin Carroll
4. Sal Frelick
5. Cam Smith

Tatis has turned into a sterling outfield defender since moving there three years ago. I’m not all that surprised, to be honest; he’s one of the best athletes in baseball, and his tools line up with the outfield perfectly. He’s fast, strong, and plays intuitively. When he came up as a shortstop, the things holding him back were consistency and his error rate, and those problems just haven’t followed him to the grass. He’s actually still below average when it comes to reaction time, hardly a surprise given that he’s down a decade or so of outfield instincts, but he’s so freakishly athletic that he makes up for that slow first step with an otherworldly burst of speed, making him above average in the first three seconds anyway. He takes great routes and commits almost no errors. Runners barely even try to take the extra base against him, and for good reason; he has a bazooka for a right arm and also made only a single throwing error this year. You can pencil him in for defensive award consideration for the next half decade at the very least.

Abreu won this award last year and put up another spectacular season, albeit in limited innings due to injury. If he’d played a full year in Fenway’s spacious right field, I bet he’d be right there with Tatis, but instead I think he’s a deserving second. Carroll didn’t qualify for the award last year (he played more innings in center), but he would have gotten my second place vote then, and I penciled him in third this time for his continued great play, with the only blemish being a poor throwing arm that keeps him below the very best options here. Frelick was a clear fourth to me; he’s excellent and could absolutely win in the future, he just didn’t have as good of a season as that top trio. I spent a while on fifth place, with six players in a virtual tie in my initial rankings, but I settled on Smith because he took up right field for the first time this year and appears to be rapidly improving at it.

Pitcher
1. Max Fried
2. Matthew Boyd
3. Logan Webb
4. José Soriano
5. Luis Severino

Pitcher defense is hard to quantify and also less important than every other defensive spot on the field, so I relied pretty heavily on the ability to control the run game in these rankings, which explains why two lefties took the top spots. Fried also graded out well by DRS, and he looks very athletic and comfortable fielding his position. He has three Gold Gloves, and I bet he’ll collect another this year. Boyd isn’t quite as nifty on the mound, but you can’t run on him, and it’s not like he’s asked to make a ton of defensive plays anyway.

Webb made a bunch of plays on grounders this year, and for the first time didn’t look like a liability when it comes to holding runners on. Soriano did a little bit of everything. Severino is a legitimately good fielder who happens to be a pitcher. Truthfully, I feel a lot less confident about the order of these five than I do at the other spots because there’s just less defense to measure, but all five of these pitchers meaningfully helped their own cause with their fielding prowess in 2025.

Multi-Position Defender
1. Ernie Clement
2. Mauricio Dubón
3. Javier Báez
4. Daniel Schneemann
5. José Caballero

The ballot for this award doesn’t exactly define what it means. Per SIS, “eligible players include those who exhibit a high degree of positional versatility and value; players who usually play many positions over the course of the season, might move from position to position within a game, and have demonstrated the ability to handle high leverage positions.” I interpret that to mean that true multi-position defenders, rather than outfielders who start the year in one spot and later move to another, are the most deserving of the award, all else equal. This year, there was a bumper crop of good multi-position options, but one stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Clement played all four infield positions this year, and he was spectacular at both second and third. I considered voting for him at third, the position where he qualified, despite the tiny amount of playing time there. He was even better at second and held his own at shortstop, and honestly just being able to stand at first is most of what the Jays needed from him (he didn’t play enough innings for me to put any stock in what the numbers say). He handled multiple positions in about a quarter of his starts, and occasionally handled three positions in the same game. To give you an idea of how the Jays used him, in eight of his last 10 regular season games, with the division on the line, he played multiple positions. By playing standout defense at multiple spots, he helped the Jays put together cohesive rosters even while swapping many players in and out. This is exactly what I picture when I think of a multi-position standout.

Dubón, who I voted for last year in this category, played every position other than pitcher and catcher at one point or another. He’s pretty good everywhere without any obvious best position, and like Clement, he frequently switched spots mid-game. I’m particularly fond of the games where he played shortstop and center, or second base and left field, or pinch-hit, then played first, then played second. I could imagine voting for Dubón over Clement even though I’m confident that he isn’t as good of a defender relative to the league at the positions he plays. Still, he’s a very good defender himself and has more positions in his bag. In the end, I went with the better defender who satisfied my criteria for being “multi-position,” but I definitely don’t think that’s the only possible right answer.

The American League had a lot of these guys this year. Báez didn’t switch spots during the game as much as the two guys I put ahead of him, but he started the year at third base, transitioned to center field full-time, then transitioned back to shortstop full-time, then back to center, then to a roving middle infield role. He was surprisingly good in center, and still looked the part in the infield, with roughly average advanced metrics at each spot. Schneemann played all around the diamond and made Cleveland’s roster configuration work much better. He filled in for José Ramírez whenever Ramírez got a day at DH, made spot starts across the outfield, played an extensive amount of second base, and posted strong numbers at every stop. I find it hilarious that the Guardians, the team that tries to assemble the entire roster out of shortstop prospects every year, gave Schneemann 54 innings at the toughest defensive position, but he was even good there! Finally, Caballero made a ton of awkward Yankees lineups work by flying around the diamond. He’s probably good enough to handle one spot full-time, but why limit yourself to that when he’s capable of so much more? All five of these players exemplified the kind of multi-position option I think this award is made for, so I gave them the nod over some very capable outfielders who switched positions from time to time, Bellinger foremost among them.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Patrick Bailey
2. Ceddanne Rafaela
3. Ernie Clement

I put Bailey first last year too, and I think his case is stronger this time around. He was the best defensive catcher in baseball by a mile, and catcher is the most important defensive position on the diamond. My initial rankings turn everyone’s performance into a z-score; Bailey has the highest score of any player at any position by far, and also the largest gap between first and second place at the position. He was already the best defensive catcher in baseball, and then he maintained his strong receiving and throwing skills while markedly improving his blocking. For me, he’s the best defensive player in the game by a meaningful amount.

Rafaela’s standout season would get my vote for defensive player of the year a lot of the time; it’s not his fault that Bailey was so remarkable. But when I’m looking back on 2025 years in the future, Rafaela’s defense will be one of the first things I think of (after Cal Raleigh hitting 60 and Shohei Ohtani going off in the playoffs). Seeing a white-and-red blur motor onto the screen, catch the ball on an easy lope, and then unleash a frozen rope from an impossible throwing position just never gets old, and he was turning out a web gem seemingly every night for a while there. I don’t hold his cameo in the infield against him, even though he didn’t grade out well there; that’s a team composition issue, not a Rafaela issue.

Finally, I picked Clement over a field of deserving contenders for third place because I judged that his combination of incredibly high defensive value at many positions was the most helpful to his team relative to Crow-Armstrong, Tatis, Bobby Witt Jr., Kwan, Alejandro Kirk, and Ke’Bryan Hayes, to flesh out the other names I considered for this last spot. He’s the member of this trio I watched the least (though I still watched him quite a lot, for the record), but I did enough tape review to feel quite confident that he’s an infield wizard, and his versatility absolutely deserves bonus points. How I feel about the shape of a player’s contribution to his team isn’t the main way I voted, but for this close race, it was a good tiebreaker.

Defensive Team of the Year
1. Toronto Blue Jays
2. Milwaukee Brewers
3. Chicago Cubs

This is a new award for 2025, and its inaugural edition features a fun batch of teams up top. I considered my weighted defensive metrics aggregated up to the team level, and to be frank, I also considered vibes, namely which teams I thought displayed a broad and consistent level of elite defense. I cared a lot about the total number of plus defenders; I value teams where a lot of guys are contributing more than ones like say, the Giants, with a few mega-standouts and then a bunch of laggards.

The Jays featured Clement, Kirk, Andrés Giménez, and great cameos from Myles Straw, Daulton Varsho, and Tyler Heineman, a solid defensive backup catcher. Ty France looked good in limited innings at first, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was alright there too. Nathan Lukes played well at all three outfield spots. On any given night, you might not know who was going to stand where, but it was a good bet that the defense would be smothering. The Jays would have been runaway favorites if it weren’t for Bo Bichette, who had a poor defensive season at shortstop amid knee issues. In the end, I judged that the breadth and depth of the Blue Jays’ defensive weapons, from their catcher to a Swiss Army infielder to a bunch of fast outfielders playing part-time, made them the defensive team of the year.

The Brewers weren’t far behind. Their build-the-team-around-speed-and-defense plan has been covered extensively by now, so I’ll merely say that it sure seems to keep working. Even without any spectacular individual efforts, the Brewers routinely rolled out lineups that looked like a track meet in the outfield and an Ozzie Smith field-alike contest on the infield. They have two shortstops, though one of them (Brice Turang) plays second. Heck, they got some good defensive work at first base out of Rhys Hoskins. In the end, I thought that they just didn’t have enough juice to place them ahead of Toronto. If you had to point to one position that tilted the equation, it’d be catcher, where William Contreras looked roughly average behind the dish while Kirk is headed for a Gold Glove. This was close, though; I thought the Jays and Brewers were the clear defensive teams of the year before I sat down to vote on these awards, and I still feel that way after a deeper dive.

The Cubs have a number of elite defenders, with Crow-Armstrong and Nico Hoerner most prominent among them; they could easily be the team that takes home the most individual Fielding Bible awards this winter. I didn’t think their overall defense measured up, though, because they didn’t have enough standouts. Carson Kelly was so-so behind the plate. Dansby Swanson lost a step. Kyle Tucker’s injury weighed on him. They’re a great overall defensive team, but not one of the best two in my eyes. Shout out, too, to the Dodgers and Rangers, who had pretty good seasons that nonetheless didn’t quite measure up.