The 2026 Replacement-Level Killers: Right Field

In years past, I’ve generally addressed the teams receiving less-than-acceptable production in one corner outfield spot or the other within the same post, but this year’s batch of right fielders is disproportionately large, mandating a separate entry that led me to combine the left and center field lists instead. There’s still some crossover between most teams’ pools of right fielders and the positions I covered in the previous post, with a couple teams from this group landing on both lists. As they look to upgrade, there’s some fluidity as well, with teams willing to test the defensive limitations of their outfielders in order to shoehorn better bats into the lineup.

While still focusing on clubs that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I’ve also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included the club here because its performance is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly within the context of the rest of a team’s roster. As always, I don’t expect every team here to go out and track down upgrades before the August 3 trade deadline, but these are ones to keep an eye on.

Tigers

Despite his struggles with lefties and wobbly defense that have pushed him into a fair bit of DH duty, Kerry Carpenter has been a useful player, averaging about two wins per year for the Tigers from 2023–25 despite missing about 2 1/2 months in 2024 due to lumbar spine inflammation. This year, his offense is down; he’s hitting .222/.297/.458 for a career-low 107 wRC+ while making 38 starts in right, 16 at DH, and three in left. Worse, in just 296 1/3 innings in right and another 25 in left, he’s been dreadful defensively (-5 DRS, -7 FRV), knocking him down to -0.1 WAR. Wenceel Pérez, who’s made 32 starts in right and 10 in center, has struggled to an even greater degree, hitting .180/.246/.348 (63 wRC+), and now, he’s on the 60-day injured list due to a freak training accident. He suffered a fractured left orbital bone on June 16 when a resistance band struck him in the face during a workout, requiring surgery. The other Tigers who have been stationed in right, most notably Matt Vierling and Zach McKinstry, haven’t been much help either.

With center fielders Parker Meadows and Javier Báez also on the 60-day IL with no clear timelines to return, the Tigers are stretched particularly thin in the outfield. At 44-52, they look more like sellers than buyers, particularly given the pending free agency of Tarik Skubal, the upcoming deadline’s top trade candidate. They still have a couple of weeks to figure out which way to go; if they plan to hold Skubal, they definitely need help here — and in center field as well. The Angels’ Jo Adell or the Rockies’ Mickey Moniak — both defensively challenged, with the latter likely to take a drop in production outside of Coors Field — might still provide enough of an upgrade to be worth pursuing.

Marlins

Owen Caissie has done the lion’s share of the work in right field for the upstart Marlins, with 62 starts here plus another eight at designated hitter, but the 24-year-old rookie has showed some growing pains. He’s hit .239/.297/.459 (101 wRC+) with a 39% strikeout rate, the highest of any player in either league with at least 200 plate appearances. To be fair, his offense is trending upwards; after posting a 58 wRC+ in April, he’s put up a 129 wRC+ since the start of May. Still, on the defensive side, he’s been awful, with the majors’ lowest FRV for the position (-9), as well as the third-lowest DRS (-7), knocking his value down to -0.2 WAR. He landed on the injured list on July 10 due to a mild right calf strain and is expected to miss two to four weeks.

The Marlins have used six other right fielders, with Esteury Ruiz, Griffin Conine and Javier Sanoja filling in since Caissie has been sidelined. None of the six has produced a wRC+ higher than 83 while playing right field, or received more than 48 plate appearances in that capacity; Kyle Stowers, a 2025 All-Star, has gone 4-for-44 in his brief time in right, dragging the team’s numbers down. Given that Caissie has at least found his footing on the offensive side, I’d expect the Marlins to patch things together here until he returns; their bigger need is at third base.

Twins

Matt Wallner clubbed 22 homers in jus 104 games last year, but he began the season in a deep funk, hitting .167/.259/.292 (56 wRC+) with a 39.3% strikeout rate before being optioned to Triple-A St. Paul in mid-May. Since then, the team has cycled Austin Martin, Kody Clemens, and Luke Keaschall through the spot with little sustained success. Martin has made a team-high 35 starts in right, but has produced just a 50 wRC+ in his time there; overall, he’s hit an extremely thin .249/.360/.328 (101 wRC+). Clemens has made 13 starts in right but has lately become the regular second baseman, displacing Keaschall, whose defense at the keystone was so bad that the Twins have had him learning first base and right field.

The 23-year-old Keachall — who placed 56th on our Top 100 Prospects list as a 50-FV prospect in the spring of 2025 — has hit .258/.346/.350 (101 wRC+) while combining for -9 DRS and -5 FRV in 757 1/3 defensive innings, including -2 DRS and 0 FRV in 81 innings in right. With Byron Buxton landing on the IL due to a hip injury last week, the Twins even tested Keaschall in center in the five games before the All-Star break, using Alan Roden in right. Roden, a former 45-FV prospect who was acquired from the Blue Jays last July 31 in the Louis Varland trade, capped his season debut on July 8 with a walk-off RBI single against the Guardians.

With players such as Ryan Jeffers (a pending free agent) and Joe Ryan (who has a mutual option that he’ll likely decline, but still one more year of club control) widely coveted by contending teams, the Twins have been viewed as likely deadline sellers rather than contenders, but at 48-49, they’re tied for the third AL Wild Card spot, with 35.2% Playoff Odds. Either way, they figure to continue giving younger players like Keaschall and Roden looks in right field. The 28-year-old Wallner, who has hit .266/.355/.560 (128 wRC+) with a 26.1% strikeout rate at St. Paul, could be a change-of-scenery candidate for another team.

Padres

Last season, Fernando Tatis Jr. made his third All-Star won his second Platinum Glove, but this year has been another story. Tinkering with his swing — mainly by attempting to close up one of the majors’ most open stances — limited his pull-side power to such an extent that he didn’t hit his first home run until May 30, just after re-opening his stance. Through the end of May, he hit a slaptastic .266/.340/.318 (90 wRC+), with a groundball rate of 53.3% and an average launch angle of 1.6 degrees offsetting his 9.6% barrel rate and 51.2% hard-hit rate. Since the start of June, he’s improved to .291/.339/.449 (119 wRC+), dropping his groundball rate to 48.8% and raising his average launch angle to 8.4 degrees, with a 12% barrel rate, a 54.4% hard-hit rate, and four additional homers. That’s more like it.

The whereabouts of Tatis’ feet on the other side of the ball have also contributed to the Padres’ presence here. After spotting at second base in April and early May, Tatis took over the position while Jake Cronenworth was sidelined by concussion-related symptoms for about six weeks, from mid-May to late June. In all, he’s made 39 starts there and 54 in right field, with Nick Castellanos — who made four straight Killers lists as the Phillies’ right fielder before being released in February with one year and $20 million remaining on his five-year contract — making 18 starts in right. Castellanos, who also spotted in left field, first base, and at DH, hit just .191/.221/.339 (50 wRC+) overall in 122 plate appearances before being DFA’d and then released in early June. Also out of the picture is Ramón Laureano, who made five starts in right during Tatis’ stretch at second base but is done for the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn hip labrum. Tatis has made 17 of his last 20 starts in right; so long as he maintains a ratio along those lines and continues to hit like he has since readjusting his stance, the Padres should be fine here. For what it’s worth, his rest-of-season projection for 1.7 WAR is the highest of any right fielder save for Corbin Carroll.

Phillies

Not only is this the fifth year in a row Phillies right fielders have landed here (the first four because of Castellanos, as noted above), this is the fifth position I’ve addressed within this year’s lineup. Somehow, the Phillies are nonetheless 54-44, with the league’s fourth-best record. In advance of cutting ties with Castellanos, the team signed Adolis García, who had been non-tendered by the Rangers after an 83-wRC+, 0.7-WAR season but who at least offered the promise of a defensive upgrade given his 2023 Gold Glove. Unfortunately, while García did indeed provide a defensive upgrade on the perennially bad Castellanos (-1 DRS, 5 FRV), he hit just .195/.270/.329 (64 wRC+) before suffering a lat strain severe enough to require season-ending surgery in late June. Since then, most of the playing time has gone to Gabriel Rincones Jr., a lefty-swinging 25-year-old who placed eighth on the team’s preseason Top 34 Prospects list as a 45-FV prospect with massive raw power but potential contact issues. Left knee soreness delayed Rincones’ 2026 debut until May 5 at A-level Clearwater, and he didn’t return to Triple-A Lehigh, where he spent last season, until three weeks later. He’s struggled mightily thus far at the major league level, hitting .179/.211/.313 (38 wRC+) with a 26.8% strikeout rate and just a 2.8% walk rate in 71 plate appearances. Even those numbers are ahead of his .157 xBA and .279 xSLG.

The Phillies have also used Brandon Marsh and Derek Hill a bit in right. Marsh, of course, is the team’s starting left fielder while Hill is a righty-swinging reserve acquired from the White Sox in June, a 30-year-old former first-round pick by the Tigers in 2014 who is now playing for his seventh team and profiles best as the short half of a platoon. Generally complementing lefty-swinging rookie center fielder Justin Crawford, Hill has been on fire since arriving, and including his slow start on the South Side, has hit .258/.310/.439 (106 wRC+) in 145 plate appearances, albeit with a beefy 35.9% strikeout rate. He’s played very good defense, too, combining for 6 DRS and 2 FRV in 328 1/3 innings spread across the three outfield spots.

With J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner also making the Killers lists — and Marsh as well, but only because of the team’s struggles in left field when he’s spotted in center or right — right field should be a comparatively easy spot for the Phillies to upgrade. With this aging team in win-now mode, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has every reason to be aggressive as the deadline approaches. The Reds’ JJ Bleday would fit into a platoon with Hill, but he won’t come cheap considering he has a couple of additional years of club control. Righty-swinging Spencer Steer, who can fill in at a number of positions — perhaps even covering first while Bryce Harper returns to right field – is another option, while the Rockies’ Jake McCarthy, also a lefty, would provide that rarest commodity on a Phillies roster: good defense.

White Sox

Over the course of the first two and a half months of the season, the White Sox went stretches where they tried Everson Pereira, Jarred Kelenic, and Rikuu Nishida as their primary right fielder, with the since-traded Hill in the mix as well. None of them really clicked in the spot. On June 9, the day I wrote about their impressive turnaround from their record-setting 121 losses in 2024, the South Siders called up Braden Montgomery, a 23-year-old 50-FV prospect who placed 100th on our Top 100 Prospects list in the spring. Montgomery capped his two-hit effort that night against the Braves by becoming the fifth player in major league history to hit a walk-off home run in his debut, doing so with a two-run shot off Raisel Iglesias — who hadn’t allowed a homer since last July 19 — then laced two doubles the next night.

Alas, things haven’t gone quite so well for him since that auspicious arrival. Montgomery is hitting just .231/.302/.394 (94 wRC+) with three homers in 116 plate appearances, with a 57.5% groundball rate. Still, that wRC+ is 18 points higher than the team’s overall mark from the spot, and prospect hounds’ biggest concern about him — his tendency to swing and miss — hasn’t been a real problem thus far. His 86.2% zone contact rate is within half a percentage point of the major league average, and both his 29.7% chase rate and 20.7% strikeout rate are a couple points better than average. He has struggled a bit to start July, but unless this becomes a sustained slump, I’d expect him to get a longer look.

Brewers

Last year, Sal Frelick put together the best season of his young career, bopping 12 homers, stealing 19 bases, playing outstanding defense, and hitting .288/.351/.405 (114 wRC+) en route to 3.6 WAR. This year, he’s slipped to a dismal .236/.302/.331 (77 wRC+) with four homers, six steals, and average defense, and he’s a couple hairs below replacement level. Frelick doesn’t swing very hard, and while he squares the ball up as reliably as anyone — his rate is in the 96th percentile — he ends up hitting a lot of grounders and doesn’t always beat them out, even with exceptional speed. While his xBA has dropped only from .255 to .245, his BABIP has fallen from .317 to .251, turning him into a liability.

The Brewers have started Jake Bauers in right field nine times, generally against lefties. He’s in the midst of a breakout campaign, hitting .268/.373/.508 (142 wRC+) while platooning at first base with Andrew Vaughn. Part of the lefty-swinging Bauers’ big step forward has been a 122 wRC+ against lefties, so using him while sitting Frelick (who has produced just a 38 wRC+ against lefties) has become increasingly common, particularly with switch-hitter Blake Perkins — whose six starts in right field have all come against lefties — also struggling in that capacity.

Blue Jays

Given George Springer’s defensive decline and his penchant for injuries, the Blue Jays have kept him out of right field entirely this season. Instead, they’ve generally split the job between Nathan Lukes and Jesús Sánchez, a pair of lefties with a few things in common. Lukes has made 35 starts in right and Sánchez 33, and both have also logged substantial time in left field (23 starts for Sánchez, 10 for Lukes), where they’ve coincidentally been far more productive. Lukes has a 90 wRC+ in 145 plate appearances as a right fielder and a 161 wRC+ in 41 plate appearances as a left fielder; overall, he’s hitting a respectable .288/.343/.404 (112 wRC+). Sánchez has an 89 wRC+ in 120 plate appearances as a right fielder and a 156 wRC+ in 91 plate appearances as a left fielder, and overall is hitting .274/.316/.437 (107 wRC+). Alas, both have made trips to the injured list, with Lukes missing about a month due to a left hamstring strain starting in late April, and Sánchez landing on the IL in late June due to a right ankle sprain suffered while crashing into an outfield wall. The latter has yet to return, though he’s reportedly nearing a rehab assignment.

It’s those odd splits, some less productive contributions from the likes of Myles Straw and Addison Barger, and some brutal defensive metrics from Sánchez (-5 DRS, -6 FRV in just 273 2/3 innings in right) that have bumped the Blue Jays into Killers territory. Still, so long as both he and Lukes are available and hitting, I expect Toronto — which is 45-51, but just 2 1/2 games out of the third Wild Card spot — to go forward with them rather than making a big splash.

Orioles

Tyler O’Neill’s time in Baltimore has not gone well. Last season, the first of his three-year, $49.5 million deal, he played just 54 games while making three separate trips to the injured list for neck inflammation, a left shoulder impingement, and right wrist inflammation. Amid those miseries, he hit .199/.292/.392 (91 wRC+) with -0.3 WAR, bad enough to bypass his opt-out clause, though to be fair, his numbers were well behind his .243 xBA and a .523 xSLG. Then, in late April of this season, O’Neill fainted while dehydrated, banged his head, and suffered a concussion, sending him to the IL for the 18th time (!) in his career. Though he missed less than three weeks, his performance has taken another step back; he’s hitting .195/.291/.351 (84 wRC+), this time with just a .208 xBA and a .395 xSLG. His average swing is 3.1 mph slower than in 2024, when he hit .241/.336/.511 (133 wRC+) in 111 games for the Red Sox, and his barrel rate has dropped from 17.6% to 9.3% in that span. His defense in right has also been rough (-2 DRS, -3 FLV). Understandably, he’s been reduced to a part-time role, playing just 52 games, with 39 starts in right, and given his general history — not to mention the potential for lingering concussion issues that often go underreported — it’s fair to wonder if he needs more time to recover.

Three other Orioles have gotten substantial playing time in right field, namely Dylan Beavers (20 starts), Colton Cowser (18 starts), and Leody Taveras (14 starts); the last two have done the bulk of the less-than-stellar work that landed Baltimore on my center field list. Beavers, a lefty-swinging 24-year-old who placed 39th on our Top 100 Prospects list as a 50-FV prospect in the spring, hasn’t been much better, batting .233/.320/.349 (92 wRC+) while going just 4-for-25 with one walk against lefties. He missed six weeks from mid-May to late June due to an oblique strain, and has managed just a .279 xSLG since returning.

The Orioles are 46-51, just two games out of the third AL Wild Card spot but in heavy traffic. Given their issues in both center and right, I’d expect them to add an outfielder at one spot or another.