He can have high impact as an offensive player, and the Red Sox loved how he melded into their clubhouse culture last season. Youll see stats such asWAR,OAA,fWAR,DRS, etc. +8 Brett Gardner, Yankees Let's dive into the top 25 outfielders of the 2022 season. After injuries limited him to just 78 games in his first season with the Blue Jays, Springer bounced back with a 131 OPS+ in 133 games while earning his fourth career All-Star selection. attempt. +10 Peter Bourjos, Phillies (now with Rays) 99: 2. After the 2021 All-Star break, he hit .348 with 18 homers and a 1.164 OPS, including a Barry Bonds-esque .525 on-base percentage. The reigning AL Rookie of the Year heading into the 2022 season, Arozarena enjoyed his second straight 20/20 season, hitting .263/.327/.445 for a 124 OPS+ with 41 doubles, 20 home runs, 89 RBI and 32 steals. Our annual All-Defense team is nearly certain to contain two things: future Gold Glove winners and Braves outfielder Cristian Pache. These gloves have webbing and padding, making it easy to catch the balls without injuring your hand. xERA is a simple 1:1 translation of xwOBA, converted to Become a Stathead & surf this site ad-free. The Cardinals seem to regularly find an unheralded rookie who emerges as a key contributor, and in 2022 it was Donovan who started the year as the team's No. But the list of elite right fielders only starts with those two. velocity and launch angle. Watch more top videos, highlights, and B/R original content, Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images, Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The next-closest catcher was the Rangers' Jonah Heim at +12 framing runs. Robert, 24, missed more than three months after tearing his right hip flexor, but he put up a .338 average with 13 homers and six steals in 68 games, while cutting his strikeout rate from 32.2% as a rookie to 20.6%. If that isn't enough, he's also been one of the most consistent batters in the Marlins' lineup this season. The best defensive midfielders in the world are always alert and disciplined. time of a pitcher's first movement or pitch release. He logged a 104 OPS+ with 52 extra-base hits, 34 steals and 3.8 WAR in 156 games, and he still has three seasons of club control remaining for an Orioles team on the rise. Whether you opt to go that route or decide to wait to fill out your outfield corps, this tier-by-tier breakdown can help. The kid on the cover of Sports Illustrated has somehow lived up to the massive pressure bestowed upon him, resulting now in two MVPs, Rookie of the Year, and six All-Star appearances, and hes only 29 years old. The most important aspect of outfield defense is reaction time. Mays and Aaron were both born and raised in Alabama, Mays just 2 years older. But with the Rays' best defensive alignment being Arozarena in left, Kevin Kiermaier in center field, . Who, in 2016, did the best at hauling in the balls they needed to?Left field He could be vying with Trout at the top of this list next year. He reached the 35-homer mark for the fifth time in his career last season, with 19 of them coming after the start of August. 1 at 1B? The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Yelich's rate of hard-hit balls was 49.1% in 2019. At his best, he is a dynamic force. If it were an easy play that drops only 3 percent of the time, he'd get merely a +0.03 for it. He hit .320 with a .387 on-base percentage in 93 games with the Royals before he was traded to the Yankees at the deadline, and while he battled injury down the stretch, his combination of contact ability and defense still made him a 3.2-WAR player in 2022. We put a lot of focus on the bat and how we think theyll perform in 2022. The 29-year-old posted a 113 OPS+ with 66 extra-base hits, 101 RBI and 25 steals, while making modest improvements to his walk rate (5.1 to 6.1 percent) and strikeout rate (31.2 to 27.9 percent) in a 3.5-WAR campaign. While offensive stat lines have been highlighted more often and offensive players are given more plaudits, you cannot underestimate the value of defense. Find out more. His 6.4 WAR marked the sixth time in nine MLB seasons that he's been a 6-WAR player, and he finished fifth in NL MVP voting, one spot behind teammate Freddie Freeman. But passing on the talent at the top isn't an easy call. The 25-year-old hit .306/.406/.613 for a gaudy 187 OPS+ that trailed only Aaron Judge among all players, tallying 29 doubles, 37 home runs, 97 RBI and 95 runs scored in 135 games for a 6.8-WAR season. (Remember that these numbers are specifically relative to each position, so while Betts' +22 is the highest number you see here, the bar is lower in right than it is in center, so when compared to all outfielders, Inciarte (+25) and Hamilton (+24) just barely edge him out.) It is all thanks to stable pitching, batting, and defense. 6)2B: Michael Massey, Royals (No. . Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. How far, in feet, a fielder or runner has traveled on a 27. The only issue with Betts is he did drop a bit last year offensively due to a hip injury, and he doesnt look all the way healthy yet. The two-time All-Star has the second-best OPS of his career (.865) through 112 games. Acuna Jr. has hit since the day he stepped foot in the big leagues as a 20-year-old. 5)The best defensive outfielder in the 2020 Draft, Crow-Armstrong went 19th overall to the Mets and moved to the Cubs last summer in a trade for Javier Bez and Trevor Williams. Also where Cody Bellinger, George Springer, Bryon Buxton, and more rank . 98: 4. Joc Pederson, San Francisco Giants. The latter stat measures the number of runs an outfielder prevents and keeps the baserunners from advancing extra bases. C. 1B. Had he been healthy last season, when the Diamondbacks demonstrated they were very willing to weigh trades of their best players, it would have been interesting to see what kind of offers Marte would have received. The best defender will naturally react to the ball off the bat, making the correct movement and using the correct . The combination of a delayed callup in 2019, the shortened campaign in 2020 and a ruptured left pectoral tendon in 2021 has limited Jimnez to 232 career games over three seasons, but he remains a potential 40-homer bat. Williams and DiMaggio were sons of California, southern and northern, respectively. Hes really that talented. 0.1 SB att/Team Game (baserunners only since 1951), and Right field: Max Kepler, Twins+11 Outs Above Average. 0.67 Gm and Chances/Team Game (fielding), 6)OF: Michael Siani, Reds (No. When we combine left field, right field, and center, we get an incredibly hard list to rank. Our annual All-Defense team is nearly certain to contain two things: future Gold Glove winners and Braves outfielder Cristian Pache. His +27 OAA was No. Two years after winning NL MVP, Cody Bellinger was one of the the worst hitters in baseball. Third base: Ke'Bryan Hayes, Pirates+18 Outs Above Average. Country: Croatia. For batting rate stats, generally a minimum of His second-base eligibility (he started five games there in 2021) is a bonus. His emergence has been crucial for the Astros in weathering the departure of George Springer (and, moving forward, the likely exit of Carlos Correa). Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies. Read more about how Outs Above Average (OAA) works here. 25. outfield. But what if we only used Statcast's fielder tracking data to decide the best defenders in baseball? Just as Cleveland faced a seemingly perpetual quandary about when to trade Francisco Lindor, the Pirates will have to decide if and when the time is right to flip Reynolds for younger trade assets. 17)Schmitt was one of the better relief prospects in the 2020 Draft, in which the Giants grabbed him in the second round out of San Diego State, showcasing a fastball that reached 96 mph and a mid-80s splitter that was devastating at its best. 5. Would anyone be surprised to see him reclaim the No. Expected Weighted On-base Average (xwOBA). It'd be like Superman vs. Batman: The Yankees, chasing Soto as they move into the last years of Giancarlo Stanton's contract and as Aaron Judge edges into his mid-30s, frothing at the possible addition of a left-handed-hitting superstar for Yankee Stadium against the Mets, fronted by the richest owner in baseball, Steve Cohen, who, in three years, may or may not have reached his goal of winning a championship. Jump is a Statcast metric that shows which players have +5 Michael Conforto, Mets. Hell play a lot of right field this season as well, and already has a couple of sparkling plays over there. For LF, CF, RF fielding stats, we Andrew Benintendi, Kansas City Royals. Bryan Reynolds is our first honorable mention. He has a 135 wRC+ since 2019, the same as Xander Bogaerts. Escape Velocity takes the average of a player's batted ball velocities subtracted from 88. finished 19th in FanGraphs' baserunning metric, the unusual plate discipline that now distinguishes him, FAQ: Everything you need to know about MLB's lockout , Author of "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty". Evaluates a catcher's pitch framing ability using pitch location, catcher target location, batter handedness, and ball/strike count to determine the number of extra strike calls gained or lost. All types of analysis went into these rankings. Now it's time to finalize those rankings while expanding the list to the 25 best at each position. Are PSG better off without Neymar in big games? Judge is an above-average defender in either corner and is capable of holding his own in centerfield. Your login session has expired. "How come Kiermaier isn't higher?" The 20 Best Defensive Outfielders in Recent MLB History. Hes frankly unbelievable, but the problem is his availability. He is one of the key reasons behind San Diego's strong start to its MLB campaign. Top 10 at each outfield spot: It's still Trout in center, but who leads in right -- baseball's most stacked position? Though Tommy Edman would deserve a Statcast award here, he's going in as a utility player. There are also some useful multi-position players in this group, including Taylor (2B, 3B, SS, OF) and Varsho (C, OF). Second teamOur second team includes two more Top 100 Prospects: Braves catcher Shea Langeliers and D-backs outfielder Corbin Carroll. He was especially good at plays going to his left, with half of his OAA coming from those. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. requirements, Every Sports Reference Social Media Account, Site Last Updated: Wednesday, March 1, 1:07PM. Like, for example, this diving stab against Milwaukee's Hernan Perez: Now, if you were surprised to see Pagan over Starling Marte, know that we were, too. 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