Who were the best of the best in 2007? Here are your right fielders, left fielders with good arms.
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A quick review of the stats presented: RAR is offensive runs above replacement, FAA is fielding runs compared to positional average, TVAR is total value (the important one), and wOBA is a rate stat measuring offensive performance on the OBP scale. For more complete explanations, check out the original article.
2007’s Top Ten Right Fielders
10 - Jeremy Hermida (28 RAR, 5 FAA, 30 TVAR, .373 wOBA)
This is why I love these articles. Off the top of their head, who would ever name Jeremy Hermida as a top ten right fielder? He’s the epitome of the type of player small-market teams should have in their system. He doesn’t do anything spectacularly, but he’s good and cheap. In a few years, let some other team overpay via trade or free agency.
9 - Shane Victorino 18 RAR, 15 FAA, 30 TVAR, .342 wOBA)
Speed doesn’t slump, even on defense. And defense wins championships. New cliche: don’t play the Rockies in September or October.
8 - Jayson Werth (22 RAR, 11 FAA, 31 TVAR, .378 wOBA)
How about that, a second Philadelphia right fielder in the top ten. Werth played about a quarter of his innings in left and only had slightly over 300 PAs on the season. But he hit the crap out of the ball and fielded like a mad man.
7 - Brad Hawpe (39 RAR, -3 FAA, 33 TVAR, .356 wOBA)
To be honest, I thought 2006 was a fluke. I was wrong. Hawpe is proof that skinny guys can hit for power, too.
6 - Austin Kearns (25 RAR, 14 FAA, 34 TVAR, .340 wOBA)
Walks and defense. Don’t forget about ‘em. Partnering with Ryan Church in left, Kearns gives the Nationals the best defensive corner outfield tandem.
5 - Jack Cust (43 RAR, -4 FAA, 36 TVAR, .397 wOBA)
This ranking isn’t quite fair to the rest of the right fielders. Yes, Cust played more games in the field than at designated hitter, but because I don’t have data on “defensive” innings played at DH, his positional adjustment thinks he’s purely a right fielder. We should probably chop five to seven runs off this rating.
4 - Corey Hart (39 RAR, 2 FAA, 39 TVAR, .371 wOBA)
Corey Hart is 6′6″ and weighs only 200 pounds. Just thought you’d like to know. There are thoughts of moving him to center field next year, but it doesn’t look like the defensive ability is quite there. Although, it would be fun to make Bill Hall change positions again.
3 - Alex Rios (43 RAR, 5 FAA, 44 TVAR, .359 wOBA)
Rios’ first half was awesome, culminating in a trip to the All-Star Homerun Derby. His second half? Pretty similar except for a drop in power. Offensively, 2007 was pretty similar to 2006 except that Rios played in 33 more games. Nothing wrong with being consistently good.
2 - Vlad Guerrero (75 RAR, -6 FAA, 64 TVAR, .376 wOBA)
Vlad’s homerun power continued to decline in 2007, although tying a career-high with 45 doubles kept his slugging percentage from dipping too much. We may have seen the last of Vlad the Impaler, however.
1 - Magglio Ordonez (86 RAR, 3 FAA, 84 TVAR, .430 wOBA)
In a dump trade at the end of 2006, I had the option of trading for either Rocco Baldelli or Ordonez in my big-time bragging rights fantasy league. I chose poorly. Nobody else broke the 80 RAR barrier in 2007 except Alex Rodriguez. A .363/.434/.595 line in 679 PAs? Yeah, that’ll work.
Here are the players who finished between 11th and 25th:
Player/TM RAR FAA TVAR wOBA Winn,RandySF 29 2 28 .343 Francoeur,JeffBATL 26 7 28 .335 Giles,BrianSD 27 5 28 .347 GriffeyJr.,KenCIN 41 -10 26 .354 Buck,TravisOAK 20 8 26 .367 Abreu,BobbyNYA 41 -11 25 .360 Ethier,AndreELAN 23 5 25 .325 Markakis,NickBAL 39 -9 24 .359 Scott,LukeBHOU 23 0 20 .357 Gutierrez,FrankRCLE 11 9 19 .332 Kemp,MattRLAN 21 -2 17 .383 Guillen,JoseSEA 36 -17 15 .356 Ankiel,RickSTL 13 1 14 .363 Teahen,MarkTKC 19 -2 12 .319 Drew,J.D.BOS 22 -7 12 .330
Whenever I see Randy Winn’s name, I always think of Quinton McCracken. Other than being Devil Rays in the late nineties, they have nothing in common. Winn’s actually an underrated asset. Two young Dodgers make the list — Andre Either and Matt Kemp. Remind me again why they’re looking to add an outfielder? Rick Ankiel did more to help the Cardinals in 47 games than JD Drew did to help the Red Sox in 140 games. Which one will have the better 2008 season?
Finally, how about the worst left fielders of 2007 — those that played poorly, yet enough to really hurt their teams? Here’s the bottom five:
Player/TM RAR FAA TVAR wOBA Rivera,JuanLAA -1 -2 -4 .298 Eldred,BradPIT -5 1 -5 .144 Mackowiak,RobSD -3 -1 -5 .247 Young,DelmonDTB 4 -10 -10 .310 Pena,WilyMoBOS -4 -9 -13 .283
I still can’t get over Delmon Young’s line. He didn’t hit and he didn’t field. He still has potential, but how long will he continue to play every day without showing improvement?
Links to entire series, as they’re published:
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Re: Hawpe’s comment
I thought Hank Aaron was the proof that skinny guys can hit HRs :)
November 12th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I went to a minor league baseball game in Syracuse in the Spring of 2002. There I saw one Jayson Werth playing first base for whatever team was playing the SkyChiefs. Seeing as I was with eleven drunk frat guys on a Saturday afternoon (and one underage sister acting as a DD), we soon got a chant going against this first baseman that was positioned a mere 10 rows in front of us. One half of us would stand up and yell “Werth” and then the other half would stand up and yell “Less.” Worth - Less. It was classic.
Why do I tell you this? Looks like we were very wrong about Mr. Werth and his ability to make a contribution. To his credit he started laughing as soon as he figured out what we were saying. Good times.
But seriously, the man is a beast! Why isn’t he starting everyday?
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:16 pm
anyone have some real experience on options?