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Who were the best of the best in 2007? Here are your center fielders, one of the most important and talented positions.

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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 Center Fielders

10 - Mike Cameron (28 RAR, 0 FAA, 35 TVAR, .344 wOBA)
Cameron’s been consistently underrated throughout his career, but he was merely league-average defensively this year. His offensive contribution was more than you’d guess from the raw numbers, however, thanks to P:TAC (PETCO: The Anti-Coors).

9 - BJ Upton 38 RAR, -6 FAA, 35 TVAR, .381 wOBA)
Tampa Bay finally found their long-term answer in center field and BJ Upton finally lived up to his offensive potential. Sure, he’s still not an asset with the glove, but he should continue to improve the more he plays out there.

8 - Hunter Pence (30 RAR, 2 FAA, 36 TVAR, .380 wOBA)
This is one I didn’t see coming. With all that went wrong for the 2007 Astros, Pence and Luke Scott gave fans hope for the future. Both were more valuable than Carlos Lee.

7 - Nick Swisher (41 RAR, -1 FAA, 38 TVAR, .357 wOBA)
Swisher actually split time between first base (28%), right field (33%), and center field (38%), which is why his positional adjustment is slightly negative instead of in the +5 zone.

6 - Torii Hunter (36 RAR, -3 FAA, 40 TVAR, .344 wOBA)
Here’s another guy who’s defensive value wasn’t as high as his reputation would suggest. Part of that might be due to a drawback of the fielding data available (see Grady Sizemore).

5 - Aaron Rowand (40 RAR, 3 FAA, 49 TVAR, .370 wOBA)
Rowand out-hit and out-fielded Torii Hunter in 2007 and is 2.5 years younger. Even with sub-par 2005 and 2006 seasons, Rowand’s 2004 and 2007 performances give him a better career line than Hunter (106 vs 104 OPS+). Yes, he’s been known to run into walls, but he’s also avoided any stupid little nagging injuries. For the price he’ll sign for, this guy’s my pick as best free agent center fielder during the off-season, even above Andruw Jones.

4 - Grady Sizemore (60 RAR, -3 FAA, 63 TVAR, .378 wOBA)
Some defensive metrics love Grady Sizemore and some hate him. One issue with these publicly available systems is they don’t account for batter handedness and can unfairly penalize a fielder for properly shifting on that basis. If only the good data didn’t cost an obscene amount of money to acquire…

3 - Carlos Beltran (51 RAR, 14 FAA, 70 TVAR, .372 wOBA)
Beltran deserves his own post at some point. Robbed of an MVP award last year, he was once again under-appreciated in 2007, even by Mets fans. 70 runs above replacement makes him one of the ten most valuable players across both leagues.

2 - Ichiro Suzuki (59 RAR, 13 FAA, 79 TVAR, .368 wOBA)
Now remind me, why wasn’t Ichiro playing center field the past few years? Jeremy Red and Randy Winn? Sure, he’s probably overrated offensively, but only because people think he’s Barry Bonds. Ichiro’s still really good with the bat, and is worth an additional twenty runs because of his defensive value.

1 - Curtis Granderson (65 RAR, 21 FAA, 92 TVAR, .394 wOBA)
Dave Cameron made a great point about Granderson in a BTF post: because he absolutely can’t hit lefties, he’s an easy out in high-leverage situations. That reduces his value on the order of maybe ten runs. Granderson’s so good that ten runs barely seems significant. Yes, 92 runs is good for second in the AL ahead of Magglio Ordonez.

Here are the players who finished between 11th and 25th:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Damon,JohnnyNYA		27	 6	34	.341
Jones,AndruwATL		12	14	33	.311
Byrd,MarlonTEX		22	 5	28	.337
DeJesus,DavidKC		23	-2	28	.314
McLouth,NatePIT		25	 0	27	.362
Young,ChrisBARI		15	 5	27	.319
Lofton,KennyTEX		24	-2	25	.356
Hamilton,JoshHCIN	24	-2	24	.375
Pierre,JuanLAN		10	 7	24	.310
Ross,CodyFLA		26	-6	21	.445
Crisp,CocoBOS		 7	 7	20	.307
Jones,JacqueCHN		 5	12	19	.304
MatthewsJr.,GaryLAA	22	-9	19	.321
Hopper,NorrisSCIN	 7	 8	16	.327
Cabrera,MelkyNYA	11	 0	16	.309

What do you get when you take a quality center fielder and put him in left? Answer: Johnny Damon’s +5 rating in only 30 defense games. Melky was 15 runs less valuable than Damon (without any consideration of throwing arm, however.) For all the crap Coco Crisp took from Boston fans and the media, he was a league-average player. The Cubs need to leave Jacque Jones in center and find him a platoon partner. Here’s my first too-early, too-crazy prediction for 2008: Chris Young will be the NL MVP.

Finally, how about the worst center 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
Nix,LaynceMIL		-3	-1	-4	.000
Kotsay,MarkOAK		-7	0	-5	.251
Lane,JasonHOU		-5	-2	-6	.259
Dukes,ElijahDTB		0	-9	-7	.306
Finley,SteveCOL		-7	-2	-8	.204

Remember how I said Luke Scott and Hunter Pence were bright spots for the Astros? Jason Lane was a black hole — and not in the good-fielding way. Mark Kotsay probably deserves a pass because of his injury, but Elijah Dukes pushed any chance of a big pay day back at least two years.

Links to entire series, as they’re published:
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