Final week, we acquired a mailbag query from a Jacob Younger fan named David. Truly, it was a multi-part query, and the third sub-question was significantly enjoyable: Are we now in an period of Peak Centerfield Protection? It looks as if each group has a centerfielder that may go get it.
My intestine response to this query was easy: Sure, we’re most likely in an period of peak middle subject protection. I think the sport has most likely been in that period as a rule ever since integration, and that peak has stored on rising. I saved David’s different sub-questions for this Saturday’s mailbag, however for this explicit one, I assumed it may be enjoyable to suppose it via and dig deeper than I may within the mailbag.
First, let me clarify my intestine response. Greater than some other place, middle subject rewards pure athleticism, and the athletes maintain getting higher. The participant pool retains increasing, and gamers (and people typically) maintain getting larger, stronger, and quicker. All of this implies the bar to make it to the majors in any respect is that a lot increased. I’ve bought baseball-specific causes, too. The league retains getting higher at positioning defenders the place the ball is extra more likely to go, permitting them to make much more of their superlative skills. And since we maintain getting higher at precisely measuring defensive contributions, we’re capable of acknowledge and reward defensive worth higher than ever.
After saying all that, although, I’ve to confess the apparent: There’s no approach to know the reply definitively. We have now treasured little Statcast information about Ty Cobb’s dash pace or Duke Snider’s response time. Up till this century, play-by-play information is all we’ve got to go on in evaluating defenders. Sean Smith analyzed that information to create a defensive metric known as Whole Zone, which is what informs the defensive grades on our leaderboards up till 2002, when extra superior defensive metrics like UZR, DRS, and FRV take over. At this time’s metrics are nowhere close to good, however take a second to cease and take into consideration how far we’ve come. Statcast can let you know precisely how a lot time each outfielder needed to attain each ball, how far they traveled, how briskly they ran, how environment friendly their route was, and the way shortly they reacted because the ball got here off the bat. That’s a great distance from extrapolating from play-by-play information.
I notice that David wasn’t essentially asking in regards to the total high quality of middle subject play, however whether or not we’re dwelling in a time once we’ve bought a very excessive variety of glorious defenders. It feels that method, proper? Consider all the middle fielders proper now whom you’d classify as extraordinarily good defenders. My listing would undoubtedly embrace Younger, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Denzel Clarke, Ceddanne Rafaela, Victor Scott II, and Jose Siri, and I wouldn’t argue with anyone who additionally included Byron Buxton, Julio Rodríguez, Jake Meyers, Kyle Isbel, Michael Harris II, Daulton Varsho, Harrison Bader, or Myles Straw. I’m undecided what’s occurred to Brenton Doyle, however earlier than the season we might have put him on this listing, as nicely. Rapidly, we’ve bought half the groups in baseball with an elite middle subject defender.
Now possibly it’s all the time felt that method. Simply to choose a date out of a hat, in case you return to 1999, you’ve bought defensive standouts like Andruw Jones, Mike Cameron, Carlos Beltrán, Steve Finley, Darren Lewis, and Kenny Lofton. When you return to the Nineteen Fifties, you’ve bought Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider all in the identical metropolis. For that cause, I made a decision to see what I may do with the numbers accessible to me.
Even when we will’t know the reply definitively, we will have some enjoyable with the info at our disposal. We have now all these completely different numbers – TZ, UZR, DRS, DRP, OAA, FRV – however none of them matches up completely. They’re all working off completely different information sources. They’re all utilizing completely different strategies based mostly on completely different philosophies. They’re taking a look at completely different eras with completely different types of play. They’re all grading on completely different curves, judging gamers in keeping with the league common of their explicit 12 months, which makes it very arduous to check gamers from completely different eras. It’s an excellent mess, nevertheless it signifies that we have to consider another methods to research issues.
Let’s begin by contemplating how middle fielders are incomes their taking part in time. When you’re not hitting nicely and also you’re not fielding nicely, you’re most likely not going to remain on the sector. When you’re doing one nicely, you will get away with doing a worse job on the different. Now check out how middle fielders have hit since 1900.
That graph goes nowhere however down, and it’s been on that trajectory because the starting. This season, the league has a mixed wRC+ of 92 at middle subject. If it holds, it might be the bottom mark ever recorded. Nevertheless, middle fielders aren’t worse gamers than ever. Right here’s a graph that reveals defensive run worth per 600 plate appearances. That is simply the Def column that you just see all the way in which on the best of our major leaderboard. Earlier than you take a look at it, let me warn you that I’m dishonest a little bit bit by displaying it to you.
Right here’s how I’m dishonest. Not everyone is taking part in middle subject on a regular basis. It simply reveals gamers whose main place is listed as middle subject. We stopped utilizing whole zone for these numbers in 2002, so the more moderen numbers are based mostly on a wholly completely different formulation. However the total development is about as unambiguous because it will get. For the primary half of baseball historical past, the numbers say that middle fielders weren’t essentially nice defenders, however that modified within the late Nineteen Fifties, then cemented itself within the late Nineteen Eighties.
The massive cause why that is dishonest, although, is as a result of these numbers embrace a positional adjustment. As you probably know in case you’ve made it this far, positional changes give extra credit score to more durable defensive spots and take credit score from simpler ones. When you take a look at middle subject defensive metrics for anyone 12 months, they need to be proper round zero as a rule. Nevertheless excessive the bar is, there might be good, common, and dangerous middle fielders, they usually’ll cancel one another out. This graph is saying that the bar has gotten increased over time, in comparison with different positions on the sector. That’s all of the extra obvious in case you take a look at the identical graph with the corners included.
This shouldn’t essentially be my persuasive argument. In any case, I didn’t crunch the numbers and resolve on the positional changes myself. I’m simply displaying you their impact on the way in which we worth outfielder protection. Nevertheless, whenever you view this alongside the reducing wRC+ of middle fielders, the conclusion is clear. Protection has by no means been a extra vital a part of the job, and the hole between protection in middle subject and the corners has by no means been increased.
Figuring out all this, what makes me say that this very second may very well be peak middle subject protection? For starters, gamers are simply plain quicker today – and I don’t simply imply quicker than they had been within the Nineteen Fifties. We have now 11 years of Statcast information monitoring each participant’s common dash pace. For every year, I calculated the dash pace of the typical middle fielder, prorating it by innings performed (and ignoring any participant who didn’t play sufficient to register a dash pace). Within the first three years, from 2015 to 2017, the typical middle fielder had a dash pace of 28.4 ft per second. Within the final three years, from 2023 to 2025, the typical is 28.6. That will seem to be a small change, nevertheless it’s additionally happening over an awfully brief timeframe. We are able to truthfully say that middle fielders are measurably quicker at the moment than they had been simply 10 years in the past! It’s not arduous to extrapolate additional again in time.
If we lengthen our gaze a bit to soak up everything of the pitch-tracking period, we will see that balls simply aren’t falling in the way in which they used to. The graph under goes again to 2008, and it reveals the batting common for each ball categorised as both a line drive or a fly ball hit straightaway (not together with house runs). It begins at .393 and ends at .346. Practically 50 factors of common simply disappeared into the gloves of middle fielders.
That is fairly stark, however even this graph is underselling the distinction a bit. Right here’s the identical graph, however now it consists of wOBA, too. The brand new purple wOBA line falls even steeper than the blue line. Heart fielders aren’t simply robbing batters of extra hits. They’re additionally higher at holding batters to singles and stopping extra-base hits. That drop-off is almost 60 factors.
I feel that is about as definitive because it will get. Since 2008, there’s by no means been a worse time to hit the ball to middle subject. As far as we will inform, protection has by no means been a extra vital a part of a middle fielder’s job, and middle fielders have by no means been so a lot better than nook outfielders. In all, we’re most likely at peak middle subject protection proper now. And we’ll most likely keep there.
