Final week, we obtained a mailbag query from a Jacob Younger fan named David. Truly, it was a multi-part query, and the third sub-question was notably enjoyable: Are we now in an period of Peak Centerfield Protection? It looks like each workforce has a centerfielder that may go get it.
My intestine response to this query was easy: Sure, we’re in all probability in an period of peak middle discipline protection. I think the sport has in all probability been in that period most of the time 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 believed 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 another place, middle discipline rewards pure athleticism, and the athletes hold getting higher. The participant pool retains increasing, and gamers (and people normally) hold getting larger, stronger, and quicker. All of this implies the bar to make it to the majors in any respect is that a lot greater. I’ve acquired baseball-specific causes, too. The league retains getting higher at positioning defenders the place the ball is extra prone to go, permitting them to make much more of their superlative abilities. And since we hold 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 plain: There’s no technique to know the reply definitively. We now have valuable little Statcast knowledge about Ty Cobb’s dash pace or Duke Snider’s response time. Up till this century, play-by-play knowledge is all we now have to go on in evaluating defenders. Sean Smith analyzed that knowledge to create a defensive metric referred to as Complete 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. Immediately’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 rapidly they reacted because the ball got here off the bat. That’s a good distance from extrapolating from play-by-play knowledge.
I notice that David wasn’t essentially asking concerning the total high quality of middle discipline play, however whether or not we’re dwelling in a time once we’ve acquired a very excessive variety of wonderful defenders. It feels that manner, proper? Consider all the middle fielders proper now whom you’d classify as extraordinarily good defenders. My record would undoubtedly embody 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 unsure what’s occurred to Brenton Doyle, however earlier than the season we might have put him on this record, as effectively. Swiftly, we’ve acquired half the groups in baseball with an elite middle discipline defender.
Now possibly it’s all the time felt that manner. Simply to choose a date out of a hat, should you return to 1999, you’ve acquired defensive standouts like Andruw Jones, Mike Cameron, Carlos Beltrán, Steve Finley, Darren Lewis, and Kenny Lofton. If you happen to return to the Nineteen Fifties, you’ve acquired Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider all in the identical metropolis. For that motive, I made a decision to see what I may do with the numbers obtainable to me.
Even when we are able to’t know the reply definitively, we are able to have some enjoyable with the info at our disposal. We now have 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 knowledge sources. They’re all utilizing completely different strategies based mostly on completely different philosophies. They’re completely different eras with completely different kinds of play. They’re all grading on completely different curves, judging gamers in accordance with the league common of their explicit yr, which makes it very onerous to check gamers from completely different eras. It’s a wonderful mess, but it surely signifies that we have to consider another methods to investigate issues.
Let’s begin by contemplating how middle fielders are incomes their taking part in time. If you happen to’re not hitting effectively and also you’re not fielding effectively, you’re in all probability not going to remain on the sector. If you happen to’re doing one effectively, you may 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 discipline. If it holds, it could be the bottom mark ever recorded. Nonetheless, 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 simply see all the best way on the precise of our major leaderboard. Earlier than you have 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 discipline on a regular basis. It simply reveals gamers whose major place is listed as middle discipline. We stopped utilizing complete zone for these numbers in 2002, so the newer numbers are based mostly on a completely completely different system. 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 large motive why that is dishonest, although, is as a result of these numbers embody a positional adjustment. As you possible know should you’ve made it this far, positional changes give extra credit score to more durable defensive spots and take credit score from simpler ones. If you happen to have a look at middle discipline defensive metrics for anyone yr, they need to be proper round zero most of the time. Nonetheless excessive the bar is, there can be good, common, and dangerous middle fielders, and so they’ll cancel one another out. This graph is saying that the bar has gotten greater over time, in comparison with different positions on the sector. That’s all of the extra obvious should you have 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 best way we worth outfielder protection. Nonetheless, while you view this alongside the reducing wRC+ of middle fielders, the conclusion is clear. Protection has by no means been a extra essential a part of the job, and the hole between protection in middle discipline and the corners has by no means been greater.
Figuring out all this, what makes me say that this very second might be peak middle discipline protection? For starters, gamers are simply plain quicker as of late – and I don’t simply imply quicker than they have been within the Nineteen Fifties. We now have 11 years of Statcast knowledge monitoring each participant’s common dash pace. For annually, I calculated the dash pace of the common 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 common middle fielder had a dash pace of 28.4 toes per second. Within the final three years, from 2023 to 2025, the common is 28.6. That will seem to be a small change, but it surely’s additionally happening over an awfully brief timeframe. We will actually say that middle fielders are measurably quicker at the moment than they have been simply 10 years in the past! It’s not onerous to extrapolate additional again in time.
If we prolong our gaze a bit to soak up the whole thing of the pitch-tracking period, we are able to see that balls simply aren’t falling in the best way they used to. The graph beneath goes again to 2008, and it reveals the batting common for each ball labeled as both a line drive or a fly ball hit straightaway (not together with dwelling runs). It begins at .393 and ends at .346. Almost 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 crimson 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 sort of 60 factors.
I believe 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 discipline. As far as we are able to inform, protection has by no means been a extra essential a part of a middle fielder’s job, and middle fielders have by no means been so significantly better than nook outfielders. In all, we’re in all probability at peak middle discipline protection proper now. And we’ll in all probability keep there.