Mets360 - The 2021 center field options for the Mets

 

By Gus Livaditis December 1. 2020

Much digital ink has been used on the need to get George Springer onto the Mets because he’s “a real center fielder” and the one the Mets used this year isn’t. To this, we will examine how good does your center fielder have to be in order to win a championship and is signing Springer to major dollars the best scenario? First, we will examine the center fielder production for the last 10 World Series champions and their team’s dependence on their play. Then, we will examine the names in the news for the Mets, my mystery acquisition and how they compare to our incumbent.

First, a brief summary of each year’s World Series winning center fielder and their relevance to the team’s production. Pitching is always referenced because some teams expect to win because of their superior pitching. All WAR values come from FanGraphs.

		fWAR	Offensive/Defensive Grades
2011 Cardinals CF:	Jon Jay	2.3	7.7 Offense, -1.2 Defense
Top Performers:	Yadier Molina	5.9	9.1 Offense, 31.3 Defense
	Lance Berkman	4.7	44.4 Offense, -17.5 Defense
	Matt Holliday	4.4	29.9 Offense, -3.9 Defense
	Albert Pujols	3.9	28.9 Offense, -11.6 Defense

The top nine WAR players were all negative on Defense expect for Molina.

Pitching: Chris Carpenter 4.5 WAR, Jaime Garcia 3.2 WAR, Kyle Lohse 2.3 WAR, no one else was over 1.0.

		fWAR	Offensive/ Defensive Grades
2012 Giants CF:	Angel Pagan	4.6	21.7 Offense, 2.7 Defense
Top Performers:	Buster Posey	10.1	41.9 Offense, 36.5 Defense
	Melky Cabrera	4.5	33.4 Offense, -5.6 Defense

Pitching: Matt Cain had a 3.2 WAR and Madison Bumgarner had a 2.7 WAR. No other pitcher came close.

		fWAR	Offensive/ Defensive Grades
2013 Red Sox CF:	Jacoby Ellsbury	4.6	19.1 Offense, 2.9 Defense
Top Performers:	Dustin Pedroia	4.9	11.1 Offense, 10.4 Defense
	Shane Victorino	4.7	17.6 Offense, 8.6 Defense
	David Ortiz	3.4	27.0 Offense, -15.0 Defense
	Mike Napoli	3.4	17.5 Offense, -4.9 Defense

Five pitchers with WAR of 2.3 or greater, led by Jon Lester at 3.3.

		fWAR	Offense/Defense Grades
2014 Giants CF:	Angel Pagan	1.8	7.6 Offense, -3.4 Defense
Top Performers:	Buster Posey	7.6	25.3 Offense, 25.7 Defense
	Hunter Pence	4.0	23.4 Offense, -7.9 Defense
	Pablo Sandoval	3.2	2.4 Offense, 7.9 Defense

Bumgarner had a 3.6 WAR, three pitcher had 1.5 – 1.7; no one else close.

		fWAR	Offense/ Defense Grades
2015 Royals CF:	Lorenzo Cain	6.1	26.0 Offense, 11.8 Defense
Top Performers:	Mike Moustakas	3.8	10.9 Offense, 5.2 Defense
	Eric Hosmer	3.5	21.7 Offense, -10.8 Defense

Pitching: Yordano Ventura 2.7 WAR, Edison Volquez 2.7 WAR, Wade Davis 2.0 WAR

By contrast: Curtis Granderson 5.3 WAR, Travis d’Arnaud 3.4 WAR in just 67 games, Lucas Duda 3.2 WAR, Yoenis Cespedes 2.6 WAR in just 57 games, Daniel Murphy 2.2 WAR, Michael Conforto 1.9 WAR in just 56 games.

Jacob deGrom 4.9 WAR, Matt Harvey 4.0 WAR, Noah Syndergaard 2.9 WAR, Bartolo Colon 2.5 WAR.

Continue reading by clicking here.