Head To Head: The Lineups (Outfield)
Moving to the outfield, we have Andrew Benintendi and Brett Gardner. Benintendi is coming off of a rookie season in which he went 20/20. He’s primarily a pull hitter for power, which doesn’t play terribly well in Fenway, but learning to go the other way will help him tremendously.
He won’t start hitting home runs to left or straightaway center, but there are plenty of doubles and triples to be had out there, and he can get to them. Don’t expect a bump in home runs in 2018, but both his OBP and SLG are liable to come up, leading to his first All-Star caliber season.
Brett Gardner had, essentially, the season I was projecting for his counterpart last year, but at 34 years old could very well lose a step. He also produced power at a level he rarely has before, and I expect some regression.
The Red Sox take another.
Let’s skip over to right field for the moment. Here we have the 2016 runner-up for MVP and the 2017 runner-up on the other side. Both are young, and both are healthy. Mookie had a down year in 2017, but that seems to be mostly poor luck or, at least, correctable. He had 209 balls hit at 95 mph or higher (23 more than Judge) for 9th most in the majors but was 265th in Brls/PA (a measure of high-quality contact).