MLB: The most valuable left fielders of 2019

Playing a premier offensive position, these 10 MLB left fielders stood out among their peers

In MLB, we’re pretty much obsessed with the concept of value. We apply a plethora of often exotic statistical approaches to measure it: batting average, slugging, home runs, WAR, OPS+, Defensive Runs Saved, Weighted Runs Created…the list  goes on.

The one factor we generally overlook in all these assessments is the most meaningfully value-oriented of all of them: salary. What, precisely, was the player paid – relative to all other players tasked with doing what he was doing – and how much of that pay did he “earn?”

The rating system that follows corrects that oversight. Based on 2019 performance, it measures which players were the most “valuable” as judged by their on-field production relative to their salary. And let it be noted here that we are limiting our focus to on-field value only. Some players, mega stars, are paid based largely on factors unrelated to on-field performance, their drawing power at the gate, their celebrity, their endorsement/promotional potential being among them. Those factors, while acknowledged as real, are not part of this discussion.

Since different positions require different skills, the standard for determining production will vary depending on position…although for position players there will always be an offensive component.

Today we’re looking at left fielders. A century ago, Hall of Fame manager John McGraw dismissed the defensive importance of the position by asserting that the most important characteristic of a left fielder was the ability to hit .330.” What else do they have to do?” McGraw wondered.

Our formula was measuring value at left field largely follows McGraw’s thesis. A full three-quarters of it is determined by WAR, with the remaining one-quarter divided between range (10 percent) and playing time (15 percent).

However cynical McGraw’s view was, the fact is that left field talent in 2019 was spread more thinly than at any of the positions we have examined to date. From a dollar value standpoint, that translates to a nearly $6 million spread between the most valued left fielder and the 10th most valued. Relatively speaking, it made a big difference in 2019 who you had playing left field.

This, by the way, was even more true of the other outfield positions, which we’ll look at shortly.

Here are the positional averages for the 33 players who qualified for consideration at left field during the 2019 MLB season:

Salary: $4.578 million

WAR: 1.318

Range per nine innings: 1.787 chances

Innings: 856.636