MLB: The most valuable center fielders of 2019
By Bill Felber
MLB: The most valuable center fielders of 2019
7. Ramon Laureano, Oakland Athletics, $7.494 million value; $558,000 salary
In his first full season, Laureano gave every appearance of having arrived to stay. Playing 123 games, he batted a solid .288 with above-average .340 on-base and .521 slugging numbers, all that translates to a 128 OPS+ for the Athletics.
His 3.8 WAR was the position’s seventh-best, out-performing many players – Lorenzo Cain, Ian Desmond, Juan Lagares, Starling Marte – who out-earned him by millions of dollars. That WAR valued out at $5.053 million in on-field performance.
Defensively, Laureano is sort of a Kingery clone. His .977 fielding average precisely matched Kingery’s for value, and like Kingery he was statistically superior at getting to balls as opposed to actually catching them His 2.55 chances per nine innings ranked 10th among the position, valuing at $1.224 million.
Although largely a center fielder, Laureano did a brief 2019 stint in right field. The presumption is that in 2020 he’ll be left alone in center. The 40 games he missed dragged his usage down to 1,041 innings in 2019, although that still ranked 12th at the position, worth $533,000.
pre-arbitration eligible for two more seasons, Laureano profiles as the kind of player Athletics fans love pure on-field profit. He won’t hit even $1 million in 2020, and possibly not in 2021 either. That’s measured against the position’s $4.6 million average salary.