MLB Expansion-era left fielders: Defensive Wins Above Replacement
Left field is primarily an offensive position, but defensive play should not be entirely ignored.
Defensive WAR reflects the number of runs a player is projected to have saved his team due to his defensive play over the course of his career.
As you peruse the top 10, the offensive nature of this position will immediately become apparent. The average score of the rated players is minus-8.5 runs. Only three of the 30 turned in positive career defensive impacts.
Here are the top 10 for left fielders since 1969.
| Player | DWAR |
|---|---|
| Barry Bonds | 7.6 |
| Carl Yastrzemski | 1.0 |
| Jose Cruz | 0.2 |
| Marcell Ozuna | -0.4 |
| Luis Gonzalez | -0.7 |
| Yoenis Cespedes | -1.4 |
| Rickey Henderson | -2.3 |
| Lonnie Smith | -2.3 |
| Mike Greenwell | -2.7 |
| Joe Rudi | -2.8 |
Bonds’ offensive numbers are so overwhelming that we tend to lose sight of his defensive abilities. As the data shows, they were – by the standards of the position – exceptional.
The rating of a handful of players is helped by their career longevity, or lack of same. Injuries limited Cespedes to fewer than 650 career games in the field, a lot fewer than left fielders viewed as more defensively competent such as Luis Gonzalez, Ryan Braun or Tim Raines. The byproduct was that Cespedes also had fewer opportunities to hurt his team’s defensive performance.
The same applies to Marcell Ozuna, whose rating is based on fewer than 900 games in the outfield. Dusty Baker, who at minus-6.0 rates 11 positions below Ozuna, was almost certainly a more competent outfielder. But Baker played nearly 2,000 games in the outfield, most of them in left.