Utility
Eleven players qualified for consideration despite changing their primary positions between 2021 and 2022. There was no pattern to the moves: Max Muncy from first to third base, Whit Merrifield from second base to right field, Gleyber Torres from shortstop to second, and Yandy Diaz from first to third are examples of the variety of movement.
Of the 11, Muncy was the easy leader in WAR with a total of 7.6. The category runner-up, DJ LeMahieu, totaled 5.3, with Diaz a close third at 5.1
Diaz was the front-runner in average OPS+ at 126.5, and nobody else was particularly close. Muncy averaged 115.5 to rank second, with LeMahieu (104) third, and Torres and Trey Mancini (103.5) tying for fourth.
Availability favored Merrifield, who logged 1,270 plate appearances over the two seasons. That represented 87.7 percent of the theoretical maximum. LeMahieu was second, Mancini third and Jonathan Schoop fourth.
As you can tell from the above, the utility position is a diverse category with no standout. It’s probably appropriate, then, that as at DH a deadlock in the ordinal ranks emerged for the top spot.
Both Muncy (first, second, sixth) and LeMahieu (third, fourth, second) averaged 3.00 for the positional lead. Diaz was a fairly close third at 3.67, with Merrifield (5.33) and Mancini (5.67) fourth and fifth.