Which team had the best outfield corps in 2014? Based on consistent WAR performance at each outfield position, the answer is Miami’s trio of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna, each recording over 3.5 WAR (Baseball-Reference version) last season, a claim no other team can make.
What makes this development particularly encouraging for the Marlins is that Stanton, still only 25 as he starts his 6th major league season this year, was the old man of that group. How unusual are a trio of under 25 outfielders contributing at that level? You’ll find out after the jump.
If you’re thinking top young outfielders and the Marlins don’t seem to go together, well you’re right. Prior to last season, the Marlins had never had more than one under-25 outfielder with a 3.5 WAR season and had only down that four times, with Stanton (twice), Miguel Cabrera (2005) and Mark Kotsay (1998). But, it wasn’t just the Marlins. Over that same period (since 1993), no team has had more than one such outfielder, as there have been only 72 such seasons, more than one quarter of those turned in by just 6 players: Andruw Jones with 4 seasons; and Stanton, Mike Trout, Jason Heyward, Grady Sizemore and Carl Crawford who each did it 3 times.
The 2014 season saw no fewer than nine age 24 or younger outfielders post a 3.5 WAR season: Miami’s three; three more you know (Trout, Heyward and Yasiel Puig); and three more, all rookies, whom you may not have heard of (Ender Inciarte, Kevin Kiermaier and Danny Santana). Those nine are the most in any season since 1901, and mark the fifth straight season with at least 4 such outfielders, a confluence not seen since a run of 8 straight years from 1973 to 1980. There were also 4 or more such outfielders in 4 straight seasons in 1967-70 and, pre-expansion, from 1955 to 1958. Those player seasons, by year, are noted in the table below that can be sorted or searched according to your preferences.
[table id=242 /]
.
Stanton, Yelich and Ozuna are the youngest of just three outfields comprised of 3 players aged 24 or younger with a 3.5 WAR or better season. The other two were the 1978 Expos with Warren Cromartie, Andre Dawson and Ellis Valentine; and the 1984 Padres with Tony Gwynn, Carmelo Martinez and Kevin McReynolds. The Padres, of course, were NL champions that season while the Expos would be a top NL East contender the next two seasons before claiming that title in 1981. In fact, if you look below at every team with two such outfielders (there are only 15 of those), all but the 1974 Astros were championship or defending championship clubs, or were on the cusp of becoming at least a playoff team.
Based on that track record, Miami’s future prospects seem promising, especially with what would seem to be very solid pitching that includes a rotation of Henderson Alvarez, Mat Latos, Dan Haren and Jarred Cosart (plus, returning in June, one Jose Fernandez), and a bullpen anchored by returning vets Steve Cishek, A.J. Ramos and Mike Dunn (and augmented by new acquisitions David Phelps and Aaron Crow).
An aside: Miami’s fourth outfielder this season will apparently be Ichiro Suzuki. While that is probably a good role for him, and a good player (and person) for Miami to have in that role, it may not produce much in the way of playing time (especially absent the DH) for Ichiro in his quest for 3000 hits.
1999 Royals just missed having 3 members of their outfield with 3.5 WAR under age 25. Dye and Damon were 25 and had WARS of 4.7 and 5.4 respectively. Beltran was 22 and his was 4.7.
Of course the Royals future wasn’t too rosy. Neither was their present at 64-97. I remember that team well. Their starting pitching wasn’t horrible (Rosado, Suppan and Appier were all at least OK), but their bullpen was God Awful.
The Royals probably would have liked to hang onto all of those players but, given the choice of losing them to free agency or getting something back in trade, KC predictably chose the latter. Thus, with two of them already 25, that outfield had only one more full season together. All three would be traded during or immediately prior to their age 27 seasons.
That’s the big difference between those Royals and today’s Marlins. Miami has their 25 year-old locked up and the younger guys still have a bunch of seasons (see below) to develop before Miami has to worry about what to do with them.
Interesting point, Doug. But I hope the Marlins’ future is brighter than San Diego’s after 1984. Those Padres had all three OFs at 4+ WAR, and their trio out-WARred these Marlins by 15.8-14.5. But they didn’t contend in the next 4 years (combined .487). Just once in the next 10 were they closer than 10 games back (combined .472).
P.S. These Marlins are also the first outfield to each whiff 130+ times (only three others had two), and the first with two at 160+ Ks. The trio averaged 157 Ks, a mark reached by just 22 other outfielders in MLB history. Not that it matters … I just still boggle at today’s K numbers.
The point was only half-serious (or didn’t you know that Bernie Carbo and Bobby Tolan were the secret to the Big Red Machine’s success?). Still, I was struck that a pair of good young outfielders on a team correlated so strongly with proximate team success.
In the case of the Marlins, having Stanton locked up long-term, and Yelich (2022) and Ozuna (2020) for the forseeable future. If the latter two can build off their first success, then, if nothing else, the Marlins have a core to build around and time to do it.
Or, it may turn out like the Padres. Martinez followed up his 4.1 WAR with 3.6 and then it went pffft. McReynolds dipped to 2.4, then back over 4, which was enough to pry three Kevins from the Mets in exchange for the Padres one (if you forgot that Kevin Mitchell was once a Friar you’re probably not alone; not content with having fleeced the Mets, San Diego held onto him only long enough to flip him to the Giants for Mark Davis, yes the CYA winner but a man who had less than 200 top-flight innings in his career … and about 1000 other IP with ERA+ in low 80s).
So is this evidence that older players are now fading away more quickly with PED testing the norm, or are teams now more inclined to playing younger players and not older players?
I suspect this is a transition point favoring younger players, but one that won’t last.
I think low budget teams that are smart are more inclined to play younger players. Mainly because that’s their most cost-effective and fan-pleasing option.
If history is a guide, trending to a lower offensive era (most likely, in part, due to post-PEDS) will result in more small ball (especially given the example set by both WS teams, but especially KC), which will mean a preference for speed and defense over offense and, thus, youth over experience.
Grand simplification, but it may not be entirely accidental that more younger outfielders have been in evidence the past 5 years.
Seems possible that some of it is due to the defensive metrics used to calculate dWAR changed in recent years. Guys like Kiermaier, Heyward, Inciarte from last year, at a minimum, put up a decent amount of dWAR and their oWAR alone wasn’t the arbitrary 3.5 cutoff. Santana also played 1/3 of his games at SS so his 3.9 WAR wasn’t all accumulated as on outfielder.
It’s also possible last year was an outlier. The gap between 4 guys hitting an arbitrary WAR mark and 2-3 guys hitting it isn’t much; 9 guys seems like a fluke. Interesting to see if it continues.
I thought that the Toronto Blue Jays early/mid-80s OF trio of George Bell (LF)/ Lloyd Moseby (CF)/ Jesse Barfield (RF) would make this list; however, they didn’t play together as regulars until they were all 25 years old. They were much discussed at that time.
I also thought that the Red Sox OF of Rice/ Lynn/ Evans would show up for 1975, 1976 and/or 1977 (2/3rds did), but I see that Rice didn’t have 3.5 WAR in 1975 or 1976, and was primarily a DH in 1977.
The Blue Jays are another good example. The difference between them and, say, the Royals (see Brent @1), is that Toronto evidently had the wherewithal to resign those players before they became UFAs (their salaries all took a big jump around age 27 or 28).
On that Blue Jays theme; Moseby Bell and less so Barfield had very short peaks to their careers and were effectively finished at age 30, 30 and 31. Artificial turf and Exhibition Stadium effect perhaps?
Lloyd Moseby was the original BJ Upton, CKA Melvyn Uptown. Some strong similarities in skill set and, most disapointingly, the same strange loss of ability to hit major league pitching
Here’s the bottom 10 in OPS+ by an OF’er in age 28-29 seasons with 1,000 PA’s…Bossman Junior, the worst:
Scott Podsednik 80
Whitey Lockman 80
Juan Pierre 79
Glenn Wilson 78
Nemo Leibold 78
Tom Goodwin 77
Omar Moreno 77
Gary Pettis 73
Tom Oliver 73
Jim Busby 70
Melvin Upton 66
Albert Pujols is on this list in ’02 and ’03. I remembered that he played third his first few seasons, but entirely forgot about him in leftfield.