Best Ever Defensive Center Fielders: Unblurring History

Two or three weeks ago, I wrote an article that ranked every Center Fielder in the history of MLB, offensively. A letter grade was given to each player, and they were also put in order from 1-236.

I will do the same thing in this article, defensively—every Center Fielder in the history of MLB that played in at least 800 games.

At a later date, I will rank them overall, combining offensive and defense.

Defense is an area that respected historians seem to disagree on, in general. Offensively speaking, historians are generally on the same page. The same is certainly not true defensively.

My formula for ranking players is very complicated; it is as thorough as my offensive formula. Most historians all have a fairly complicated formula.

Here's what I like about rating defense: All Historians put a HUGE weight on players offensively that had long careers. But they don't seem to care defensively. I like that. It's the way it should be offensively also, but unfortunately, it usually doesn't work out that way.

My point: historians generally agree that Bill Lange was a better defensive Center Fielder than Andy Van Slyke, even though Lange had a short career. They just don't care about the short career when it comes to defense.

That's the way it should be; Lange was either better or he wasn't. And he was, of course, though Van Slyke was a heck of a defensive Center Fielder also, by the way.

But offensively, they will rank Van Slyke over Lange because of Lange's short career. The problem: Lange was also better than Van Slyke offensively, no question what-so-ever. Again, Van Slyke was also a heck of an offensive player for a Center Fielder, just not as good as Lange.

But that's what I like about rating defense, they generally tell you how it really was defensively, unlike they do offensively. But again, historians seem to disagree more defensively than they do offensively, because of the lack of statistical defensive stats, compared to offense.

So here it is. The best defensive Center Fielders in the history of MLB—the way it really was—unblurring history.

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1. Tris Speaker (1910s)   2. Andruw Jones (2000s)   3. Bill Lange (1890s)   4. Kirby Puckett (1980s)   5. Jim Edmonds (2000s)   6. Sam West (1930s)   7. Eddie Milner (1980s)   8. Willie Mays (1960s)   9. Vince DiMaggio (1940s)   10. Curt Welch (1880s)   11. Fielder Jones (1900s)   12. Max Carey (1920s)   13. Johnny Mostil (1920s)   14. Curt Flood (1960s)   15. Otis Nixon (1990s)   16. Terry Moore (1940s)   17. Mike Griffin (1890s)   18. Carlos Beltran (2000s)

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