But what about recognizing a good start in the field?

It’s an oft-said baseballism that when you're newly in a game, the ball finds you. The ball has found Nationals third baseman Trey Lipscomb a lot. In his first 3 major league games, Lipscomb has already handled 15 chances cleanly.

That's busy for a third baseman. Ke'Bryan Hayes led the position in range factor last season. He had a few three-game stretches last season like the one Lipscomb just did, but his range factor last season was an average of just under 3 chances per game.

Now you may ask why we're bringing up an unknown rookie on a 1-3 team that may finish at the bottom of the NL East this season. Fair question.

It’s easy to get excited by the superduperstars and the hyped rookies, like Jackson Chourio and Wyatt Langford. But part of the fun of baseball is about the under-the-radar guys who might catch some people by surprise.

And while maybe Lipscomb won’t be Hayes or Nolan Arenado in the field, he could still be someone you'll want to watch. Reds broadcaster and Hall of Famer Barry Larkin was impressed and said so during during the telecasts of the last 2 games of the Reds-Nationals series. Larkin’s a 3-time Gold Glove winner, so when he says a player has been “impressive,” we listen.

We talked to Lipscomb last year after he won a minor league Gold Glove at third base in a season in which he played every infield position. He was among the Nationals' final cuts after hitting .400 in spring training but was almost immediately recalled when Nick Senzel suffered an injury that required an IL stint.

Lipscomb made a couple of nifty plays on ground balls, getting an initiation in the first inning of his first game at third base on a Christian Encarnacion-Strand grounder that took a high hop. Lipscomb handled it well and got the out.

Lipscomb’s best play by Runs Saved was also against Encarnacion-Strand, one that he turned into a 5-4-3 double play. That play was worth nearly 3/4 of a Run Saved by itself.

Lipscomb and Encarnacion-Strand had quite the batter-fielder relationship for a couple of days, with Lipscomb retiring Encarnacion-Strand 5 times.

Lipscomb said in our interview that he wanted to be a fielder who dominated the routine plays. He had his share in his first 3 games and looked comfortable.

But there were a couple of interesting challenges. On one play Lipscomb made, against Bryan Reynolds of the Pirates, he chose not to throw home in a situation in which he may have had a play at the plate. For those unaware, that decision is factored into Lipscomb’s Defensive Runs Saved. He gets a credit for retiring Reynolds at first base but also loses some run value within his Runs Saved for what we call “Giving Away a Lead Runner” in our cataloging of Defensive Misplays.

Lipscomb also was unable to make a play on a hard-hit ball down the third base line. However, by diving and reaching the ball, Lipscomb held Santiago Espinal to a single rather than a double.

Lipscomb got penalized within Defensive Runs Saved for not making the play on Espinal, but he gets a chunk of that run value back because he recorded a “Keeping The Ball In The Infield” in our tracking of more than 30 types of Good Fielding Plays.

All in all, Lipscomb got through his first 3 days in the major leagues pretty well. He experienced a variety of plays and handled them. He wasn’t perfect but he made a strong impression.

“The game of baseball is not about perfection,” Lipscomb said in our offseason conversation. “But if you can be as physically sound and mentally sound on defense as you can, it can help you a lot.”

So far so good. Let’s see if he can keep it up.

For more SIS content, visit SportsInfoSolutions.com

BY MARK SIMON

The other day, I wanted to rank the top defensive center fielders in MLB entering 2024, so I pulled up The Fielding Bible leaderboards along with a pen and paper and got to work.

I put Brenton Doyle No. 1. Doyle led all center fielders in both Defensive Runs Saved and Good Fielding Plays last season and won the NL Gold Glove at the position. If he hits even a smidge, he’s going to play and play a lot because he’s so good in the field. And he’s still young. He turns 26 in May and should still have fresh legs.

I’m guessing that Kevin Kiermaier won’t like that I’m putting him No. 2 given that he’s the reigning Fielding Bible Award winner and the overall leader in Runs Saved by a center fielder since we started tracking the stat in 2003. But Kiermaier turns 34 in April and has a substantial injury history. So we’re going with the young buck ahead of the reigning champ and encouraging the older guy to prove us wrong. (We’ll own up to it if we are!)

No. 3 is another veteran, Michael A. Taylor. Though he’s currently unsigned, we’ll still put our faith in Taylor, who ranks first among center fielders in Runs Saved over the last 3 seasons. We wrote about him in great detail last week and encourage you to check that out to learn more about what makes him good (spoiler: he’s been really good at chasing the deep fly ball). The track record of success is there.

My No. 4 defensive center fielder entering 2024 is another young’un, Johan Rojas. Rojas ranked 4th among center fielders in Runs Saved despite ranking 37th in innings. He also had the most Runs Saved of any minor league center fielder in 2023. There’s every reason to think he’ll be great in 2024.

No. 5 is the one that was hardest to pick and I’m going to go with the wildest of wild cards, Byron Buxton. Buxton is going to return to playing outfield after solely playing as a designated hitter last season.

Buxton is as good as it gets on a per-inning basis. From 2020 to 2022 he played about the equivalent of one MLB season in center field and saved 29 runs. That’s a league-leading caliber season for a center fielder. In that 3-year span, Buxton ranked 2nd among center fielders in Runs Saved and 20th in innings played.

https://twitter.com/BaseballQuotes1/status/1545581...

Buxton is a potential make-or-break player for the Twins this season and also a high-risk, high-reward pick in Defensive Runs Saved fantasy leagues (yes, those leagues exist). I feel good enough about him to rank him in the No. 5 slot. If he’s healthy for most of the season, he’ll be a difference maker.

Who are your Top 5 defensive center fielders entering 2024? Tweet your picks at us.

Mark's Top 5 Defensive CF Entering 2024

1. Brenton Doyle
2. Kevin Kiermaier
3. Michael A. Taylor
4. Johan Rojas
5. Byron Buxton

A year ago at this time I wrote about MLB’s rising defensive stars, and now seems like a good time to do that again looking to 2024.

There are 4 players on active rosters this spring who will be in their age-23-or-younger season in 2024* and who had at least 10 Defensive Runs Saved in the major leagues in 2023. They’re in our spotlight heading into the upcoming season.

* Age 23 or younger as of June 30, 2024

Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe totaled 15 Runs Saved and won the AL Gold Glove last season. Volpe played the 2nd-most innings of any shortstop in the majors (only Francisco Lindor played more). With his defense solid (he’s particularly good on balls hit to his left), improving his hitting figures to be a high priority in 2024. He had a .666 OPS in 2023.

Phillies center fielder Johan Rojas was outstanding after being recalled from the minor leagues, amassing 15 Runs Saved in 57 games. Combine that with his minor league-best total of 15 Runs Saved and Rojas had an epic defensive season. Rojas placed 9th in The Fielding Bible Awards voting among center fielders last year. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in 2024.

Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson played an almost identical number of innings at shortstop and third base last season. He was better at shortstop, amassing 10 of his 13 Runs Saved. Henderson finished with 6.2 bWAR in 2023. With a good defensive season and solid offensive numbers again, he may be in line for something better in 2024.

Rockies shortstop Ezequiel Tovar’s defensive play was one of the highlights of a rough season for a last-place team. His 13 Runs Saved ranked 4th at the position. Like Volpe, Tovar played a lot. He ranked 5th among shortstops in innings played and had an impressive reel of standout defensive plays.

One other player I want to point out is Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams who finished with 4 Runs Saved in 2023. Abrams' defensive game took a major step forward in 2023 as he improved from -5 Runs Saved in 2022. Though his throwing issues kept him from being in the same class as the quartet above, his defensive stock is up heading into 2024.

The biggest defensive hole in MLB team infields last season was third base for the Tigers. Detroit tried 9 players at that position and those players combined for -22 Defensive Runs Saved. Not only did the Tigers rank last in MLB in Runs Saved by their third basemen, they also ranked 26th in Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Average at the position.

Tigers general manager Scott Harris chipped away at his team’s roster construction all winter. He traded for Mark Canha to give the team a bat that could control the strike zone and improve the offense’s production. And he added a pair of veteran arms for the starting rotation in Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty.

These additions supplement a young core that could have 2 prime prospects— center fielder Parker Meadows and infielder Colt Keith— as everyday players.

Harris didn’t do much about third base until Thursday when the Tigers signed Gio Urshela to a one-year contract. If the Tigers wanted to be really ambitious there, they could have pursued free agent Matt Chapman on a long-term deal, but for the short term, Urshela is a good fit.

If fully recovered from the pelvis injury that limited him to 62 games last season, Urshela, an 8-year veteran, will be a massive upgrade at the hot corner for whatever number of games he plays in 2024. He totaled 6 Defensive Runs Saved in limited action at third base last season and 4 Runs Saved there in 2022. He's had only one bad stretch there, in 2021 when he totaled -4 Runs Saved for the Yankees.

Urshela had a .703 OPS in those 62 games last season. That doesn’t sound impressive, but that would also be a big upgrade. Tigers third basemen combined for a .624 OPS last season, 3rd-worst in MLB.

There is risk with the 32-year-old Urshela, but it’s inexpensive risk. He signed for a base salary of $1.5 million. He may just play in a platoon role. But even if he plays part time, the Tigers improving to 0 Runs Saved and a .700 OPS at third base this season as a result of his production would be noticeable. If Urshela could reach his past peak (he’s twice been a 3-bWAR player), the change would be significant.

This signing isn’t by itself going to win a division title. But it potentially makes a big hole on the team look much more respectable. Winning championships isn’t just about signing star players. It’s about making sure you have a roster of players that aren’t costing you potential wins. In an AL Central where 85 to 90 wins may be enough to win the division, a move like signing Urshela looks like a pretty smart one.

Though Greene posted a 4.82 ERA in 112 innings last season, he pitched better than his final numbers indicated.

Greene was the pitcher who underperformed relative to his expected stats the most of any pitcher that faced at least 300 batters in 2023.

A brief point of explanation:

Sports Info Solutions tracks its own version of a player’s expected stats (like what you can find on Baseball Savant). Rather than basing a player’s hit probability (and correspondingly single, double, triple, and home run probability) on a batted ball’s exit velocity and launch angle, SIS’ version estimates probabilities based on where balls are hit, how hard they are hit, and how long they spend in the air.

This allows us to compare a player’s actual stats to his expected stats.

Here’s the list of pitchers with the greatest differential between their expected opponents' OPS and their actual opponents' OPS.

Greatest Differential - Expected OPS and Actual OPS

2023 Season, Minimum 300 Batters Faced

Here is Greene’s actual line compared to his expected line.

Greene ranked right among the worst 20% of pitchers in opponents' OPS but ranked right around the best 20% of pitchers in expected opponents' OPS.

I watched the 40 hits that Greene allowed with the lowest hit probabilities. Within that I saw a combination of some bad breaks and some defense that— had it been just a little bit better— would have made a difference in Greene's numbers.

For example with regards to bad breaks, if this ball is hit slightly to the left, it’s an inning-ending out instead of a 2-run single. Or if this ball is hit a little to the left, Will Benson makes the catch instead of just missing it, literally saving another run from his pitching line.

Another instance of bad breaks, though this of a different kind: In Greene’s first game back from injury on August 20, he allowed 9 runs and 5 home runs in 3 innings against the Blue Jays. Yes, that’s a bad start. But 2 of the 5 home runs barely cleared the fence and were sub-25% home run probability balls by our measures (one would have been a homer in 5 parks, another 13, per Statcast).

As for defense, Greene had the 3rd-worst Defensive Runs Saved support on batted balls of any pitcher in MLB last season. The Reds had -11 Runs Saved on the batted balls against him.

There’s this fly ball to center field that seemed to be lost in the lights, a ball whose spin off the bat fooled shortstop Elly De La Cruz, and a ball that Greene himself just missed on which second baseman Jonathan India could not make the play quickly enough.

The usual disclaimer applies: Just because Greene didn’t get good breaks or good defense doesn’t mean that he will in 2024. But the knowledge that he was on the right track in 2023, even if the results weren’t there, should be reassuring to him, Reds management, and their fans heading into the upcoming season.

The 2 new candidates on the ballot who stand the best chance of election will be Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia.

Ichiro is a no-doubt lock and it wouldn’t surprise me if he matched or bettered Adrián Beltré’s 95% from this year’s Hall of Fame class.

But what about Sabathia?

If we use statistical evaluation tools to evaluate his candidacy, he’s really, really close. Baseball-Reference tracks a player’s Hall of Fame Career Standards Score from a method devised by Bill James. Sabathia scores a 48. The average Hall of Famer scores a 50.

Using more recently developed methodologies, Sabathia scores a 491.2 on Bill’s Hall of Fame Value stat, a stat devised in 2019 for which 500 was the intended target for the Hall.

And in Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, he ranks 55th among starting pitchers. His bWAR and 7-year peak WAR come out about 10.5 WAR below the average Hall-of-Famer.

The question for voters is going to be, where do you set your personal bar among Sabathia’s contemporaries?

There are some no-doubters that should be ahead of Sabathia on the Hall of Fame candidate list. Among active pitchers, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer fit that description. Zack Greinke checks out very well too even if he never throws another pitch. Some contemporaries are already in and deservedly so, like Roy Halladay.

Statistically speaking, Sabathia slides in behind those guys but ahead of the likes of Mark Buehrle (who got 8% of the vote on the last ballot), Tim Hudson (5% and 3% on 2 ballots), Cole Hamels (not yet eligible), Adam Wainwright (not eligible), and another pitcher on the upcoming ballot, Félix Hernández.

Sabathia’s credentials include

- 251 wins and 3,093 strikeouts

- The 2007 AL Cy Young Award and 4 other Top-5 Cy Young finishes

- 6 All-Star selections

- A World Series ring on a 2009 Yankees team for which he was an ace

- An epic finish to his 2008 season

(1.65 ERA in last 17 starts, pitched the Brewers to the Wild Card)

- Good standing in baseball as vice-president of The Player’s Alliance

The thing that hurts his standing is his 3.74 career ERA, one that jumped almost a quarter-point in the last 7 years of his career when he was not as good as he was in his prime, as he learned to adjust to diminished velocity.

But while 3.74 doesn’t look great on the surface, his ERA+ (ERA adjusted for the time he played and the ballparks he pitched in) is 116.

There are definitely good pitchers with an ERA+ right around 116, guys you wouldn’t think of as Hall-of-Famers. But there are some all-time greats from other time periods too, like Hall-of-Famers Ferguson Jenkins (115) and Steve Carlton (115).

My point here is that Sabathia’s ERA, relative to when he pitched, can be a diminishing factor but not an eliminating factor when it comes to a Hall vote. He's still a good candidate even with a 3.74 ERA.

I want to touch on one other point that I think favors Sabathia: his 3,577 1/3 innings pitched. No one has more among pitchers who debuted in the last 35 seasons.

From 2007 to 2009, three years in which Sabathia was his best self, he threw 724 regular season innings and another 55 1/3 innings in the postseason. His regular season ERA, adjusted for ballpark was 44% better than league average.

In the last 3 seasons, the pitcher closest to Sabathia’s combined 779 1/3 total innings pitched in that time is Aaron Nola (628 innings pitched combining regular and postseason). That's 151 fewer innings pitched. We can make a similar point if we look at 4,5, 6, or 7 seasons.

Starting pitcher function is markedly different in 2024 than it was for most of Sabathia’s career. Once Greinke, Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw retire, it might be awhile before anyone reaches 3,000 innings. Gerrit Cole is probably 6 healthy years away.

I'm of the belief that pitchers from Sabathia's era should garner a level of appreciation commensurate with the workload those pitchers took on. That's why I look at Sabathia with great respect. Pitchers are going to be hard pressed to pitch as much as he did and accomplish what he accomplished.

Now, you could make a similar, perhaps even a better case about a lot of pitchers that came from other eras: Rick Reuschel, Dave Stieb, Kevin Brown just to name a few. But that’s not what we’re here for. They’re not on the BBWAA ballot anymore.

We’re here to show that Sabathia, as good as you think he was, was arguably even better than you think. And he is a highly viable candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame who deserves immediate consideration for the game’s top honor.

We discuss Hall of Fame candidacies with SIS VP of Baseball Bobby Scales along with an interview of Orioles pitching strategy coach Ryan Klimek, and scouting reports on Yoshinobu Yamamoto and others from Brandon Tew on our latest baseball podcast.

Tony Kemp had a really, really rough go of it in 2023. Kemp, one of the veteran leaders of an Athletics team that lost 112 games, hit .209, slugged .304, and had a .607 OPS.

But it probably shouldn’t have been anywhere near that bad.

Last week, we explained how Luke Raley was 2023’s leading overachiever, posting an OPS 123 points higher than his expected OPS.

Kemp was 2023’s leading underachiever. His .607 OPS was 136 points lower than his .743 expected OPS

A brief point of explanation:

Sports Info Solutions tracks its own version of a player’s expected stats (similar to what you can find on Baseball Savant). Rather than basing a player’s hit probability (and subsequently single, double, triple, and home run probability) on a batted ball’s exit velocity and launch angle, SIS’ version estimates probabilities based on where balls are hit, how hard they are hit, and how long they spend in the air.

This allows us to compare a player’s actual stats to his expected stats.

Here’s the list of players with the largest negative differential between their 2023 OPS and their expected OPS. This stat is the other end of the list that we presented last week.

Biggest Negative Differential – 2023 OPS and Expected OPS

Minimum 250 Plate Appearances in 2023

Kemp’s ledger consists of a fair number of instances in which he hit a line drive that hung up long enough (for example: here and here). There were also some nice defensive plays both on fly balls and ground balls (here and here), and a couple instances of balls that hit the pitcher and caromed right to a fielder (here and here).

There’s also an instance of losing a would-be hit to a force play (here). And, of course, he got bit by the abundance of foul territory in his home ballpark (though not often; only here).

Here is what Kemp’s actual batting line looks like compared to his expected batting line.

There is a huge difference between what Kemp was and what he could have been. By his performance, Kemp was one of the worst-performing hitters in baseball. By his expected performance, Kemp’s OPS would have been better than the average second baseman (.724) and almost a match for an average-hitting left fielder (.751).

This graph shows the range of outcomes in expected BABIP differential and expected OPS differential. Kemp's stats are outliers. They're represented by the blue dot in the lower left of the graph.

One more example on how Kemp’s hit total was less than expected: If you take all the batted balls he hit with an expected hit rate of between 20% and 60%, Kemp was expected to net 42 hits. He totaled only 26, a 16-hit difference.

There are some prominent players among the others on the underachievers list. Among them is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who hit .264 and slugged .444. His expected numbers would have made his season look a lot different. He tallied a .302 expected batting average and .507 expected slugging percentage.

Guerrero Jr.’s loss of hits on those 20% to 60% balls isn’t quite as extreme as Kemp’s but was still prominent. He was expected to net 72 hits on those batted balls. He totaled 62.

The usual disclaimer applies: We’re not necessarily saying that Kemp’s or Guerrero's numbers will be better such as to make up for what happened in 2023 (though the Steamer projection on FanGraphs suggests a nice bounceback). We’re just pointing out that it would be difficult for an average player to put up Kemp’s line and Guerrero’s line, much like it would be tough to put up Raley’s overachieving line.

So in order for Raley to be a productive major league hitter, he had to get the most out of the swings on which he did make contact.

And he did.

Raley, traded by the Rays to the Mariners last week, produced a .330 BABIP, a .249 batting average, .490 slugging percentage, and .823 OPS in 2023.

But by our measures, he overachieved.

A brief point of explanation:

Sports Info Solutions tracks its own version of a player’s expected stats (similar to what you can find on Baseball Savant). Rather than basing a player’s hit probability (and subsequently single, double, triple, and home run probability) on a batted ball’s exit velocity and launch angle, SIS’ version estimates probabilities based on where balls are hit, how hard they are hit, and how long they spend in the air.

This allows us to compare a player’s actual stats to his expected stats.

Raley had the biggest differential between his actual OPS and his expected OPS of any player with at least 250 plate appearances last season. He tallied an .823 OPS against an expected OPS of .700.

An .823 OPS makes Raley a well above-average offensive player. A .700 OPS (his expected number) would be below MLB’s average OPS in 2023 (.734).

Here’s what Raley’s 2023 batting line looked like compared to his expected batting line.

And here's another perspective on Raley's outlier status. This graph shows the range of outcomes in expected BABIP differential and expected OPS differential. Raley is the blue dot in the upper right of the graph.

As far as examples of Raley's overachieving go, here are two balls that Raley hit against the Mariners last season (click here and here). The first is a double, one with a 30.5% hit probability. The other is a home run with a 19% home run probability.

A player can outperform his expected OPS for a number of reasons. Luck can be a part of it (we found multiple examples of Raley hitting doubles that were barely fair) but there are other factors too. A player’s other skills can play a role. For example, in Raley’s case, a look at video showed that his speed allowed him to leg out a few unexpected hits.

Another factor could be a player’s home ballpark providing dimensions that are friendly to that hitter. Raley did not play in a particularly hitter-friendly park (Tropicana Field). Something like this is more applicable for another player on this list, Adam Duvall, and how well he hit at Fenway Park last season (.596 slugging, .933 OPS).

We’re not necessarily saying that Raley will fall back to the pack this season (though the Steamer projection on FanGraphs assesses that he will). We’re just pointing out that it would be difficult for an average player to put up Raley’s line given the distribution of his batted balls and his strikeout rate.

We’ll look at 2023’s underachievers in the near future.

These are the players who have logged the most innings in the outfield over the last 4 seasons.

What’s interesting here is that the Yankees just traded for 3 of the players on this list: Juan Soto, Alex Verdugo, and Trent Grisham.

Soto’s performance speaks for itself. He’s an elite offensive player with 35-homer power and one of the best batting eyes in the sport. What’s scary is that he’s only 25 years old, is entering his walk season, and may not have peaked yet. As good as he was in 2023, he was only a 5.5 bWAR player. He has room to be better as a baserunner and fielder, two areas in which he ranked below average in 2023.

Verdugo may have gotten benched by the Red Sox last year for lack of hustle but he still found his way onto the field for 142 games. He’s basically been an average hitter by OPS+ standards and an average player by bWAR standards the last 3 seasons. But being consistently average has value because it usually means that below-average options were kept off the field.

Grisham is an interesting one. The last 2 seasons he’s hit .184 with a .626 OPS and .198 with a .666 OPS, respectively. But he also played 148 and 153 games in the field in those two seasons. He’s clearly valued for his defense and his baserunning. He ranks 5th in Defensive Runs Saved among center fielders over the last 4 seasons and ranks 4th in our Baserunning Gain stat over the last 2 seasons, which measures how often a runner takes an extra base, how often he makes outs on the bases, and how he fares at avoiding double plays.

Verdugo and Grisham won’t have to be everyday players in the Yankees lineup so long as both Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are healthy. But one of the key reasons Grisham is a desirable option is how often Judge and Stanton have missed time. Judge played only 106 games last season (and DH’d in 38 of them). Stanton rarely plays the outfield anymore, only 71 games the last 2 seasons.

The Yankees essentially took care of two needs with this combination of deals. One is that they needed better players than they had last season, when their outfield ranked last in Wins Above Average. They got that, with Soto being the marquee addition. But they also needed players with a track record of simply playing, and though past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, they did well in acquiring that as well.

Shortstop Bo Bichette went from -16 Runs Saved in 2022 to 5 Runs Saved in 2023. The 21-run improvement was the largest for anyone who played at least 500 total MLB innings in each of the last 2 seasons.

Biggest Improvement in Defensive Runs Saved – 2022 to 2023

Minimum 500 innings played in each season

Bo Bichette

Bichette’s improvement was most prominent specific to one aspect of his game – making plays on balls hit to the left of where he was initially positioned.

>> Opportunities = plays with a >0% out rate for the shortstop.

To explain this chart:

In 2022, Bichette made 137 plays on 304 balls that had a >0% out rate for the shortstop (that's how we define an "opportunity"). According to our calculations, he made 15 fewer plays than an average shortstop would have on those balls (hence the -15 in the 3rd column of the chart).

In 2023, he made 129 plays out of 219 opportunities. According to our calculations, he was 10 plays better than the average shortstop.

You can see the difference in the out rates. Bichette went from a 45% out rate on balls hit to his left to 59%.

Bichette’s throwing improvements may have played a role here. He went from 18 throwing errors and misplays (misplays being plays that weren’t scored errors but could have been) in 2022 to 7 in 2023.

For more on Bichette, check out this Twitter thread from SportsNet Blue Jays producer Chris Black.

Nicky Lopez

Lopez, a utility player traded from the Braves to the White Sox this offseason, had been known as a good glove in the past but had a drop-off in 2022, particularly at second base, where he accrued -8 Runs Saved. He totaled 4 runs there in 2023 and fared better on balls hit to his right than he ever had before. Lopez also went from 1 Run Saved at third base to 5 Runs Saved there in a comparable though limited number of innings.

Andrew Vaughn

Vaughn’s improvement is the result of both a position switch (from corner outfield to first base) and improvement at his new full-time position. Vaughn totaled -17 Runs Saved in 2022, with -14 of those coming from his combined total in left field and right field. At first base in 2023, Vaughn rated MLB average, with 0 Runs Saved.

Vaughn handed first base better than he did in the roughly 300 innings he played there in 2021 and 2022 when he amassed a combined -5 Runs Saved.