Evaluating the 2019 Center Fielders' Rankings Forecast

On January 20^th, the MLB Network asked people on Twitter to vote for the top 10 center fielders for the 2019 baseball season.  To no one’s surprise, Anaheim Angels’ center fielder Mike Trout was unanimously named the top center fielder to start the year. 

Here we will analyze eight analysts’ forecasts using the Fangraphs’ WAR method in how they predicted how center fielders would do for the 2019 MLB season.   We will look at lists from: myself (Alan Lu), the Shredder, Mike Petriello, Vince Gennaro, Ben Lindbergh, Brian Kenny, Eric Byrnes, and fans from social media (whom I counting as one vote for simplicity purposes).  So how did we all do?

2019 Center Fielders’ Rankings:

2019 CF	Alan Lu	Shredder	Petriello	Gennaro	Lindbergh	Kenny	Byrnes	Fans	fWAR	Rank
Mike Trout	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8.6	1
Cody Bellinger	4	2	3	5	3	4	4	9	7.8	2
George Springer	3	5	5	4	4	3	5	3	6.5	3
Starling Marte	9	8	7	15	5	7	15	15	3.0	4
Victor Robles	15	15	15	10	15	15	15	15	2.5	5
Charlie Blackmon	5	6	8	8	15	5	6	5	2.0	6
Harrison Bader	8	9	10	15	15	15	9	6	1.8	7
Lorenzo Cain	2	3	2	3	2	2	3	4	1.5	8
Kevin Kiermaier	10	10	15	15	9	10	15	15	1.5	8
Ian Happ	15	15	15	7	15	15	15	15	1.5	8
Jackie Bradley Jr.	15	15	6	6	8	15	7	2	1.4	11
Aaron Hicks	6	4	4	2	6	6	2	7	1.1	12
Ender Inciarte	7	15	15	15	10	9	15	8	0.9	13
A.J. Pollock	15	7	9	9	7	8	8	10	0.9	13
Mallex Smith	15	15	15	15	15	15	10	15	0.0	15
Diff. Estimator	52	52	60	64	62	58	72	70
2019 Rank	1	1	4	6	5	3	8	7

.....

The findings:

Once again, I finished first (well, tied for first with the Shredder) in making my top 10 center fielders' rankings list for 2019, as I along with the Shredder were the most accurate in this category according to the Fangraphs WAR method.

I once again have dominated
in predicting outfielders via top 10 lists
for the 2019 MLB Season.
(Photo courtesy of GFYcat via pbsrc.com)

I think I did pretty well here.  Most of my picks were well within range, and both me and the Shredder had Kevin Kiermaier on our top 10 list, as he ended up playing fairly well, as he finished in that range among players that were ranked by analysts this season.  Though I had some misses, as I did not have Victor Robles on my list, and had also ranked Cain, Hicks, and Inciarte too high, I also had the good fortune to not have rated Jackie Bradley Jr. or A.J. Pollock in my top 10 list, as both players ended up underperforming this season.

The Shredder's list was very similar to mine, and while they had the good fortune to not overrate Inciarte, they did put A.J. Pollock on their list, as Pollock ended up having an underwhelming season in 2019.  But most of our top 10 picks were well within range, more so than the others.  I would give both my list and the Shredder's list an A- for a job well done here.

In analyzing two years worth of data regarding predicting center fielders while rating them via the Fangraphs WAR, your go-to, pinpoint person for the 2020 center fielders' forecast should be....the Shredder.  Here, they actually do a very good job of making their projections for center fielders, so they should be your main source of information for the 2020 season specifically regarding center fielders.

As for whether or not you should car about my 2020 center fielders' ranking list that I will put out in January....and value it, yes, you probably should.  I did a very good job of projecting 2019 center fielders this past year, and my tendency to rate defensive center fielders well has boded well for me recently.

Thank you for reading, and thanks to Brewers Nation for providing the top 10 lists of analysts.  (I'm a St. Louis Cardinals' fan, but in this case, they did a good job of recapping what happened for all of the top 10 lists.)  

Thank you for reading, and be sure to give me a follow on Twitter at @AlanLuSTL.