Ready for center field? Let’s Go-Go
The Brewers All-Time Team continues today with one of the more interesting discussions in this series: center field. A reminder of the rules:
- We’re looking for the best individual season at each position, not the best career
- Players can only be used once
- A player must have played more games at the given position in the given season than any other position
Today, one of the above rules comes into play a bit. Here’s what we’ve already done: catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, and left field.
Center Field: Carlos Gómez, 2013
147g, .284/.338/.506, 128 OPS+, 27 2B, 10 3B, 24 HR, 73 RBI, 40 SB, 7.6 bWAR, 6.7 fWAR
Where this center field discussion needs to start is here: Robin Yount won an MVP playing center field for the Brewers in 1989. That season is, without question, the best hitting season by a Brewer center fielder: Yount hit .318/.384/.511 with 38 doubles, nine triples, and 21 homers and had a 152 OPS+, which is 14 points higher than any other full season by a Brewer center fielder (Gorman Thomas in 1979).
But, two things: we already used Yount at shortstop, so per the rules of this exercise, we can’t use him again. The other thing: Yount was never all that good of an outfielder. Injuries forced him out of the infield after the 1984 season and while he wasn’t an Adam-Dunn-level disaster in the outfield by any means, he was mostly below average as a center fielder after being a solidly above-average shortstop for most of the first decade of his career.
Center field is one of the more important defensive positions, of course, so I’m inclined to weigh defense quite heavily here. The WAR statistic agrees, and when you account for defense (and baserunning), two center field seasons stand out above the rest in Brewers history: Lorenzo Cain in 2018 and Carlos Gómez in 2013.
Both of those seasons featured fantastic defense—arguably the best defensive season for each—from Gold Glove-caliber players. (In fact, as a quick aside, both Gómez and Cain rank among the very best defensive center fielders ever; if you adjust dWAR on a per-game basis, Cain comes in second all-time among center fielders with over 1,000 games played, just behind Kevin Kiermaier, with Gómez 12th. Do the same with Fangraphs’ version of defensive value and Cain is fifth, Gómez 16th.) Both were talented base stealers who had successful seasons in that regard (Gomez stole 40 of 47 bases, Cain 30 of 37, though it should be noted that Cain’s baserunning in general did grade out better than Gómez’s).
So, both Cain and Gómez excelled defensively and on the basepaths in their respective best Brewer seasons, which means that it might just come down to whichever hit better. Cain did hit for a higher average in 2018 than Gómez did in 2013 (.308 to .284), but Cain hit for very little power, while Gómez hit 24 homers and 10 triples and had 271 total bases compared to just 225 for Cain. That’s enough to give Gómez the edge here.
Gómez had been a hyped prospect with tantalizing physical tools. He was talked about as one of the fastest players in organized baseball when he was young, but he wasn’t a little guy—Gómez stood 6-foot-3, and when he filled out, he was listed at 220 pounds. He made it onto a couple of top 100 prospect lists before the 2007 and 2008 seasons and debuted for the Mets in 2007 when he was just 21. He didn’t hit at all, but he stole some bases and showcased his stellar glove. After the 2007 season, Gómez was included as the centerpiece of the Mets’ trade for Johan Santana when he was still considered by many to be the best pitcher on the planet.
Gómez spent two years in Minnesota and while he was clearly one of the best defensive outfielders in the game, he just couldn’t hit. While I’m not sure I’d classify it as “giving up,” Minnesota decided to parlay Gómez’s remaining value (he was still only 23) into a known quantity, and they traded him after the 2009 season in a straight swap for the Brewers’ J.J. Hardy, who the team saw as expendable with top prospect Alcides Escobar knocking on the door.
For a while, things progressed much as they had for Gómez. In 2010 he hit .247 with no power, but he stole 18 bases in 21 tries. In 2011, he played what the metrics view as superb defense, but he hit .225 with a .276 OBP. What did change a bit for Gómez in 2011 is that he showed flashes of power that hadn’t really been there previously: he hit eight homers in 258 plate appearances, and his ISO (slugging minus batting average) jumped from a previous career high of .110 to .177.
In 2012, Gómez was named the Brewers’ starting center fielder, and things finally started coming together offensively. He hit .260 with 19 homers, stole 37 bases in 43 tries, and had a 101 OPS+. For a player of Gómez’s defensive caliber, a 101 OPS+ is enough to offer real value.
But if a player of Gómez’s defensive caliber turns into a good offensive player, that value soars. Still only 27 in 2013, he hit his prime in a big way and had back-to-back seasons in which he had OPS+ marks of 128 and 129. In 2013, Gómez set career highs with 10 triples, 24 homers, 40 stolen bases, and a .506 slugging percentage. He was basically equally as good offensively in 2014 when he had career highs with 34 doubles and 47 walks while hitting 23 homers. He had 73 RBI in each season, which was again a career-high.
The big difference in evaluating these two seasons comes defensively. By the measure of oWAR, Gómez’s 2014 season actually grades out slightly ahead of his 2013 one (4.7 to 4.3), but defensively, Gómez really shined in 2013, when he had 3.6 dWAR (a massive number for a center fielder). His combination of defensive and offensive prowess gave Gómez 7.6 WAR via Baseball Reference in 2013, which is the highest single-season mark for any Brewer not named Robin Yount or Ryan Braun. Ever! Yes, even better than Christian Yelich in 2018 (7.3) and 2019 (7.0).
It was enough to get Gómez to the edge of the MVP discussion. His 7.6 WAR was third among all position players (behind AL MVP runner-up Mike Trout and NL MVP Andrew McCutchen), and while some evaluators were at least a little skeptical of Gómez’s massive dWAR number, he finished ninth in MVP voting, in a season in which he also made the All-Star team and won a Gold Glove.
I do just want to finish the discussion on Cain’s 2018 season, the other one that could easily have won this spot. Cain had just completed his exciting return to Milwaukee on the team’s largest ever free agent contract, a five-year deal worth $80 million which was signed a day after the team traded for Christian Yelich. In 2018 Cain, who had been a leader for the back-to-back pennant-winning Kansas City Royals of 2014-15, set career-highs in batting average, OBP, and stolen bases while playing defense that probably should have won him his first Gold Glove (he won it a year later, the only one of his career). Cain earned 6.9 WAR, the second-highest ever by a Brewer center fielder.
Both seasons were great, and Yount’s 1989 season was obviously also excellent, but Gómez’s combination of skills and more potent offensive profile is what gets him the nod here.
Also considered, in addition to Yount’s 1989 and Cain’s 2018: Gorman Thomas in 1982 and 1979, both seasons in which he led the league in homers; Yount’s 1988, which wasn’t as good offensively as 1989 but which grades as his best defensive season as an outfielder and is thus nearly equal in WAR; and Dave May’s 1973, in which he led the AL in total bases after hitting .303 with 23 doubles, 25 homers, and 189 hits. Finally, a shout to Scott Podsednik’s rookie season in 2003, in which he tricked us into thinking he could actually hit. He would play eight more seasons and never again have an OPS+ of even 100 (though he was an important player for the 2005 World Series champion Chicago White Sox).