NL East

Best of the Decade: Right Field

Mookie Betts leads the pack among right fielders in the 2010s. I gave him the nod over the gentlemen below because Betts has played at an extremely high level since his debut and has simply brought a lot of value to his teams in a short period of time. He has posted at least 6 rWAR in every full season he has played, and he has played between 250 and 400 fewer games than the other guys in this section. Betts is the owner of a .301/.374/.519 career triple-slash and brought the coveted power-speed combo to the Red Sox for the first six years of his career, launching 139 home runs and stealing 126 bags in that time frame. The one-time MVP will now suit up in Chavez Ravine for the Dodgers and look to get this next decade started right. Worth noting, of course, is that he’ll be there for the next 12 years on the heels of a $365 million extension.

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Best of the Decade: Left Field

Fangraphs and Baseball Reference agree on the top four left fielders of the past decade though they don’t quite agree on the order. This brings us to a debate of elite quality versus very high quantity; WAR is a counting stat so if you play more games at a high level, you end up with a higher WAR. Still, though, playing fewer games at an elite level is incredibly valuable. I’ll settle the debate.

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I Love You, David

When David announced that he was going to be calling it quits after this season, I got a little bit choked up. That’s actually an understatement; I cried. Not only because he himself was crying while announcing his plan to retire the media, but also because I feel connected to David. No, I have never met him (although I did once walk by him on the streets of Manhattan while I was walking home from Synagogue one night) but I think that speaks volumes to the power of sports. More on that later, though.

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A Look at the National League Playoff Picture

Fangraphs is currently giving the Dodgers a 72.3% chance to make the playoffs and a 58.5% chance of winning the NL West. FiveThirtyEight doesn’t like the Dodgers nearly as much, giving them just a 56% chance to make the playoffs a 45% chance to win the division. 

The discrepancy between the two models is why we play the games; these are contests between two groups of nine humans, and anything can happen in baseball.

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