Right Makes Might

Dave Paisley

Home of the proverbial cannon-armed outfielder, the right field spot combines power and grace better than any other position on the field. Well, except for Jay Buhner, who at least does OK at the power part.

Larry Walker led the pack last year, with gaudy looking stats that would still have looked good in any other park but Coors. However, the next few top RFs belong primarily to the junior circuit, with Manny Ramirez due for some serious recognition in the near future. Juan Gonzalez and Tim Salmon are still relatively young stars with lots of productive years ahead of them. How Salmon has so far managed to avoid a trip to the All-Star Game is beyond me.

Jeromy Burnitz had a breakout year in '97 and should be able to capitalize on that performance this year. For his sake I hope it's somewhere other than Milwaukee. Tony Gwynn had his second-best power year ever, and seems to defy aging. With a better pitching staff this year in San Diego, perhaps the Geritol can keep him going for another year or two.

The solid, above average right fielders who remain are the now heavily overpaid Raul Mondesi, Gary "I Got My Bags Packed" Sheffield, Paul O'Neill and Jay Buhner.

The odds-on favorite for the AL Rookie of the Year award is Ben Grieve, who should handily beat my conservative predictions, while Vladimir Guerrero will hopefully avoid nagging injuries in Montreal and show his full potential.

Further down the list, we see the perfectly average right fielder - Mr. Sammy Sosa. I can't begin to fathom how he's worth $10M a year, but there it is. They just load up the wheelbarrows with dollar bills and dump it in his front yard.

The remainder of the list features mostly journeymen outfielders who manage to keep clinging to a job, waiting for that transfer - first to left field, then the dreaded fourth outfielder spot. Actually, it's pretty tough being a right fielder, as the offensive standard is so much higher. The mean OPS is 20 to 30 points higher than in left field, and 50 higher than center, so it's tougher just to be average.

Despite that difficulty, some of the youngsters trying to break in or improve on last year's numbers are Jose Guillen, still only 22, Bob Abreu, Juan Encarnacion, Rodney Myers and Brent Brede. Good luck to them.

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