The Cards Over The Last 32 Seasons - Center Field

Centerfield is the other position, along with shortstop, that's remained the most stable over the course of this study. Still just nine different players. The difference is, where shortstop owes its stability largely to one guy holding down the job for 13 seasons, centerfield's advantage comes from three different players having 8 year runs as starter. Of the other six, only one was starter for more than a year.

Herzog Era: 4

Best: George Hendrick and Milt Thompson both had good years as the starter (in 1980 and 1989, respectively). But it was just one year for each, and really a half seasons for Hendrick (though he was also sort of the starter in 1981). So Willie McGee's 8 years wins. His 3.5 WAR/162 isn't quite at the same level as the other two (4.3 for Hendrick, 4.0 for Thompson), but the longevity carries more weight. Hendrick's the only real power hitter of the bunch (as the only one with averaging more than 10 HRs per 162 games, at 26, and he also, interestingly, strikes out less. He doesn't any more though, which is why his, Thompson, and McGee's OBPs are so close together (.341, .340, and .336, respectively). He does haven't the speed of the other two, but that wasn't his role on the team, anyway.

Worst: Tony Scott. 0.4 WAR/162 in 1981. I mentioned Hendrick was sort of the starter that year. What I mean is Hendrick actually lead the team in innings in both CF and RF that year. But since he played more innings in right (and Scott played more innings in CF than runner-up Sixto Lezcano did in RF), both Baseball-Reference and I count him as the starting right fielder that year, and Scott as starting left fielder.

Torre Era: 1

Best: Ray Lankford. McGee had been traded to Oakland by the time Torre came along in '90, so there really are no other options. Anyway, Lankford was a solid 3.2 WAR/162 player over that stretch, posting a .349 OBP in spite of his average of 142 Ks per year. He also averaged 17 HRs and 33 stolen bases.

Worst: There's no one else.

LaRussa Era: 5

Best: Lankford had the three best seasons of his career as TLR's starting CFer from '96-'98. His batting average rose over 20 points, and his OBP rose almost 40 (from .349 to .388, because he went from 74 walks to 97). His slugging also jumped by over 97 points, and his HRs went from 17 to 31, while his stolen base totals remained roughly the same (30). All told, he was worth 6.2 WAR/162.

And he still doesn't win. Because Jim Edmonds was the starter for 8 years, and he averaged 6.6 WAR/162. Edmonds doesn't have Lankford's speed (2 triples to Ray's 4, and 5 SBs to his 30), but he slightly edges him in OBP (.393 to .388) and SLG (.555 to .535). Plus, the defensive metrics were rarely high on Lankford. He had one season as a starting CFer where he was more than 5 runs above average - 1996 - and 5 where he was anywhere from 1 to 12 runs below average. All told, in his 3 years under TLR, he was 17 runs above average. Edmonds had one season (2006) where he was 1 run below average, and 2 (2000 and 2007) where he was one run above average. In the other 5 he was a combined 68 runs better than an average centerfielder. So 6 runs above average a season vs. 8.5 (or 13.6 if you only consider 2001-2005), which probably explains the difference.

Worst: There really isn't a worst. J.D. Drew was really only starter for half the season thanks to injuries. I know, it's shocking J.D. Drew would miss time to injury. Still, he was on a 3.7 WAR/162 pace that year. Ankiel's one year as starter he was on a 4.6 WAR/162 pace. Which just leaves Colby Rasmus. Even so, across his 3 years as starter (as Jon Jay didn't catch up to him before the end of the 2011 season), he was still a 2.9 WAR/162 player. He just didn't consistently post offensive numbers on Ankiel's level, or defensive numbers on Drew's. Sometimes he'd do one or the other, but never both simultaneously.

Next time, we wrap up the series by moving from one of the most stable positions to the least stable position of all.