100 Greatest Center Fielders of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

Baseball's All-Time Greatest Center Fielders Ranked From 1 to 100

CAREER = career war

Long Peak = WAR in Best 7 Seasons

SHORT PEAK = WAR in Best 3 Seasons

PRIME = WAR in 5 Best Consecutive Seasons

RANK	NAME	FROM	TO	CAREER	LONG PEAK	SHORT PEAK	PRIME
1	Willie Mays	1951	1973	156.2	73.6	32.9	52.3
2	Mickey Mantle	1951	1968	110.2	64.8	33.1	47.7
3	Ty Cobb	1905	1928	151.0	69.1	32.6	47.7
4	Mike Trout	2011	2022	82.4	65.0	30.9	47.3
5	Tris Speaker	1907	1928	134.3	62.2	29.1	44.3
6	Ken Griffey Jr.	1989	2010	83.8	53.9	27.5	37.8
7	Joe DiMaggio	1936	1951	79.1	51.3	25.4	38.0
8	Oscar Charleston	1920	1941	102.0	53.0	27.9	44.0
9	Turkey Stearnes	1923	1940	89.8	47.7	26.4	34.1
10	Duke Snider	1947	1964	66.0	50.0	26.3	38.8
11	Kenny Lofton	1991	2007	68.4	43.2	21.3	31.0
12	Carlos Beltran	1998	2017	70.1	44.3	21.7	30.3
13	Andre Dawson	1976	1996	64.8	39.1	20.8	32.6
14	Andruw Jones	1996	2012	62.7	46.3	22.5	34.2
15	Cristobal Torriente	1916	1932	78.8	49.0	28.9	35.0
16	Jim Edmonds	1993	2010	60.4	42.5	20.0	32.1
17	Richie Ashburn	1948	1962	64.4	44.2	20.6	31.5
18	Martin Dihigo	1923	1945	71.7	41.0	24.8	35.1
19	Jim Wynn	1963	1977	55.8	43.3	22.2	28.6
20	Andrew McCutchen	2009	2022	47.0	38.3	21.1	31.6
21	Cool Papa Bell	1922	1946	70.0	40.5	19.5	31.5
22	Cesar Cedeno	1970	1986	52.8	41.2	21.3	31.4
23	Willie Davis	1960	1979	60.8	38.7	19.7	24.7
24	Vada Pinson	1958	1975	54.2	40.1	20.5	30.7
25	Chet Lemon	1975	1990	55.6	37.0	18.2	25.7
26	Kirby Puckett	1984	1995	51.1	37.5	20.4	26.9
27	Larry Doby	1947	1959	49.3	39.5	20.0	30.1
28	Dale Murphy	1976	1993	46.5	41.0	21.4	28.0
29	Fred Lynn	1974	1990	50.2	38.3	21.0	26.6
30	Bernie Williams	1991	2006	49.6	36.4	17.4	26.7
31	Curtis Granderson	2004	2019	47.0	34.3	18.4	26.3
32	Johnny Damon	1995	2012	56.3	33.0	16.3	22.2
33	Willie Wilson	1976	1994	46.1	33.8	21.0	26.9
34	Brett Butler	1981	1997	49.7	35.1	16.8	24.0
35	Lorenzo Cain	2010	2022	38.4	32.5	19.4	27.3
36	Devon White	1985	2001	47.3	35.4	18.7	24.5
37	Earl Averill	1929	1941	48.0	37.4	19.5	25.4
38	Wally Berger	1930	1940	42.5	35.7	18.2	27.1
39	Torii Hunter	1997	2015	50.7	31.3	15.6	20.7
40	Curt Flood	1956	1971	41.9	32.8	15.8	23.3
41	Ellis Burks	1987	2004	49.8	31.9	18.2	19.7
42	Paul Blair	1964	1980	37.7	35.5	19.8	24.8
43	Willard Brown	1937	1948	48.5	37.5	22.8	26.2
44	George Springer	2014	2022	34.2	30.0	16.5	23.6
45	Bobby Murcer	1965	1983	32.1	29.7	19.7	26.4
46	Andy Van Slyke	1983	1995	41.3	32.7	17.8	24.0
47	Ray Lankford	1990	2004	38.2	31.3	16.4	24.0
48	Amos Otis	1967	1984	42.8	32.5	17.6	20.7
49	Steve Finley	1989	2007	44.2	31.9	16.5	18.2
50	Kevin Kiermaier	2013	2022	31.8	29.0	17.4	23.9
51	Pete Reiser	1940	1952	24.4	21.6	17.9	26.7
52	Earle Combs	1924	1935	43.9	34.3	16.9	25.7
53	Sam Jethroe	1938	1954	44.0	36.0	20.0	26.0
54	Garry Maddox	1972	1986	36.8	30.3	16.5	23.8
55	Max Carey	1910	1929	54.5	32.8	15.3	22.5
56	Dwayne Murphy	1978	1989	33.2	29.8	17.1	23.2
57	Hack Wilson	1923	1934	38.2	35.9	19.5	30.0
58	Eric Davis	1984	2001	36.1	30.0	17.6	23.7
59	Dom DiMaggio	1940	1953	33.1	26.8	13.3	20.4
60	Al Oliver	1968	1985	43.7	27.9	14.0	19.4
61	Grady Sizemore	2004	2015	27.7	28.2	19.1	26.8
62	Marquis Grissom	1989	2005	29.6	27.5	15.8	21.5
63	Edd Roush	1913	1931	45.1	31.7	16.1	24.2
64	Darin Erstad	1996	2009	32.3	28.7	18.0	22.7
65	Shane Victorino	2003	2015	31.5	28.5	15.9	21.3
66	Jacoby Ellsbury	2007	2017	31.0	28.0	17.6	20.3
67	Mickey Rivers	1970	1984	32.7	27.5	15.2	22.1
68	Josh Hamilton	2007	2015	28.2	27.1	18.0	22.5
69	Willie McGee	1982	1999	34.2	28.4	17.5	18.8
70	Lance Johnson	1987	2000	30.2	28.0	17.1	22.4
71	Andy Pafko	1943	1959	36.7	29.7	16.8	22.3
72	Chili Davis	1981	1999	38.2	24.7	12.7	15.6
73	Adam Jones	2006	2019	32.5	24.9	13.0	20.3
74	Ben Chapman	1930	1946	41.3	29.5	15.0	22.3
75	Mike Cameron	1995	2011	46.7	32.5	16.2	23.9
76	Bobby Thomson	1946	1960	33.9	26.9	15.9	20.6
77	Dave Henderson	1981	1994	27.6	27.2	16.6	21.3
78	Lenny Dykstra	1985	1996	42.5	32.9	20.1	23.4
79	Vernon Wells	1999	2013	28.6	26.1	15.2	20.2
80	Lloyd Moseby	1980	1991	27.5	25.7	17.3	22.4
81	Tommy Leach	1898	1918	46.8	31.0	16.2	17.9
82	Clyde Milan	1907	1922	40.0	28.2	14.9	21.7
83	Tommie Agee	1962	1973	25.4	26.3	17.0	21.6
84	Bill North	1971	1981	26.8	26.5	16.9	19.6
85	Cesar Tovar	1965	1976	28.2	25.9	13.2	20.2
86	Fielder Jones	1896	1915	43.2	28.9	13.8	21.5
87	Michael Bourn	2006	2016	22.8	23.8	16.6	21.6
88	Alejandro Oms	1917	1935	34.6	27.2	19.0	20.4
89	Denard Span	2008	2018	28.1	23.5	13.5	17.2
90	Benny Kauff	1912	1920	29.0	29.1	19.3	25.1
91	Austin Jackson	2010	2018	21.9	24.1	15.2	20.6
92	Rick Monday	1966	1984	33.1	22.9	12.0	16.1
93	Spottswood Poles	1906	1923	37.5	27.6	17.0	18.1
94	Carlos Gomez	2007	2019	24.4	23.0	14.7	19.3
95	Jimmy Piersall	1950	1967	29.4	25.3	14.2	18.1
96	Tony Gonzalez	1960	1971	27.0	26.4	14.4	17.4
97	A.J. Pollock	2012	2022	23.3	22.5	13.4	17.7
98	Roy Thomas	1899	1911	32.2	31.1	15.8	22.3
99	Baby Doll Jacobson	1915	1927	28.4	26.6	14.7	20.5
100	Coco Crisp	2002	2016	28.9	24.3	11.8	14.1

EXPLANATION OF TABLE DATA

CAREER = Career Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

We use bWAR.

LONG PEAK = WAR in best seven seasons.

SHORT PEAK = WAR in best three seasons.

PRIME = WAR in best five consecutive seasons.

How Do We Rank The Players?

That's a Great Question. In short, it isn't Simple.

We have gone to great lengths to make our All-Time Baseball Player Rankings as thorough as possible. We believe our rankings are the most comprehensive, fair, and accurate.

Players are evaluated on five criteria as the foundation of our rankings:

Career Value
Long Peak
Short Peak
Career Prime Value
Contribution to Championship Teams

We use Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a basis for these calculations. However, we also adjust for era, integration and level of competition, and missed playing time due to factors beyond the control of the player.

Generally, a player’s Career Value is worth about 50-60% of the ranking score we assign him. That leaves half or just under half from his long peak (seven best seasons), short peak (three best seasons), and prime (five best consecutive seasons). The contribution to championship teams (player performance in seasons where his team wins the pennant) is a small factor in most cases.

Because we adjust for timeline and era, our rankings have fewer players from before 1941 than many other baseball player lists.

We feel it’s important to acknowledge that baseball is harder to play today than it was 25 years ago, and 50 years ago, and so on. It doesn’t make sense, in our opinion, for most of the great baseball players to have played prior to World War II, when MLB was segregated.

100 Greatest Center Fielders of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

CATCHER

FIRST BASE

SECOND BASE

SHORTSTOP

THIRD BASE

LEFT FIELD

CENTER FIELD

RIGHT FIELD

PITCHER