Photo: Mark Goldman (l) and Nick Wosika (r)/Icon Sportswire

Five of the best hitters available in free agency had negative Defensive Runs Saved in 2024.

In the grand scheme of things, what these players do at the plate will far outweigh what they do in the field. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t matter at least a little bit. Let’s explore their individual situations.

Juan Soto

At the rate Soto is going, he’s going to be an all-time great hitter and he’s going to get paid an incredible amount of money to be one. Soto has shown that he can be a good defensive outfielder, but he’s also shown he can be below-average too.

After accruing 6 Defensive Runs Saved in 2021, he’s totaled -5, -2, and -1 the last three seasons. He played right field in 2021, 2022, and 2024 and left field in 2023.

Soto rated well in right field for most of the 2024 season. But in September, he had -5 Runs Saved (worst among right fielders) and 6 Defensive Misplays and Errors (tied for the most in the position). As far as range goes, in both 2022 and 2024, Soto was penalized the most on balls hit to the deepest part of right field.

Soto’s Runs Saved would have been worse but for the value of his arm. The last two seasons he’s combined for 6 Outfield Arm Runs Saved.

Soto had 4 outfield assists in the Yankees’ first 19 games in 2024. Both that and playing in a small ballpark like Yankee Stadium may have had something to do with baserunners advancing an extra base against him on 43% of the balls he fielded in 2024. The MLB average rate for right fielders was 51%.

There isn’t anything about Soto’s defense that should scare teams off. A little below average isn’t going to cause a lot of trouble over 162 games. But it’s important to have a full understanding of what you’re getting when he’s on your team.

Anthony Santander

Santander hit a career-high 44 home runs last season, topping the 33 and 28 that he hit the previous two seasons, respectively. But in both 2022 and 2024, his defense held his WAR (Baseball-Reference version) down a little bit.

Santander played 130 games in right field last season, the most he’d ever played at one position in a season. Our defensive metrics weren’t kind to him. He finished with -7 Runs Saved, which contributed to a  2.9 bWAR. Of the 19 40-homer seasons since 2021, Santander’s bWAR was worse than 16 of them.

Santander’s defensive issues were different from Soto’s. By our calculations, he made 11 plays fewer than an average fielder on shallow and medium balls hit to the outfield, but he was 5 plays better than expected on balls hit to the deepest part of right field.

Santander was also dinged for his arm. He allowed 61% of baserunners to take an extra base against him, 10 percentage points worse than the average right fielder. Among the 35 players who played right field the most last season, only Starling Marte had a worse rate.

Santander had good defensive numbers in the past. He totaled a combined 14 Runs Saved in 85 games in right field in 2019 and 2020 and he had 3 Runs Saved there in 2023. With him it’s a question of whether his future performance will resemble his most recent play.

Willy Adames

We mentioned last week that Adames is a curious case. He had 9 Runs Saved as a shortstop in 2022 and 8 Runs Saved in 2023. But then he was a MLB-worst -16 Runs Saved in 2024.

Our stats showed that Adames completely cratered. He went from 13 plays made above average in 2023 to 19 below average in 2024. As the chart below shows, he went from being one of the most reliable fielders on his forehand to one of the least reliable.

Willy Adames- 2024 When Fielding On His Forehand

Interest in Adames is going to be high given his 32 home runs and 21 stolen bases in 161 games last season. Perhaps indicative of concerns about his defense is talk that one team, the Mets, is looking at him as a third baseman. As we wrote in a study done in 2022, moving from shortstop to third base isn’t necessarily an easy switch (spoiler: the study shows some fielders handle it well and others don’t). But perhaps in this case it will be a necessary one.

Jurickson Profar

Profar, who had the best offensive year of his career last season with the Padres, has a history of not being a good defensive player. After putting decent defensive numbers up in left field in repeated sets of small samples early in his career, he’s had -11 and -8 Runs Saved in left field the last two years, respectively. He’s played other positions and not fared well at those either.

Statcast data indicates that Profar doesn’t chase balls down well. He rated below average in the amount of ground he covers in the first three seconds after a hitter makes contact. The team that signs him would do well to work with him on that … if they don’t make him a DH.

Pete Alonso

Alonso is an oddity in that he’s had three seasons with negative Runs Saved and three seasons with positive Runs Saved and he’s never had two in a row of either. In sum, he comes out as an average defensive first baseman through the first six years of his career.

Alonso does two things in high volume. He led all first basemen with 39 Good Fielding Plays related to catching throws in 2024. No one else had more than 26. He also aggressively leaves his feet. He’s finished first or second at the position in the number of times he’s slid, dove, or jumped to make a play. There’s no lacking for effort in how he plays defense, which is good so long as he doesn’t injure himself in the process.