Chandler Simpson's huge defensive turnaround isn't just about speed

Chandler Simpson pulled off a difficult and unfortunate trick as a rookie last year, which is to say that despite being one of the fastest players in the sport (97th percentile in Statcast’s sprint speed, at 29.6 ft/sec), he rated as one of baseball’s weakest outfield defenders (11th percentile in Outs Above Average, at -5).

This year, he’s pulled off an even harder feat, one that brings with it considerably more value to a surprisingly productive Rays team: He’s become one of baseball’s best defensive outfielders. Simpson is part of a large group tied for fourth best among outfielders at +5 OAA, behind only the elite trio of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Jacob Young.

It’s a credit to Simpson, and to the coaches who worked with him. It’s also a terrifying reminder to batters everywhere, as batting averages keep going down despite the strikeout rate plateauing over the last half-decade. It’s not just that fielders are really, really good, though they are indeed that. It’s that they can get better seemingly overnight, too. Even when contact is made, there are fewer and fewer places to find a hit. This is part of why.

How, though? It’s certainly not that Simpson got faster, because there wasn’t really much faster he could possibly get. It’s what happens before he even gets to that speed – and, mostly, before you can even see him on your television screen.

In order to explain what got better, we have to explain what wasn’t working. It’s borderline impossible to be as fast as Simpson is and at the same time be as ineffective as he was in the outfield last year, and we know that because we have a decade’s worth of Statcast tracking now to back that up. Dating back to 2016, and excluding 2020, we have just over 1,000 qualified outfielder seasons to look at.

Generally, the excellent defensive seasons have come from players with excellent speed – think Byron Buxton, Crow-Armstrong or Billy Hamilton. Of the 200 seasons in which an outfielder finished in the 90th percentile or better in OAA, three-quarters of them came from fielders who had speed in the 80th percentile or better. Almost every single one of those strong-fielding seasons came from players who were at least above-average in speed, with the rare exceptions being some late-career appearances from the likes of Jackie Bradley Jr. and Jason Heyward – outfielders so great that the loss of speed didn’t immediately take away their skill.

It’s true on the other end, too. Most weak outfield seasons have come from players who simply didn’t have the speed to keep pace. As we explored in 2024, part of what’s made outfield defense better and better – and hits more and more difficult to come by – is that teams are more conscious of putting youth and speed out there. It’s really, really hard to have elite speed and poor outfield defense, which is why this list is so short:

Great speed, poor defense
Sprint speed 95th percentile or better, OAA 20th percentile or worse

• 2025 // Simpson (97th speed, 11th OAA)
• 2022 // Jo Adell (98th, 18th)
• 2021 // Phil Gosselin (95th, 10th)
• 2019 // Mike Trout (95th, 20th)
• 2017 // Trout (96th, 16th)
• 2016 // Andrew McCutchen (95th, 2nd)

That’s it. That’s the whole list. Adell, despite one of the most incredible defensive games of all time, hasn't yet figured out defense consistently, rating poorly as recently as last year. The Pirates immediately tried to shift McCutchen out of center field, and while Starling Marte’s suspension did give McCutchen one additional year in center, he never played there regularly again, moving to the corners and later DH. Gosselin was a utility player near the end of his career. Trout stayed in center – and returned there this year – mostly because he’s Mike Trout, not because he’s the team’s best option there.

Despite all that speed, none of this group really improved defensively – except, it seems, for Simpson.

So what changed? It can’t hurt to have been fortunate enough to get to work with one of history’s greatest outfielders in Kevin Kiermaier, a 10-year Rays stalwart who retired following the 2024 season and spent time in Tampa Bay camp this spring working with Rays outfielders.

“Just being locked in on every pitch. Just caring, honestly,” Simpson said to MLB.com’s Adam Berry back in February. “Not being lackadaisical, expecting the ball, being attentive, just making sure I'm moving on every pitch, expecting every ball to be hit to me. When that's in place, then everything with the routes and jumps and everything will follow.”

While also giving credit to outfield coordinator Jared Sandberg and outfield instructor Corey Dickerson, Simpson made it clear that advice hits a little differently coming from a four-time Gold Glover.

“Not that with other people I'm not listening, but with [Kiermaier], my ears are that much more open,” Simpson said. “Somebody that's really just finished playing, so he's done it in today's game. So definitely been a lot of learning and just taking in everything, for sure, every word that comes out of his mouth.”

It can be seen, quite easily, not so much in top speed – he had plenty of that already – but in his reactions, in how he’s getting a good jump.

Simpson's jump vs. average

• 2025 // +0.3 feet
• 2026 // +3.8 feet
• (Feet traveled in the right direction in first three seconds, vs. MLB average.)

Last year, Simpson was getting essentially average jumps, neither good nor bad. This year, he’s getting jumps that are four feet better than average, which is top-10 – and this is a list where Crow-Armstrong is at the top. Four feet may not sound like a lot, but it’s also easily the difference between getting to a ball or not.

You can see it in some of the poor plays from last year. On this Gunnar Henderson single, Simpson missed on a play with a 95 percent catch probability not only because of an indirect route, but because his jump was 9 feet below average. Given that he was too slow by inches, a merely average jump would have had him there easily.

This Cody Bellinger hit was similar – a jump of 7 feet worse than average – but you don’t really need fancy metrics to see him completely misread the ball and take a sharp left turn midway through the play.

It’s also just simply about gaining experience. Last July against the Orioles, Simpson got a strong jump (+2.4 feet better than average), but again misread the ball and ended up overrunning it, turning an otherwise catchable ball into a double.

Now, look at a very good play from earlier this month that you almost certainly didn’t notice, because it looked routine. (It was not routine.)

Toronto’s Brandon Valenzuela sliced a liner down the line. Simpson got there easily. Based on the time and distance he had to go, it was graded as a 35% catch probability, or a chance not made 7 times in 10. What you didn’t see before the camera turned to Simpson was the absolutely elite reaction time, getting off to a jump 10 feet better than average – which is why he didn’t need to dive, slide, or do anything other than just catch the ball.

It’s not just Simpson, to be clear. Fellow Tampa Bay outfielder Jake Fraley, who spent 2025 with Atlanta and Cincinnati, improved his own outfield jumps from average to +3.2 feet better than average. Neither one of them is the best in the Rays outfield, because Jonny DeLuca, who had also been merely average last year, is actually second behind Crow-Armstrong on the Major League leaderboard, getting jumps five feet better than average.

It might be that Kiermaier’s about to have an incredible second act as an outfield coach, though it should be noted that he also worked with Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz, and that hasn’t worked as well. It might be that moving back indoors to the Trop is a boon for outfielders, since we know that it’s one of the friendliest places to catch the ball. It might be that Simpson is more comfortable in left field, where he's been playing most of the time in 2026, than center, where he was more often in 2025.

Mostly, it’s a reminder that elite speed, more often than not, leads to elite defense. For Simpson, it just took a second to get there.