If you want an outfielder this winter, you can go sign some good ones. Kyle Tucker is obviously the best free agent on the market, and Cody Bellinger is going to be highly valued as well. While Kyle Schwarber is much more a DH than a fielder at this point, he still manages to get out to left for a few games per season. The Yankees already managed to retain one, keeping 34-homer man Trent Grisham when he accepted the qualifying offer.
But those four names all have something in common: They swing from the left side. If you want a right-handed outfielder, you’re in for something else. The best righty hitters – Rob Refsnyder, Miguel Andujar, Harrison Bader – may all have something you like about their games, whether it’s Refsnyder and Andujar’s ability to hit lefties or Bader’s excellent defense. But none are stars, or even close to it. They might even be more role players than starters on good teams.
After that, you’re into former studs with long careers behind them who are now in the latter half of their 30s, such as Andrew McCutchen, Tommy Pham, Starling Marte and Chris Taylor. Or you're hoping for someone like Lane Thomas to rebound coming off a brutal year, or … well, there is no or. That’s it.
It’s not a deep group. It’s not just the free agents, either. A good, regular right-handed-hitting outfielder has never been harder to find. We’re not being hyperbolic, and yes we’ll back it up: never been harder to find, at least in the memory of most anyone alive.
This might explain a little behind what went into the initially shocking-on-the-surface swap Baltimore made earlier this offseason to get one year of 31-year-old outfielder Taylor Ward from the Angels for four years of 24-year-old starter Grayson Rodriguez. It might explain some similar moves that might be coming, too.
So: What’s going on here? We’d better start by showing just how dire the situation really is.
In 2025, there were 16 outfielders (defined here as players who had at least 50% of their playing time coming on the grass) who took 400 plate appearances, and did so with average-or-better hitting, i.e. a 100 OPS+ or better. That’s the stars you’d expect, like Aaron Judge, Ronald Acuña Jr., Julio Rodríguez and Byron Buxton, as well as some solid veterans (like Bader, Ward and Randy Arozarena) and some younger players making their name (like Jackson Chourio, Andy Pages and Wyatt Langford).
Sixteen regular righty outfielders who can hit, or roughly one for every two teams. That’s one fewer than in 2024, and it’s a lot fewer than in most any season of the previous decade, which regularly featured about 25 such hitters, sometimes topping 30. But most pressingly: It’s the lowest number in more than six decades.
The last time there had been that few righty-hitting outfielders with average or better hitting in a full season was 1960, when there were only 15. But 1960 is a pretty notable year in baseball history, as it was the final season with just 16 teams before the Expansion Era began in 1961, which eventually swelled the sport to two dozen teams by the end of the decade. Having 15 of those players spread among 16 teams is a whole lot different than 16 of them spread among 30 teams, isn’t it?
Put another way: Last season, one of every 16 players at any position with meaningful playing time (which we’re saying is anyone with 200 plate appearances) was a righty outfielder who could hit. It’s the lowest rate in the history of integrated baseball, back to 1947. In 2010, that was one of every eight. In 1954, it was one of every six.
This used to be Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente. Now it’s … well, not that. So, what’s up here?
In part, it’s just “there are fewer regular righty outfielders at all,” because if we remove the requirement to have hit well, then the 26 regular righty outfielders we just saw is the fewest since 1966. (Which again, has the “many fewer teams” issue.)
Why stop there? Part of it is just “there are fewer righties,” which is quite a change from what we said five years ago, noting the decline in lefty batters. While the 2023 shift restriction rules didn’t have much of an impact on hits or batting average, it does seem like it’s made teams a little more willing to push lefty hitters into the lineup.
But mostly, it’s about production.
As a group, right-handed-hitting outfielders had a 100 Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), which is to say “they hit exactly as well as the average Major League hitter,” because 100 is always set as "average" in these things. (wRC+ is basically just "fancy OPS+," if that’s easier to think about.)
That probably sounds like nothing to worry about, except right-handed-hitting outfielders are expected to hit better than average, better than shortstops, catchers and everyone else. It’s such a low mark that it’s the third-lowest since the Live Ball Era began way back in 1920, and when you look at these seasons, you’ll notice two things. First, that 2023 and ‘24 are visible here, which makes it not a one-off fluke; second, that the number of mid-’40s seasons is directly attributable to stars being off at war.
Weakest hitting seasons for RH OF, since 1920
- 98 wRC+ // 1997
- 99 wRC+ // 2024
- 100 wRC+ // 2025, 1934, 1944
- 101 wRC+ // 2023, 1942, 1946
What that's expressing is that in 2025, righty outfielders got mildly out-hit (.723 OPS to .718) by all shortstops. In 2006, for example, righty outfielders out-hit shortstops by 63 points of OPS.
The Mets, to pick one team, had all of three homers from righty-hitting outfielders last year – one from Marte and two from Tyrone Taylor. While that’s a little about how left-handed their outfield was, with lefties Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo often flanking Jeff McNeil and the switch-hitting Cedric Mullins, it’s also about how little Taylor hit, too. It’s the fewest such homers any club has recorded since the 2017 Rockies managed just two.
Or take the Cardinals, who just got a .200/.263/.287 line from righty outfielders, a .550 OPS that’s the weakest by any team since at least 1969, when data became easily available. (This is largely because Jordan Walker, their only regular righty, had a miserable year. But still.) Or the Guardians, who had just one righty at any position (Gabriel Arias) take 200 plate appearances, which is just the second time since 1900 (!) that a team managed to not have more than one such player.
What it means is that teams with an overflow of lefty outfielders that may be looking to trade one – think the Red Sox, or the Twins, or the Cardinals or the D-backs – may have a harder time doing so than you’d think. Teams that need one – the Mets, Guardians, Royals and Reds stand out here – might have to do what Baltimore did.
You might, then, find better interest than you’d think in trade candidates such as Teoscar Hernández (Dodgers), or Luis Robert Jr. (White Sox), or Jake Meyers (Astros), or perhaps even Byron Buxton (Twins), should he be made available. If the Hot Stove is really just expressions of supply and demand, then the powerful righty outfielder is woefully short on supply.