My inspiration was this FanGraphs article which looked at ‘Are we now in an era of Peak Centerfield Defense?’ The point that most convinced me that we are in that era was that wOBA of air balls hit to center field (excluded homers) fell more than 16% between 2008 and 2025.
Are the Diamondbacks at peak centerfield defense? Let’s look.
Diamondbacks Trends.
For the Diamondbacks, looking at air balls hit to centerfield, their wOBA improved about 8%. My view is that the improvement happened after Mike Hazen became GM.