{"id":529602,"date":"2026-03-11T17:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/529602\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T17:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:51:08","slug":"ceddanne-rafaela-lands-in-top-10-of-bleacher-reports-center-fielder-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/529602\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceddanne Rafaela Lands In Top 10 Of Bleacher Report’s Center Fielder Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ceddanne Rafaela Lands In Top 10 Of Bleacher Report’s Center Fielder Rankings<\/a> originally appeared on NESN<\/a>. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Boston Red Sox<\/a> center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela landed at No. 10 on a new outfielder ranking published by Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Rafaela won his first Gold Glove last season for the Red Sox, and while he offers defensive versatility, Alex Cora has said this offseason that the plan is for Ceddanne to be the full-time center fielder in 2026.<\/p>\n

“Rafaela has a strong case for the title of best defensive center fielder, and his 20 DRS trailed only Steven Kwan (22) among all players in 2025,” Reuter wrote on Wednesday. “His on-base skills are lacking, but his 4.8 percent walk rate actually represented an improvement from the 2.6 percent mark he logged as a rookie. With his glove, a 90 OPS+ with 40 extra-base hits and 20 steals will consistently make him a 4-WAR player.”<\/p>\n

Here’s what the rest of the top 10 looked like on Reuter’s list:<\/p>\n

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9. Mike Trout
8. Trent Grisham
7. Michael Harris II
6. Steven Kwan
5. Daulton Varsho
4. Jackson Merrill
3. Byron Buxton
2. Pete Crow-Armstrong
1. Julio Rodr\u00edguez<\/p>\n

Rafaela slashed .249\/.295\/.414 last season with 54 extra-base hits, 16 home runs, and 20 stolen bases.<\/p>\n

More MLB: Meet the New Red Sox: What’s Changed \u2014 and Why It Matters in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ceddanne Rafaela Lands In Top 10 Of Bleacher Report’s Center Fielder Rankings originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[34797,19829,3959,1993,49,48,3994,135049,76947,30687,14570,136984,18286,4011,462,14257,82,486,8294],"class_list":["post-529602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-cora","tag-bleacher-report","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-byron-buxton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ceddanne-rafaela","tag-center-fielder","tag-daulton-varsho","tag-gold-glove","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-joel-reuter","tag-julio-rodriguez","tag-mike-trout","tag-mlb","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-sports","tag-steven-kwan","tag-trent-grisham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}