{"id":548805,"date":"2026-02-01T07:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548805\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T07:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:51:18","slug":"red-soxs-ceddanne-rafaela-ranked-among-mlbs-top-defenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548805\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox&#8217;s Ceddanne Rafaela Ranked Among MLB&#8217;s Top Defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Red Sox pitchers will love having Ceddanne Rafaela patrol Fenway Park\u2019s outfield for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p>Rafaela won a <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/11\/two-red-sox-players-win-2025-al-gold-glove-awards\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gold Glove Award<\/a> in his second full season, leading all center fielders with 20 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/leaders\/major-league?pos=all&amp;stats=fld&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=y&amp;type=1&amp;season=2025&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2025&amp;ind=0&amp;sortcol=12&amp;sortdir=default&amp;pagenum=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defensive runs saved<\/a> (DRS) despite shifting to second base during the summer. The 25-year-old\u2019s glove work received more recognition from an MLB.com analyst.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Petriello ranked his <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MLBNow\/status\/2017410502851539267\" rel=\"nofollow\">top-10 defensive players<\/a> in all of baseball for MLB Network\u2019s \u201cMLB Now.\u201d Rafaela placed third, sandwiched between fellow center fielders Pete Crow-Armstrong and Denzel Clark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can probably order those guys any single way that you want,\u201d Petriello said of the three outfielders.<\/p>\n<p>Petriello gave his No. 1 spot to San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, who won his second consecutive Gold Glove in 2025. Third baseman Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes rounded out the top five, followed by Bobby Witt Jr., Alejandro Kirk, Jacob Young, <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/red-sox-have-reportedly-checked-in-on-these-two-cubs-players\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rumored Red Sox trade target<\/a> Nico Hoerner and Steven Kwan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Rafaela has quickly earned a reputation as an elite fielder. Petriello gave a slight nod to Crow-Armstrong, but the Chicago Cubs star called Rafaela \u201cthe best in the game\u201d when <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/11\/fellow-gold-glove-winner-gushes-over-red-soxs-ceddanne-rafaela\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">endorsing his peer<\/a> as a deserving winner for the American League\u2019s Platinum Gold Award, which went to Witt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>That should motivate Boston to keep Rafaela at center field, especially since he also struggled at the plate after moving to second base. He can take the next step by displaying more consistency at the plate.<\/p>\n<p>Rafaela was one of MLB\u2019s hottest hitters when batting .285 with 11 home runs in June and July, but he couldn\u2019t maintain that breakout with a .622 OPS over the following 52 games. His glove nevertheless makes Rafaela an essential piece of Boston\u2019s puzzle in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Red Sox pitchers will love having Ceddanne Rafaela patrol Fenway Park\u2019s outfield for the foreseeable future. Rafaela&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,1396,4,89,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-548805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-ceddanne-rafaela","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-red-sox","15":"tag-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115994288719001126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}