Every offseason, multiple publications issue rankings for the best prospects, pitchers and position players across the league. MLB Network does quite a few on its own.
MLB Network show MLB Now uses "The Shredder" to assess players, which bases its rankings on "performance, various offensive and defensive metrics (including both advanced statistics and traditional numbers) and analysis by the MLB Network research team," to calculate its top 10 at each position. Even with all these parameters, rankings are subjective, and baseball fans haven't been afraid to make that clear.
The Shredder's list of the top 10 left fielders going into the 2026 season dropped on January 27 and Boston Red Sox fans have some questions, but love the results. Roman Anthony has been named the No. 2 left fielder in the league and only Jarren Duran ranks ahead of him at No. 1.
It's great to see Anthony getting so much respect from evaluators around the league. He slashed .292/.396/.463 with an .859 OPS over 71 games with the Red Sox — even that small sample size was enough for Anthony to cement himself as one of the best players in MLB (at least, according to The Shredder). Despite his time in the major leagues being short so far, Anthony has lived up to his No. 1 overall prospect hype.
MLB Network's 'The Shredder' ranks Jarren Duran and Roman Anthony as the No. 1 and 2 left fielders in baseball, respectively
A pair of Red Sox take the top two spots on @MLBNow's #Top10RightNow in LF! pic.twitter.com/nTVIPzqsX3
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) January 28, 2026
Duran posted a bit of a down year in 2025 compared to his 2024 performance, for which he earned an All-Star nomination and MVP votes, but The Shredder took an extra year to catch up with him. Duran batted .256/.332/.442 with a .774 OPS and 24 stolen bases over 157 games. Unlike Anthony, a plus defender, Duran logged -4 outs above average last season.
Many baseball fans — even Sox fans — have expressed their discontent with The Shredder's lists. Before the latest installment, Yordan Alvarez ranked as the best left fielder in the league in the past three seasons. He and Duran both regressed last season, but somehow Duran moved up a spot to No.1 while Alvarez fell to No. 7. Anthony played just over two month's worth of games in the big leagues and has already rocketed past some of the top competition.
Let's not forget that The Shredder made a few notable omissions. Steven Kwan is an elite defender and one of the top contact hitters in MLB with the league's best whiff rate and a 99th percentile strikeout rate, but he didn't make MLB Network's top 10. Many fans in the comments also expressed their frustrations about Wyatt Langford and Tyler Soderstrom's absences on the list.
Regardless of the upset from fans outside of Boston, Red Sox fans will take their stacked outfield and run with it. Boston's infield is severely lacking without Alex Bregman returning for 2026, and having two of the best outfielders in the game (keep in mind Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu haven't been evaluated yet) may crush some of the hurt.