Photo: Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire

Did you happen to see this catch by Blue Jays right fielder George Springer against the Red Sox last week? We did and we weren’t particularly surprised by it.

From 2022 to 2024, no right fielder dove for a ball more than the 30 times that Springer did. In fact, only one other right fielder had even half as many diving attempts in that span as Springer did, his teammate, Anthony Santander (25).

In those 30 times that Springer dove, he caught the ball 22 times, a success rate of 73%, pretty good given that the average right fielder was successful at making a catch on 54% of his dives (center field and left field have similar rates of effectiveness).

If you were listening to our most recent episode of The SIS Baseball Podcast, you heard our guest, Hannah Keyser, and I run through “The All-Scrapes Team.” That’s the list of players who dove the most at each infield and outfield position over those three seasons.

We’re still largely working in small sample sizes for 2025, so we thought it would be fun to review that All-Scrapes squad with some comments related to each of the leaders and positions.

First Base – Pete Alonso dove for balls 139 times from 2022 to 2024. The next-closest first baseman was Carlos Santana (81). Alonso was a little better than average at getting outs on his dives (41% of the time, MLB average was 37%).

The most effective divers by percentage were Ryan Mountcastle and a relative newcomer to the position, Bryce Harper, both with 60% success rates. Harper ranked second to Alonso in dives by a first baseman last season with 39.

Second Base – Three second basemen dove more than 100 times in the last three seasons – Andrés Giménez (140), Bryson Stott (113), and Nico Hoerner (112). Of those, Giménez is the most successful, recording an out on 25% of his dives (MLB average is 24%).

Brendan Rodgers had the best track record at getting outs on dives (45%). At the other end is Jeff McNeil, who got an out just five times on 60 diving attempts (8%).

Shortstop – The leaders in dives are Geraldo Perdomo and C.J. Abrams with 111. The average shortstop is successful on only 21% of his dives, so Perdomo’s 32% looks pretty good.

Perdomo and Abrams played the position differently from a lot of shortstops. The average shortstop dives every 2.5 times for every time he slides to make a play, but Perdomo and Abrams almost never slid, doing so just 7 and 3 times, respectively.

Third Base – Alec Bohm (115) and Rafael Devers (96) ranked 1-2 in dives in that time. Before you say, ‘Only bad fielders dive for balls,’ you should know that the next five players in diving attempts are Matt Chapman, Austin Riley, Ryan McMahon, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Alex Bregman.

Of the 20 third basemen who dove the most, the one who got an out most often was Manny Machado (38%).

Left field – Jurickson Profar (27) and Ian Happ (26) are the top two here. Happ goes all out for balls in all sorts of ways. His 133 slides, dives, and jumps in that span were miles ahead of the player with the second-most, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., 78. Shout-out to Brandon Nimmo, who has split time center field and left field and has recorded an out on 80% of his dives over the last three seasons.

Center field – Brenton Doyle is another outfielder who goes all-out, so much so that he had more dives in two seasons (34) than any other center fielder had in three. He won a Fielding Bible Award last year for playing with a high effort level. Standouts at getting outs when they played center field and dove included Riley Greene (79%) and Cedric Mullins (78%)

Right field – As mentioned above, Springer leads the way in dives here and is highly effective when he does dive.

All Players – Because some players switch positions, we thought it was worth checking the overall leaderboard, and in fact, the top diver was a position switcher – Nico Hoerner of the Cubs has 155 dives for balls over the last three seasons. However, we’re wondering if he might be able to save his body a little bit. He’s been successful at getting an out on only 15% of his diving attempts.

Here are the leaders by position:

Most Diving Attempts – 2022 to 2024