Catchers, second basemen, shortstops and center fielders are hitting better than they have in at least 50 years, relative to the total offensive production in Major League Baseball, according to Baseball-Reference.com and its Play Index.

As you can see, four of the five highest tOPS figures—in essence, the (park-adjusted) percentage of the league’s average OPS for all plate appearances—are the last four seasons. That’s about as conclusive as it gets. Up-the-middle defenders are delivering more offensive punch, relative to their leaguemates, than ever.

Let’s unpack this finding. It’s interesting on its own merit, but the phenomenon—I hope that word isn’t too hyperbolic—is actually a product of a few other trends within the game, some of which you know about, others of which you might not.

First of all, catchers, second basemen and shortstops are exclusively right-handed throwers, and therefore, tend disproportionately to be right-handed batters. That matters, because (and one could, conceivably, find this to be an even more interesting finding) right-handed batters had both a better BABIP:

and a near-equal OPS:

to those posted by left-handed batters, making 2014 the most righty-friendly offensive environment on record. This is where I’m probably not telling you anything terribly surprising: We know that the changing strike zone and defensive shifts are killing left-handed batters. Still, now you know: There has literally never been a worse time to be a left-handed batter, nor a better time to be a right-handed one. That’s part of the explanation for our positional paradox. (By the way, though, one part of the reason for the handedness phenomenon is that fewer and fewer bad right-handed hitters are getting the chance to hit.)

Those shifts help explain the phenomenon in another way. Because they exist, teams can afford to play one or two players up the middle who might otherwise be considered defensively substandard.

Here’s the other thing that plays to the advantage of our suddenly-slugging up-the-middle men:

Don’t look for the obvious factoid in this table. It isn’t there. Let me explain what I’m getting at.

The 2014 season ranks 20th among the 101 seasons listed in terms of league-average batting average on balls in play. That should surprise you, because in runs scored per team per game, the 2014 season ranks 82nd out of 101. Let me put that in context, with a table I generated myself (!), instead of one from Baseball-Reference (although, still using their delightful data):

BABIP and Runs Per Game

This illustrates something I noticed a while ago, but was having trouble articulating. I can do that better now. The rapid rise in strikeout rate has broken the moorings that tied BABIP to run scoring. Because all batters strike out relatively often (only four qualifying players had a lower strikeout rate than the league-average rate from 1945), players are selected, more than ever, for their ability to hit the ball hard—and better athletes hit the ball harder. Since the best athletes play in the middle of the field, it shouldn’t surprise us that they’ve enjoyed a more prominent role in offenses throughout the league, especially because the left-handed sluggers that normally populate first base and the corner outfield spots are being marginalized by an oceanic strike zone.

Think about the guys who rack up great BABIPs each year, or, if you prefer, simply ponder the best athletes the game has to offer. The top names that come to mind for me are Mike Trout, Andrelton Simmons, Carlos Gomez and Andrew McCutchen. People who loved the Royals this October will think of Lorenzo Cain. That’s five right-handed up-the-middle players. Simmons isn’t a good hitter, but he’s a better one than similarly gifted defensive shortstops were at his age, from Ozzie Smith to Omar Vizquel. The others are superstars. The reason is that they all happen to be playing in a league more welcoming to their skill set than any previous iteration.

We need to adjust for this. Positional value is diminished right now, in a way I would say is very real. The game’s most underrated players, at this moment, might just be guys like Victor Martinez and Nelson Cruz. When Sam Miller talks about the bomb-ass line, we might need to adjust the figure he found downward. Solid, above-average corner bats, even if not monster mashers, are more valuable than ever. Another name you could put in the same category, maybe even as a better fit: new St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jason Heyward. Though a corner outfielder with a 108 OPS+ last season, Heyward has tremendous value, not only because of his great glove, but because he’s a more than serviceable left-handed hitter, position be damned. You need good hitters, and good hitters are harder to find than ever, and what position they play matters less than ever, and a lefty bat who can thump right-handed arms is harder to find than ever. It’s a brave new world (though not, for Heyward, a Brave one; Hey-O!), and this information should inform your valuation of players.

I hope you enjoyed digging into this the way I did. What a fascinating set of trends, when placed side-by-side this way. What a revelatory inquiry this has been.