We’re one week away from the All-Star Game in Atlanta where Cubs Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker will start the game in the outfield. Both Tucker and Crow-Armstrong are known for excellent defense in addition to solid hitting skills, but today I want to take a quick look at exactly how good PCA’s defense is in center field. It turns out that he’s truly in a category we haven’t seen in at least a decade.
During yesterday’s off day I came across this post on Bluesky and I admit I stared at it for a while (Bluesky link):
Dating back to 2016, so basically since outfield catch probability has been tracked by Statcast there are only three players who have made 18 five-star catches. As a reminder, those are catches that have less than a 25 percent chance of being made. Those three players are Kevin Kiermaier, Michael A. Taylor and Pete Crow-Armstrong.
But what’s really eye popping in that table is the percentage of five-star catches made by those players. Kiermaier, viewed as one of the best defenders in center field in baseball, made 18 catches in 102 tracked opportunities, or 17.6 percent of five-star opportunities. PCA has made 18 catches in just 32 opportunities — an eye-popping 56.3 percent of five star opportunities.
You can scan the whole list of all-time five-star catches. There is no other player in the Statcast Era who’s had at least 10 opportunities for five-star catches who’s made more than 30 percent of those catches. Only a handful of players have made more than 25 percent of those opportunities. That list includes a slew of young very talented center fielders like Jose Siri (28.6 percent), Johan Rojas (28.0 percent), Jacob Young (26.5 percent), Michael Siani (25 percent) and Parker Meadows (25 percent). Those are some really talented center fielders — and they make fewer than half of the five-star opportunities Pete Crow-Armstrong has made in his brief career.
We are truly seeing something special in center field night in and night at out Wrigley Field. Enjoy every second of it, there hasn’t been anything like this in MLB in at least a decade [VIDEO].