The Cubs are in Detroit to take on the Tigers and this sets up to be quite the series. Al will have more in his series preview later, but suffice to say the team with the best record in baseball facing off against the team with the second best record in baseball in early June is a great setup for a series. Both teams have been clicking on most cylinders to get to this point and for today’s short porch I wanted to do a deep dive on a marquee matchup of defensive wizards.

The resurgence of Javy Báez and the emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong should take centerstage this weekend. It only adds to the drama that the former was traded for the latter in 2021.

Let’s be very clear, by pretty much every metric PCA is having a better season than El Mago, by a lot. PCA has currently flashed leather, hit 16 bombs and stolen 21 bases to put himself in the National League MVP conversation. Javy is having quite the season, but his six homers and a single stolen base aren’t even close to the MVP tier. That said, they are both hitting .275 and getting on base at very similar clips (.312 for PCA and .305 for Javy). With a 4.9 percent walk rate PCA walks almost twice as much as Javy’s 2.6 percent. But with a 23.2 percent strikeout rate, Javy strikes out less than PCA at 25.5 percent.

But where both of these players really shine is in the field. Check out Javy’s glove work in his new position [VIDEO].

The thing about Pete Crow-Armstrong is that he makes catches that are more difficult than the one above look easy. Check out this snag against the Reds that had a 10 percent catch probability [VIDEO].

Both Javy and PCA are electric. I’d probably give the baseball IQ edge to El Mago and the pure defensive skills edge to PCA. And to be very clear, PCA is the better defender whether your favorite defensive state is defensive runs saved, outs above average or anything in-between.

That said, there are very few players in the game who can make the types of plays at all that Pete Crow-Armstrong makes regularly. It’s kismet that one of those players was traded for the other. Javy may wind up playing at third instead of center during this series now that Parker Meadows is back, but it’s baseball perfection to sort a Statcast leaderboard of five-star opportunities and see these two at the top of it.

Five-star catch leaderboard by percentage of chances made

Baseball Savant