{"id":92733,"date":"2025-06-10T06:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/92733\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T06:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T06:32:14","slug":"watch-athletics-defensive-wizard-denzel-clarke-robs-surefire-home-run-in-catch-of-the-year-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/92733\/","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: Athletics defensive wizard Denzel Clarke robs surefire home run in catch of the year candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Athletics<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Catch of the year in Major League Baseball? It’s too early to say definitively, of course, but this miracle snare by Denzel Clarke<\/a> of the Athletics<\/a> might just be the favorite as of June 9. You won’t see a more jaw-dropping home-run robbery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A deep fly by Nolan Schanuel<\/a> of the Angels<\/a> had a .690 expected batting average on it, and per Statcast estimations, it would have been a home run in four of 30 MLB<\/a> ballparks. Clarke, though, wasn’t having it. Here’s a look at what he did at the expense of the deep drive off Schanuel’s bat on\u00a0Monday night<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Clarke is already no stranger to highlight grabs, as he proved mere days ago against the Orioles<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worth the price of admission, this guy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old rookie Clarke has played in just 16 games this season, but the center fielder has already made a huge difference with his fielding. According to Statcast, he’s already 6 Outs Above Average. That ties him for sixth in MLB among center fielders even though he’d logged just 118 defensive innings coming into Monday night. The other leading public-facing defensive metric, Defensive Runs Saved<\/a>, ranks Clarke 10th among his positional peers despite not having played all that much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There’s not much to recommend about the A’s these days, but Clarke’s artistry in the outfield is a notable exception.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Catch of the year in Major League Baseball? It’s too early to say definitively, of course,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[537,47,5,14905,56,4,4953],"class_list":{"0":"post-92733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-denzel-clarke","12":"tag-los-angeles-angels","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-nolan-schanuel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114657672948313316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}