The Ferocious Ballet of Pete Crow-Armstrong Throwing Out Baserunners

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

The big problem with baseball—the thing that convinces so many people (wrongly) that the game is less physically dramatic or demanding than other major team sports—is that, to the casual observer, it looks too non-confrontational. The loss of the collision between baserunner and catcher on plays at the plate is overblown, because those have always been rare plays, anyway. Most of the time, it looks too much like a game of skill and a battle with oneself. 

In basketball, football, hockey, and soccer, players use their bodies to block the progress of opponents, or at least to force them to move in very skilled, precise ways. The ball (or puck) in those sports is always being fought for, too, because it's the currency of the game. It must be possessed, in some sense, to score, and possessing it well turns it into a tool for your offense. One player passes to another or uses their fine control of the ball to advance past a defender or two. Those actions are all about helping the team in possession.

In baseball, instead of physically preventing runners from rounding the bases to score or fielders from converting outs with their bodies, everyone on the field sends the ball as their emissary—and the ball, therefore, takes turns being the adversary of everyone within a play. When a pitcher winds up and fires home, they've done everything they can to constrain the number of valuable moves available to the hitter. They're trying to rush him, overpower him or fool him into messing up—the same way a good defender tackles a ball carrier, affects a jump shot, or forces a striker into a mishit shot on goal. The hitter, though, can cause plenty of problems themselves. With a hard-hit ball (or one to an undefended portion of the field, be it a bunt or a gapper), they force the defense to move and make a difficult play of their own, short not on physical space around them but on the opportunity to get themselves into a comfortable position for playmaking—and on time, of course.

When you watch the game that way—thinking of the ball, in turns, as an agent of whichever side last asserted possession (pitcher; then batter; then defense, when the ball is cleanly held and can be thrown to the best base)—it makes more sense, as an analog to the other sports we enjoy so much. And one wonderful way to glimpse the game through that lens is to watch Pete Crow-Armstrong play center field, because of what you don't see when he's out there.

In the top of the fourth inning on Wednesday, Ben Brown was in big trouble. In fairness, that was not entirely his fault. He'd issued a leadoff walk and allowed a single in the frame, but the big blow had been a double that didn't need to be one, by any means. Although LaMonte Wade Jr. struck the ball well toward Justin Turner at first base, Turner should have had a play on the ball. With each game the 40-year-old plays, it's increasingly plain that he's no longer up to the athletic demands of the league. That's a topic for another article, though.

Sandwiched around the Wade double were a pair of strikeouts, so although the Giants led 2-0 and had runners on second and third, Brown needed just one more out to escape the jam with minimal damage. Unfortunately, he couldn't manage that. Christian Koss cracked a clean, line-drive single to center field, easily bringing home Wilmer Flores from third base. It was a no-brainer send for the third-base coach to have Wade try to score, too—but that fourth run would not go onto the board. Instead, despite giving up a hit, Brown did get out of the inning, right then and there. He owes the credit for that out to his center fielder.

When we conceptualize the hard-hit ball as a challenge by the hitter directly to a fielder, this one looks like a firm and probing one. It left Koss's bat at 99 miles per hour, and Crow-Armstrong never had a chance to catch it. He had to go into damage mode immediately, running first to his left, then bending in toward the ball. It's easy for a fielder to end up waiting back for this ball a beat, without that inward bend of the run. It's even easier for them to field the ball a bit more tentatively than Crow-Armstrong did, or not to be able to square their body to the target of home plate. The ball was hit with pace. It didn't leave him as long as he made it look like he had to shape his response to it.

Crow-Armstrong has a great arm, but whenever he makes a great throw, I find myself watching his feet. Here, notice the way he glides into position, slightly modulating his stride length and leaning his upper body to get himself squared up to the ball as it comes toward him, but not going from long and smooth to short and choppy. See the subtlety of his change of direction, coming to meet the ball on an arc that keeps his strides easy. Then, watch that crow hop. There is zero wasted motion from the time the ball reaches him to when he cuts loose his throw. He fluidly snaps up the bounding ball with his glove, and the transfer to his left hand is in progress instantly. His right foot crosses over one last time as he comes in, keeping his front shoulder in and giving room to his left foot for the quick step in behind. Then, the full stride into the throw comes, all without deceleration.

That batted ball is a very difficult one on which to throw out a runner, especially with two outs. Wade didn't wait to see whether it would be caught, not only because it plainly wouldn't be, but because it wouldn't have mattered if it were. He was charging home right when the ball left the bat, and Koss placed a firmly struck ball on the opposite side of second from where Crow-Armstrong started, forcing him to begin his pursuit with a flat lateral run. That should have been enough to bring a second run home. Brown was unable to crowd or cajole Koss into a mishit. Koss left Crow-Armstrong no margin for error at all, to prevent the second run on the play. It's the equivalent of making a player hit a fadeaway from the baseline, over a 7-footer, with the shot clock running down, or of forcing a forward to take a clean touch off their chest and perfectly hit a ball to the corner of the goal with no room to wind up their leg for power. Crow-Armstrong made the play, anyway.

He's also amid a hot streak at the plate, of course, but it's too early to say that Crow-Armstrong will be a consistently excellent run producer. What we can see for certain—what will be utterly inevitable, for as long as his youth and health hold up—is that Crow-Armstrong is a uniquely brilliant defender, capable of making plays even when the game steals space or time from him in a way that only a few players in each generation can. That makes baseball more fun.

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[We Got The Whole 9]

In my 35 years of watching the Cubs and 25 of which was fervently, I can say without a doubt that he has the best arm we've ever had out there. And to think that he is ALSO the greatest defender we've ever had in CF is crazy. The speed guys rarely have a cannon, you might see some flashes. With PCA it's like every time he is tested he has a legitimate shot to snuff the attempt. 

 

Base hits up the middle with a runner on 2B used to be damn near automatic runs.

 

Btw, his arm is another big whiff by the scouting community.