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.