A recent look at Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Taylor Walls revealed how, although he was not an everyday player, he was good enough to still rank among baseball’s best defenders even when playing only slightly more than half the time. Indeed, by some measures, Walls is the best defender in baseball.
If a player is good enough of a defensive star at one of the more important defensive positions, substantial offensive shortcomings can be overcome. A defensive specialist can be an overall positive player for his team, even if he is a nigh-on guaranteed out. Athletics center fielder Denzel Clarke has just proven that, and then some.
A recent play in which Clarke made a home run-stealing grab on a deep fly by Los Angeles Angels first baseman Nolan Schanuel, while halfway over the fence, gained a lot of traction on social media. It was an extremely impressive play, and one of the best over-the-fence retrievals it is possible to imagine.
However, it also was not his only one. Clarke has two other home run robberies of similar caliber already in his young Major League career.
Athletics Rookie Already One Of Baseball’s Best Defenders
Clarke made his Major League debut as recently as May 23, and yet already can be found on defensive leaderboards.
Measured by the metric known as Outs Above Average (OAA) – as tracked by Baseball Savant –Â Clarke is already sixth in the league. His 10 OAA this season in just 25 games played puts him second in baseball for all outfielders, behind only all-around breakout superstar Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs, and only six points behind Bobby Witt Jr of the Kansas City Royals for the majors lead.
The record for a single season OAA in the ten-year history of the statistic’s existence is 35, set by Nick Ahmed (then of the Arizona Diamondbacks) in the 2018 season, while the record for any outfielder is the 28 posted by Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins in 2017. Only Ahmed and Javier Baez of the Cubs (32 OAA in 2019) have ever recorded over 30. At his current rate of accumulation, extrapolating Clarke’s 10-in-25 rate over a full 162-game schedule would see him record an OAA of 65, absolutely obliterating the previous record.
By Contrast, Clarke’s Offensive Struggles
To be sure, OAA is only a measure a player can add to if they have a play to make on the ball, i.e. if it is hit to them. For Clarke to have such a high score so early, a disproportionate number of chances must have been hit to him, which no hitter can truly control. Clarke is not targeted by hitters, and would absolutely be avoided if possible given his obvious prowess – that high degree of luck of balls hit in his direction will remedy over time.
That said, even if he was only posting numbers at half of his current rate, he would still be on track for the best defensive season of an outfielder since such things have been able to be effectively measured. Clarke really has been that good defensively.
At the plate, however, it has been a different story.
After suffering the ignominy of recording 16 strikeouts in his first 20 appearances, Clarke appeared swamped at the plate, and a slight uptick since then does not change that much. He has recorded 80 at-bats across his first 25 games in the majors, and has struck out in 37 of them, alongside only three extra-base hits and two walks. He has almost been as bad on the offensive end as he has been good on the defensive end.
Nevertheless, Clarke’s defensive excellence has been a welcome infusion of fun and hope in an anticlimactic Athletics season. Second-last in the majors in ERA despite significant offseason investment in pitching, second-last in opponent slugging percentage and last in home runs given up, they cannot seem to stop deep flies from being laced up to and over the wall on a nightly basis. But with Clarke in the fold, at least he can bring some of them back.
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