Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week, August 18

Hello and welcome to another edition of Five Things, a collection of plays I had a blast watching. There was a lot to love in baseball this week: baserunning derring-do, great defense, and tons of exciting young players. There was so much to like, in fact, that I don’t have a single negative thing to say about what I watched on the field. The action was non-stop, and cool plays were everywhere, all the time. I left out an inside-the-park home run, for goodness sake. It might be the dog days of summer, but it was a spectacular week of baseball. So let’s get right to it.

1. Fernando Steals Home
I’ve mentioned a few times in these roundups that I love watching Juan Soto hit, but the best thing I saw him do all week was step out of the batter’s box:

See, Soto knew something the camera didn’t. He knew something the Orioles didn’t. He knew that Fernando Tatis Jr. was rampaging directly towards him:

What an audacious play by Tatis. This wasn’t some pre-determined ploy. There was no runner at first base to execute the first part of a decoy. He just saw that he could make it, and then he went for it. Honestly, it wasn’t even close.

I like this play because it was an adrenaline rush, but I also like it because Tatis’ baserunning acumen was on such magnificent display. It’s not like stealing home is solely about speed, or even mostly about speed; the pitcher is right there. If he so much as glances your way, the game is up. If the catcher yells something, the game is up. If you didn’t get far enough down the line because the third baseman was holding you on, the game is up.

Tatis internalized all of that in this instant, as he went from ambling to jogging to a full sprint:

And instead of taking out a calculator and tapping some numbers into a spreadsheet (that’s how I’d handle this — my brain doesn’t work like his), he just went. He was safe by so much that Cionel Pérez didn’t even bother with a throw. This was a baseball masterclass, the kind of baserunning bolt of lightning that gives fans a reason to tune into the Padres night in and night out. Even Manny Machado was impressed:

2. Joc Pederson’s Mad Dash
And now for something decidedly less stylish. It might surprise you to learn that Joc Pederson was quite fleet of foot when he was younger. He was famously his high school’s best wide receiver, ahead of future Hall of Famer Davante Adams. He was a center fielder as a prospect, but that was all a long time ago; these days, he’s a DH who sometimes moonlights in the outfield. So when Randy Arozarena took a family circus route to Michael Conforto’s double in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s Rays/Giants clash, I expected Joc to go from first to third:

Of course, he didn’t do that, which is why he’s in this segment. As I mentioned, he is not an elite runner anymore. He’s not an average runner. Despite that ball carrying all the way to the wall, despite the jump he got thanks to there being two outs, the throw beat him home:

But clearly, he’s still got some of that high school shiftiness in him. You’re not out until they tag you, and Pederson refused to get tagged:

Oh man, I loved watching this. I was ready to laugh at the absurdity of trying to go for it in that situation. Even live, I found myself laughing at everyone’s post-play poses:

But that move was exquisite. It might not have looked like it, but it required a spectacular amount of fine motor coordination. Imagine running as fast as you can – whatever speed that might be – and then sliding. Okay, now lift your lead leg a foot or so above where you’d normally have it, so that when a catcher wheels around to hit you, there’s nothing there. But you still have to touch home plate, so sneak your hand in, being careful to sneak under the glove that you know is coming. Not so easy when you put it that way. As an added bonus, Joc provided his own real-time umpiring review system:

Great athletic plays from this-dude-is-an-alien players like Tatis are fun, but give me great athletic plays from guys who look like they accidentally spill mustard on their shirts at home. A faster player would have scored standing up. A less coordinated player would have been thrown out. The exact circumstances required to end up with this particular outcome happen extremely rarely, and I’m invariably entertained when they do.

3. Cedric Mullins Goes Both Ways
I’m pretty sure you’ve already seen this one, but let’s face it: This sequence was the best of the week, and it’d be outrageous not to feature it here. Cedric Mullins is a superlative center fielder, perennially one of the best in the game, and he showed it in a one-run game on Sunday. Ty France launched one to center. Mullins intercepted it:

I think that home run robberies are overrated as a highlight type. A lot of them involve someone standing near a wall and putting their glove up. Sometimes the ball wouldn’t even be a home run regardless of defensive intervention. But this one was absolutely not that. Mullins, who stands all of 5-foot-8, high-pointed the ball and brought it back from over the wall:

Then, he celebrated:

But his work wasn’t done, because Dominic Canzone launched a game-tying homer the very next at-bat. Are you kidding me?! All that effort to preserve the lead, undone by those pesky Mariners. Fine, I guess Cedric would have to do it himself:

There are other Orioles, I promise. A lot of them are really fun! But on this day, Mullins pretty much did it all himself. He was the difference, the entire difference, and even when his superhuman effort wasn’t enough, he just went out and found a new way to win.

Mercifully, Mullins didn’t have to perform any more heroic feats in the bottom of the 10th to secure the win. His over-the-top (literally) robbery and jaw-dropping (figuratively) homer were enough. Pretty solid day at the office.

4. Paul Skenes, Live on Television
We have other writers at FanGraphs who know the draft inside and out. I tend to hear about it as it comes up, and subsequently as the players filter into their respective farm systems. But it’s more of a conceptual awareness than anything else; I know these guys exist, but that’s not the same as being able to picture them in my head, or even knowing how to pronounce their names sometimes.

For a lot of top draft picks, that remains the case even after they’re drafted. You could show me every at-bat that Max Clark, the third pick in the draft, has taken all year, and I’m not sure I’d know what to do with it. He’s a high schooler. He’s mostly played against other high schoolers, and now he’s in a Complex League where he’s playing against other teenagers. Even Dylan Crews, who I know is great, doesn’t really look like a major league hitter because the pitchers he faces aren’t ready for primetime.

That’s not the case with Paul Skenes. He came into the draft as the closest thing to a major leaguer in all of college baseball. He throws 100 with movement. He backs it up with a hellacious slider. You can picture that kind of stuff, because you’re used to current big leaguers dominating with roughly those same pitches. And thanks to the magic of modern streaming technology, his first professional start was available to watch from the comfort of your own home.

How did he look? Well, basically like I expected he would. He looked like a good major league pitcher right this minute. He even got the Pitching Ninja treatment, something you don’t see every day in A-ball. His fastball, shape questions and all, looked explosive:

Paul Skenes, 97mph Sinker movement. pic.twitter.com/9fKfQhZIDS

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 16, 2023

He located it well, though I’m not sure how much signal you can take from him punishing these poor minor leaguers:

Paul Skenes' Stuff from Tonight. pic.twitter.com/HzBaOD0tIn

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 16, 2023

His slider looked as good as advertised. He missed bats with ease en route to two strikeouts. It looked like a major league pitcher’s rehab assignment, which is crazy for a player pitching his second inning of professional baseball. If you wondered whether Skenes was some kind of college creation, wonder no more: He’s the real deal.

Given his workload at LSU, Skenes likely won’t pitch much more this season. His two professional outings – he made one in the Florida Complex League before this one – have each been one inning. I don’t think he’ll make many more appearances before the Pirates break out the bubble wrap for the year. But I find it incredibly cool that I can watch whatever innings he does throw, and see with my own eyes how good he looks against professional hitters (no, I don’t watch much college baseball, why do you ask?).

5. Another Defensive Gem in Cincy
Zach Lowe, the patron saint of this column, coined the idea of “League Pass teams.” NBA League Pass is like MLB.TV, only for basketball. His idea is that there are some teams that are just fun to watch night in and night out, independent of whether they’re your hometown team or even in a playoff race. Now that they’re starting to fade from the NL Central picture, I think it’s time to move the Reds from the top of the playoff excitement list to the top of the “tune in and watch these guys” list.

An example is in order. I tuned in to watch these guys on Tuesday in a game they ultimately lost 3-0. They were already down 2-0 when I turned the game on, and the Guardians were threatening to add on. Graham Ashcraft committed a cardinal sin, walking Myles Straw. Then something beautiful happened:

There’s a lot to like here. Christian Encarnacion-Strand made an impressive play to turn and get the ball out of his hands quickly. This is a tough play for any first baseman, but especially for a right-handed one, because the throwing lane has a runner in it. Look at how far forward he moved while fielding and turning to secure an easy look:

That was nice, and it was a good enough feed to give the Reds a chance, but that’s Steven Kwan running. As we learned last week, it takes something special to turn a double play against him. He bats lefty, he gets out of the box quickly, and he’s fast; basically the worst-case scenario for the defense. But oh, right, Elly De La Cruz was playing shortstop:

My goodness, that ball had zip. It needed every last bit of it, because Kwan was flying down the line. Encarnacion-Strand also needed every last bit of reach, because throws that hard aren’t always accurate. The Guardians announcers couldn’t do anything but chuckle. That play was a series of unlikely outcomes that stacked up on each other; an ordinary grounder turned into a spectacular defensive effort. I also enjoyed Straw freezing and then getting on the ground; you don’t want to be anywhere near the flight path of a De La Cruz missile. Relatable!

You get to see things like that a lot when you watch the Reds. De La Cruz is phenomenal, and the rest of the youngsters are no slouches either. Joey Votto is a ton of fun. There’s never a dull moment when they’re on offense. Unfortunately, there’s also never a dull moment when they’re pitching, which is part of why they’ve been spinning their wheels since the All-Star break. They’re 13-18 over that stretch, and they’re in danger of falling out of the race in the NL Central if they can’t get things back in gear soon. But even if they don’t make the playoffs, I can guarantee you one thing: You’ll have a lot of fun when you’re watching them, whether they’re at the plate or in the field.