The Best Wall Smushes of 2025

One of the fun parts of writing about baseball is the image services. We use Imagn Images, which is owned by USA Today. Like all image services, it licenses pictures taken by professional photographers all over the world to news organizations without their own photographers. That very much includes FanGraphs. We’re not photographers. I’m definitely not a photographer. Here’s the most recent picture I took. It’s a bunch of dusty foam acoustic panels, and I think you’ll agree that the composition is garbage.

Luckily, the image service allows us to use pictures from actual talented photographers. These people take superlative action shots, and then we grab a convenient one for the top of each article. The system works, but it leaves so, so many cool pictures unused. Today, I’d like to highlight one category of pictures that is a particular favorite of mine: Outfielders smushing themselves into the wall as they try to make a leaping catch. As subgenres go, it’s a delight, and so we’re going to honor the best it has to offer.

I’ve gone through the image service looking for the best and smushiest plays of the 2025 season. That necessarily leaves out many plays where an outfielder smushed into the wall but it didn’t get captured on film or selected for distribution. Still, it’s worth it to celebrate the photographers and focus on great, high-quality images, and we still have more than enough to choose from. We’re going to count them down until we get to the best one. We will award points for actually making the play. We’ll award points for big moments, for altitude, for having your limbs splayed out at hilarious angles, for making silly faces, for eliciting silly faces from the fans observing the play. But those are all just bonus points. The primary criterion is simple: How smushed into the wall do you get?

That’s what matters. We want you to be so flat against the wall and so deep into the padding that if somebody came over and applied a quick coat of green paint, you’d disappear entirely. We want Homer Simpson in the hedges, Terence Mann in the cornfield, Han Solo in carbonite. We want maximum smush, do you understand me? Maximum smush!

The top indicator of smush is the wrinkles in the synthetic skin of the wall as the impact ripples outward and the foam buckles to accommodate you. The perfect wall smush finds an outfielder smushed flat against the wall, glove arm extended above them, face sticking out to the side with the eyes agog, and big, glorious ripples heading out in every direction like a toddler’s drawing of the sun. That’s what we’re looking for most of all. Here’s an example:

You probably remember this play. It’s the famous 8-6-2 double play from the Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Sal Frelick leapt into the wall and got his glove on what otherwise might have been a grand slam off the bat of Max Muncy. Instead, it turned into a fielder’s choice double play because all the baserunners had to stay put while they tried to figure out whether or not Frelick had caught the ball. He hadn’t, but the wall had caught him. He gets bonus points for the big moment, but he loses points for crashing into the wall sideways. We want to see the fielder disappearing into the wall entirely, not jutting out awkwardly.

Speaking of disappearing into the wall, Frelick deserves credit for being the player who is most easy to remove from his own photo with Photoshop’s spot healing tool. Now you see him, now you see a big dent in the wall where he used to be.

Here’s an example of a play that wouldn’t even make the list at all:

That’s Josh Lowe trying and failing to rob Julio Rodríguez of a home run in September. It was a great effort. Not only did he get way above the wall, he was almost perfectly parallel to it. The dirty uniform and stark shadow really bring some character to the shot. Look at the trio right above him, their eyes all converging on a spot a foot or two above their heads even though the ball had already trickled through their fingers. However, Lowe was too parallel to the wall. He didn’t crash into it at all. He barely even touched it. The only disturbances you’ll see in the wall are the many places where the fabric has gathered because it’s just kind of ill-fitting and saggy. We award Lowe no points for the general jankiness of a minor league ballpark. Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s start with the honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention: Noteworthy Smushes

Here’s Daniel Schneemann crashing into the wall on a Rowdy Tellez double in Cleveland, and I won’t sugarcoat it. This play shouldn’t even be here. Schneemann didn’t even try to make the catch. He only leapt up into the wall in order to stop himself because he never really figured out how to go after this ball. In this shot, the ball is behind him and he’s not even looking around for it. He makes it on the list for three reasons. First, we’ve got some pretty good wall ripples here. Second, he dug his right spike so deeply into the wall that he left it torn, which is always fun. Lastly, he really looks like Spider-Man. Seriously, that’s exactly how Spider-Man perches on the side of a building.

Here’s Zach Cole of the Astros making another catch that doesn’t quite merit a spot on the list, mainly because he jumped up and caught the ball a few feet before he came down and crashed into the wall. Still, this play deserves some recognition. First, this was Cole’s major league debut, and in addition to making this impressive catch, he went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBI. Second, although he crashed into the wall sideways, he did create an impressively large amount of ripplage. The picture really is alive; you can see the big chunks of dirt popping into the air on the warning track while a big plume of dust rises behind Cole. Lastly, he gets bonus points for crashing directly into the buildsubmarines.com ad. It kind of looks like that submarine is about to swim right between his legs. No doubt this incredible image inspired several people to quit their day jobs and work down at the docks assembling magnetohydrodynamic drives and towed sonar arrays.

This is Griffin Conine seemingly trying to use the seal of the city of Miami as some sort of teleportation portal. Or maybe he’s trying to hold onto it for dear life while a tornado does its best to yank him into the sky. Under different circumstances, this play might be the highest-ranked on the entire list, but this was actually a foul ball and Conine was running into the side wall. That in itself wouldn’t necessarily be disqualifying. We here at FanGraphs support players running (safely) into any and all manner of walls. Unfortunately (for both Conine and his face), the side wall wasn’t nearly as well padded as the regular wall. No player tried quite as hard to merge with the wall as Conine. I mean, you have to imagine that this is what it would look like if you tried to make out with a wall. But the lack of padding means no ripples. No wrinkles. Conine had his face fully smashed against the wall, but didn’t even make a dent. That’s the important distinction between smashing into the wall and smushing into the wall. No player in this entire article made harder contact with the wall or sank into it less deeply. Conine was all smash, no smush.

This is Ramón Laureano. Sorry, I meant to say this is Ramón Laureano’s butt. (It’s also named Ramón Laureano.) This ball was a home run off the bat of Jeremiah Jackson. Laureano didn’t even end up making an attempt to catch it. It landed about 15 feet deep and 30 feet off to his left. But he did climb up the wall, and I cannot even describe to you how easy he made it look. He made it look so easy even though it is not easy. If it were easy, people would do it all the time. They do not do it all the time. Because it is hard. Climbing up the wall is only easy for Ramón Laureano. He squeaks onto our list here because although he didn’t run directly into the wall, he did climb up it with so much force that he left a big claw mark in the middle of the fence, with ripples all around it. I take it back, Schneeman isn’t Spider-Man; Laureano is. Now we move onto the main event.

The Best Wall Smushes of 2025

Here’s Jake Meyers seemingly leaping into the air in order to better punch the wall in Houston. At the very top of the frame, you can see a home run ball just as it clears the fence. Meyers went back ferociously on the ball and prepared for a big leap – you can tell he does that a lot by the five different sets of cleat marks gouged into padding all around him – only to realize that he was too close to the wall and the ball was already by him. Instead of going for height, he went for force, driving his right shoulder and left fist into the wall with all he had. It’s not a contender for best smush of the year, but Meyers did get really deep into that wall. We award him three smush points.

Here’s Wenceel Pérez taking extra bases away from Salvador Perez in August. This was an impressive catch, but it’s graded so low because Pérez caught the ball a few feet in front of the fence. He barely left his feet at all. It made the list because he really slammed into the wall anyway, and his limbs really were splayed in every direction. Even more fun, the ripples from the impact spread across three entire panels of the wall. He looks a bit like he’s posing in front of one of those huge murals of angel wings designed to attract tourists (and Sufjan Stevens). We award Pérez one gold smush star.

Look, I don’t even know how to grade what Victor Scott II did against the Yankees on August 16. As incredible as this picture is, it doesn’t nearly do justice to Scott’s attempt to rob an Aaron Judge home run here. This ball was in the right-center gap, and Scott came screaming over from center and leapt at nearly full speed into the wall at an oblique angle. The ball just grazed the tip of his glove, and then he slammed into the wall and his momentum sent him rolling sideways across it in the air. The ball bounced hard off the top of the fence, which is why you can see it five feet above Scott’s outstretched arm. This picture is short on ripples because it comes after the main impact, but it does show the spot where Scott’s cleats tore up the gambling sign. More importantly, let’s enjoy some of the faces in the crowd reacting to what Scott just did.

Oh, and I should also mention, that Scott crashed into the wall an inning earlier. Take a look at this!

Now although Scott made the catch on this ball, it was not nearly as spectacular. He caught the ball at the front of the warning track and then jumped up into the wall just for funsies. But he really did hit it hard. He slammed his back into it and popped his hat right off his head. For these two efforts, we salute him.

Scott smashed and smushed into the wall many, many times over the course of the season. I could’ve made this whole article just about him. For his commitment to the bit, I award him one medium-sized smush trophy.

Next up is Tyler Soderstrom, who gets major points both for ferocity and pinpoint accuracy. Soderstrom smashed into the wall to rob Paul DeJong of extra bases and centered himself perfectly in the blue ribbon on the pedigree sign. More importantly, look how deep into that sign he got. He looks like he might get stuck there. He looks like he might bust straight through it. Nationals Park may never recover.

Seriously, though, just look at the angle one of the television cameras caught. If I worked for Pedigree, I’d put this in a full-page ad in the A’s program next season.

For his impeccable aim, I award Tyler Soderstrom one blue ribbon with a guy sticking out of it.

That’s Colton Cowser sacrificing his right shoulder to snag a fly ball off the bat of Harrison Bader in Philadelphia. This picture really has it all. The padding of the Sherwin Williams sign is buckling so ferociously that it looks like Cowser is landing on a trampoline rather than crashing into masonry. Unfortunately, you can see that he hit it on the hardest spot, right between the padding where the two panels meet, and he was shaken up after the play.

Cowser’s bitter-beer face is an accurate representation of just how forcefully he smashed his favorite shoulder into the wall, and if that didn’t give you an idea of the effort involved here, just look his shirt threatening to rip apart as if he were the Incredible Hulk. Look at his shoelaces flopping in the air. Even his cup seems to be making a break for it. For nearly shredding the connective tissues holding his body together, I award Colton Cowser a stronger jockstrap.

More than any other in this article, this picture really tells the whole story. You can almost hear the splat from Angel Martínez flopping into the wall like a pancake being flipped from a great height. The big ripples radiate from the spot where his torso crashed into the wall, then the smaller disturbances come from where his cleat took purchase, where his glove landed after the ball glanced off it, and where, finally, the ball itself smashed into the wall. A moment later, the ball caromed 30 feet to the left, where Steven Kwan picked it up and fired it in toward the infield. The play ultimately went down as a double. Martínez gets extra points for looking like he’s wishing for nothing more than to be safe inside the wall, laughing at us fools stuck on the outside.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think we were done with Angel Martínez? We are not done with Angel Martínez. Here he is exactly one fortnight earlier, once again pancaked against the Progressive Field wall for a ball that he was not going to catch. Honestly, it sort of looks like he’s crashing into a swimming pool here. This ball bounced off the Meijer sign about five feet away from Martínez’s glove, though at this point, it looks like he was trying to catch the carom as it passed him. Once again, Kwan cleaned up his mess, but the picture has a lot to offer. The sense of motion is glorious, and Martinez once again seems to be melting directly into the wall, his face perfectly flush with the padding. It must feel so nice and cool. For repeated misadventures in smushdom, we award Martínez one bronze glove.

Kyle Isbel loses points here for not making the catch. However, he gets a ton of credit for going hard for his city. If I were a Royals Fan, I would absolutely put this image on a t-shirt. This picture catches the action the moment after the ball caromed off the wall, so you can’t really tell that Isbel only missed it by an inch or two, allowing Jeff McNeil to reach on an RBI triple. It was the top of the ninth and the Royals were clinging to a slim lead, so Isbel gave it everything he had.

He came away from this play a bit shaken up, and you can see why. Based solely on the wrinkles in the pad, this is the hardest we’ve seen anybody hit a wall. He didn’t even jump for this ball, but he was worried enough about the contact with the wall that he ended up in the fetal position anyway. His sunglasses were approximately one eighth of a second from shooting straight up into the air. The Royals coughed up the lead on the next play, but they ended up walking off the Mets in the ninth. For extraordinary effort and courage in the face of certain smush, we award Isbel a coupon for one free side of coleslaw from Arthur Bryant’s.

Billy, this is Bryce Teodosio. He’s a center fielder. On a per-inning basis, Statcast says he was the best defender in baseball (minimum 400 innings, not including catchers, Billy). His defect is that he strikes out 10 times as often as he walks. This guy could be not just the seventh-most valuable position player on the Angels, but the best defensive center fielder in all of baseball. (No, I realize that the strikeouts are a problem, Billy. Yes, a .248 OBP is not ideal. I just think that maybe we could give him a chance to figure out the plate discipline portion of the— Sure. Fine. We can go back to Chad Bradford.)

If you’ve seen the video, you’ll know that Teodosio made this home run robbery look downright pedestrian, but look at this picture. His head is tilted back just enough to let the sun light up his scrunched face. It’s highlighted even further by the shadowy mullet pressed against the wall. His mouth is ever so slightly agape, and his left eye is just cracked. His chain is flying up and hitting him in the mouth. His pinkie is out, making this one of the daintier home run robberies you’ll ever see.

More importantly, Teodosio’s entire torso is wedged so deeply into the wall that he appears to be sitting on it. His legs are sticking out, and with the way their shadows combine with the ripples in the padding, it looks like he’s wearing a hula skirt. Look at all those glorious ripples from the bottom of the wall to the top.

You unfortunately can’t see it in this shot, but when he crashed into the wall, he disturbed a brown moth that was resting on top. It fluttered down to the ground alongside him as if Mother Nature herself were giving the catch her benediction. For excellence in the pursuit of smush, I award Bryce Teodosio 50 points of wRC+.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. This is the best of the bunch. I think it is, anyway. For some reason, I’m having trouble following my own grading system. Here’s Noelvi Marte robbing Bryan Reynolds of a would-be homer in September, and he checks every box imaginable. For starters, Marte isn’t even an outfielder! He’s just an infielder who got stuck in the outfield because the Reds had too many infielders. He’d never played the outfield before 2025, even in the minors, and then he went and did this!

Marte made the catch way above the fence. How high was he exactly? You can’t even tell because the ground is nowhere to be seen. His back is flat against the wall and the padding is rippling in a big X all around him. He’s making a frog face and sticking his right arm way out like God trying not to sneeze while Michelangelo paints the Creation of Adam.

Look at all the fans in the stands. I could write an entire article about the 18 faces in the bleachers here. Some are dumbstruck. Some are terrified. They’re leaning away. They’re hiding behind one another. One person is grimacing so hard that her chin seems to have gotten wedged somewhere behind her esophagus. Another is ducking and covering like she thinks the ball is a nuclear bomb. And then all the way to the right, there’s a little girl who has just wandered down the stairs and into the frame carrying a soda that’s approximately the same size as her entire torso.

Most importantly, look at the way Marte’s uniform perfectly blends with the wall. His white pants are down in front of the white letters, while his red shirt and hat are up above blending into the background. He’s even holding his glove up to match the yellow top of the wall. No player did a better job of truly becoming one with the wall. For one perfectly camouflaged smush, I award Marte a life-size print of himself making this catch.