Perhaps more than in any other sport, greatness in baseball is about consistency.
Almost every MLB player is capable of carrying his team’s offence for a day, or even a week. Ezequiel Carrera did just that for the Toronto Blue Jays earlier this year. Each fifth starter has the potential to spin a gem, and even the most inept defender has a handful of diving catches in him.
That’s part of what makes assessing players so difficult. It’s easy to tell what players are capable of, harder to determine what they can do consistently over the grind of an 162-game season.
That’s why when Kevin Pillar started dominating highlight reels with a series of unbelievable catches last year there was room for skepticism. Entering the season he was considered more of a corner outfield type. He’d spent less than half his minor-league innings patrolling centre and only 112 at the major-league level.
Pillar showed range that many didn’t expect and a knack for making difficult catches with little regard for his own safety. By the end of the year, FanGraphs ranked him as the eighth-most valuable defender in the game.
As 2016 dawned, it was still difficult to project Pillar as a defender. Much like offensive breakouts, defensive improvements are likely to regress and one year of defensive numbers doesn’t always represent true talent. The smart money was on Pillar being above-average in centre, but having trouble replicating all the impossible catches.
So far that couldn’t be further from the truth. As the 27-year-old showed last Tuesday, the well of web gems is far from depleted.
Pillar’s defensive statistics show that rather than regressing in the field he appears to have improved. In less than half a season, he’s already provided approximately as much value with his glove as he did last year in centre field.
| Season | Defensive Runs Saved | CF Rank | Ultimate Zone Rating | CF Rank | Total Defensive Value | CF Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 14 | T-3 | 14.0 | 4 | 16.1 | 4 |
| 2016 | 10 | 1 | 14.0 | 1 | 14.8 | 1 |
The fact he’s gone from top-five to number one undersells the step forward. Pillar leads centre-field DRS by two runs, UZR by 9.4 and defensive value by 9.4. Right now, FanGraphs has him as the most valuable defender in baseball by 2.9 runs. Defensive numbers in a small sample are often misleading, but when the results are this dramatic, and fall in line with the eye test, they’re impossible to ignore.
Even with the 27-year-old scuffling to a .246/.279/.373 line, he’s posted a 1.7 WAR, second only to Josh Donaldson among Blue Jays position players. No matter how he hits, he’s reached a level where it’s almost impossible to keep him out of the lineup.
With this showing Pillar is proving, rather definitively, that last year was no fluke. He’s even demonstrating some noticeable improvements, particularly with his arm.
In 1236 innings in centre last season, Pillar managed seven outfield assists with two throwing errors. This year in 522.2 innings, he’s already tallied five assists and has yet to throw a ball away. Perhaps the best examples of this progress are the two double plays he’s started in 2016.
The first was a run-saving strike to nab the exceedingly speedy Delino DeShields Jr. at second base.
DeShields Jr. shouldn’t have attempted to advance, but his wheels left little room for error and Pillar put the ball where it needed to be.
His second double play of the year was perhaps more impressive because Pillar was not capitalizing on a baserunner’s error.
With a ball near the warning track, a guy as athletic as Eduardo Nunez, who’s stolen 12 bases already this season, should be looking to advance. He didn’t make a mistake on the play, but neither did Pillar.
Last season, Pillar made so many dazzling plays in the field that nothing he does with a glove, no matter how preposterous, registers as a surprise. Now the surprise lies not in what the centre fielder can do, but how often he can do it.
With almost a year and a half of evidence, it’s clear that Pillar hasn’t flashed greatness in the field, he possesses it.