#33 Denzel Clarke's catch was instantly for the ages

A Bandwagon poll! Plus: James Wood's key adjustment and A-Rod's must-have items

James Wood — the Washington Nationals loping, 22-year-old, 6’7” outfielder with a preternaturally slow heartbeat — is approaching a full season’s worth of big league games after a July 1 call up last year. He was 20% better than league average in 79 games in 2024 — not bad for a 21-year-old on a team that would finish 20 games under .500. But this year, he’s a broken out, a bonafide superstar-in-the-making who specializes in hitting the ball really far and really hard.

Hey it’s Hannah and I caught up briefly with Wood while the Nats are in New York and he said he hasn’t changed anything since he got called up in terms of his mechanics. But he has made an important mental adjustment: working to quell his tendency to second-guess at the plate.

“When I go up there, I'm not fully committed to it,” he said of the approach that saw him “giving away at bats”.

“So I just think making sure that, whatever I'm going up there [to do] could be not the greatest idea, but I just gotta be fully invested,” Wood said.

The conviction is clearly working:

Oh, here’s something else about Wood: he’s not part of the Nats’ book club (see What We’re Chatting About below) because he’s “got too many books that I'm behind on.” But he’s not without hobbies. “I tried making homemade pasta,” he said, “and it was terrible.”

Since he was so good at self diagnosing his approach at the plate, here’s his scouting report on the pasta problems: “It was too thick, and then I boiled it and it got thicker. The sauce¹ was good, though.”

Next time, James, you gotta roll it out with more conviction.

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Instant classic: Denzel Clarke and the outfield catch pantheon

by Zach Crizer

The A’s center fielder Denzel Clarke made a catch this week that the algorithm will definitely one day serve your grandchildren. It was remarkable for the primal holy crap that catch of it all.

It was also remarkable because Clarke has been in the big leagues for less than three weeks and had already made a catch that will probably be on highlight reels in 25 years and another that maybe would have been on the reels. (As Sam Miller wrote Tuesday, Clarke has also somehow attempted several more improbable plays with memorable gusto.)

If you were wondering, Clarke came to the majors with real but decidedly moderated prospect hype. Baseball Prospectus described his journey from fourth-round pick to the majors as “slow but steady” and his minor-league numbers as “strong-if-unspectacular.” FanGraphs noted his incredible outfield defense this spring in suggesting some offensive tweaks could land him on 2026 prospect lists. The spectacular will require no quantification with Clarke, nor a wait until 2026, apparently.

Something about that juxtaposition — a completely new face doing something that will never get old — drove home what the term “instant classic” means to me. If this 25-year-old’s batting stance involved standing on one leg like a flamingo, I wouldn’t know it, but I’m confident I will be able to summon a detailed visual of this play in the year 2057.

These are not amazing catches in the weird-good way of Daulton Varsho’s “who me, trip?” snag or the situationally elevated way of TJ Friedl’s walk-off robbery. They are the no-context-needed action movies you show someone to explain the thrill of baseball.

The wall-climbing aerial home run interception against the Angels was a permanent fixture in the baseball psyche before the second replay rolled. And thanks to real merit and the combo multiplier effect, I think Clarke’s wall-crashing daredevil grab against the Orioles will make it there, too.

Philadelphia sports commentator Pat Gallen had the relatable reaction of instantly trying to place the Spiderman grab in the context of baseball history, in the outfield highlight pantheon. It’s a worthwhile project, one The Bandwagon can help with, I think. Part of what puts a play in this realm, to me, is whether it breaks contain and seeps into general YouTube or Jumbotron ubiquity.

Clarke is absolutely joining that club. The question is whether he’s about to own it. I want to figure out which of the previous marvels in the Spiderman robbery category has burrowed into the most brains. These are, to be clear, only robberies where the outfielder uses the wall to launch himself. I’ve got a list of four above-the-fence robberies I’d count as the biggest challengers to Clarke — or perhaps the highlights to which he’s now the biggest challenger.

• Gary Matthews Jr.’s pirouette for Texas in 2006 ↓

• Kevin Pillar’s magic elevator trick in 2015 ↓

  

• Ichiro’s over-jumping flight for Seattle in 2005 ↓

• Jim Edmonds’ over-the-fence backhand for the Cardinals in 2004 ↓

This being a baseball newsletter focused on fans, we’re going to do a little poll to take the temperature on the play.

(I’ll mention my vote after the jump, to avoid influencing the vote.)

Because they were mined from my Millennial brain, the other options trend toward the era in which clips made it to YouTube without having to be pulled off a VHS tape. There’s at least one Ken Griffey Jr. catch that might want a word, I’ll concede.