An Appreciation Of Kiké’s Cannon (In the Outfield)

With Kiké Hernández being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday, it’s challenging to think of any standout moments in the 2023 season to write an ode about. Writing about his arm after what we’ve seen this year would be borderline trolling. Hernández leads Major League Baseball in errors with 15, and more specifically, leads the league in throwing errors with 12. 14 of those 15 errors came at shortstop, in what can be understated as a failed experiment this season.

However, (unlike Mark McGwire) I’m not here to talk about the present, I’m here to talk about the past, and Kiké Hernández was one hell of a defensive player in the 2021 season. Perhaps my appreciation of Hernández was a product of all of the truly horrendous arms from past Red Sox center fielders that were still fresh in my head. Johnny Damon from 2002-2005 would give you the double-crow hop before giving it his all, usually a throw to a cut-off man who was short of the infield. Take the infamous Manny Ramirez cut-off clip that circulated just last week on its anniversary, for example. When you rewatch Damon’s throw, do you really blame Manny for cutting it off?

From there, it didn’t get much better. Some of the catches that Coco Crisp made in the Fenway outfield from ’06-’08 were second-to-none, but then he would spike a throw directly into the ground for a 12-hopper on a play at the plate. In fact, if you google “Coco Crisp throw to home plate”, the only clip you can find is of Crisp being ejected for throwing his bat back toward the home plate umpire, objecting to a strikeout. Crisp gave way to Jacoby Ellsbury as the primary CF from 2009 through 2013, and while my understanding is that Ellsbury was a real hunk, he couldn’t throw a lick. Finally, after 12 seasons of being fully convinced that anyone in my Beer League slow-pitch softball outfield could have more assists than the Red Sox center fielder, Jackie Bradley Jr. arrived and the nightmare was over.

After a few double-digit assist seasons, Bradley departed prior to the 2021 season and there was a lot of unknown in terms of who would step up to be everyday center fielder. Kiké stepped up, playing 93 games at the position (81 starts) and it would have been more if he wasn’t forced to move back to second base at times out of necessity when Christian Arroyo was injured. Hernández finished 2021 fifth out of 38 center fielders with a +10 in Outs Above Average at the position. He also got the best “jump” of any outfielder in baseball that season, 4.2 feet above average in the first 3 seconds of a batted ball after contact. The next best was 2.7 feet above average. Here are a few examples of these great jumps on some truly excellent catches he made that season:

Of course, all I really wanted to see was the arm and he did not disappoint. Hernández put on an absolute clinic on how to make the most out of every throw, regardless of where he resided on the field. Hernández would get as much momentum as possible going forward prior to the catch and his transfer from glove to throwing hand was lightning fast. He then put as much as he had into the throw, often resulting in post-throw summersaults. Four absolute beauties (out of his eight outfield assists that season) to start this montage from @redsoxstats:

My personal favorite throw that Kiké made for the Red Sox didn’t result in an out. In fact, it was a walk-off for the opponents. A night after he had saved the game at Oakland with his throw home (in the previous video), Hernández was forced to go back about ten steps on a sacrifice fly. He still finds a way to get enough momentum into his throw to get it to home plate in the air. If you watch closely enough, Christian Vazquez does not even appear to consider the chance of a play at the plate before he quickly shuffles two steps back to get a glove on Hernández’ throw, which arrives a split-second too late. This throw is preposterous.

It was time for Kiké Hernández to move on from Boston to another team for the stretch run of this season. Alex Cora did everything he could to find playing time for him, but in addition to the aforementioned throwing errors, Hernández could never get on one of his patented heaters at the plate. A .599 OPS in 323 plate appearances just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Even his pinch-hitting appearances at the end felt forced. He’s back in L.A. and will almost certainly be playing in October again, as he did for seven straight seasons from 2015-2021, hitting 13 postseason home runs in that time. I’ll always appreciate that he brought a feared arm back to the Fenway centerfield.