Depending on your metric of choice, Pirates left fielder Starling Marte graded out at something between very good and jaw-dropping this past season. Unsurprisingly, he’s a Gold Glove winner for 2015, and I wanted to highlight one of my favorite plays of his from this past season.
A play best captured in this Vine, in which it looks like he’s not really doing anything at all:
https://vine.co/v/ejXJhdT2eU1
Now, I’m not sure I would necessarily call that a “great” play by Marte. After all, he simply fielded a ball cleanly, put a strong – but casual – throw on it, and correctly steered the ball toward third base. The play was mostly made by Adeiny Hechavarria’s ill-conceived decision to head to third with the ball in front of him.
But none of that makes me enjoy watching the play any less.
OK, and if you insist on seeing Marte make an actually impressive play like that, look no further than the Wild Card Game, when he somehow nabbed Addison Russell – not a slow dude – on a sure-thing double:
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