After I claimed that the Cespedes throw was the best I’ve ever seen, a commenter made a great point: the best part of the throw was that it inspired everyone to seek out great examples of other throws and share video. Which is totally correct. Ranking things subjectively can be fun, but why bother when we can just have some outfield assist porn?
There were five throws from four players which kept coming up in comments and on Twitter this morning: Bo Jackson nailing Harold Reynolds, Jose Guillen’s “mutant throw” from right to nail a runner on third, a Vlad Guerrero missile from back in his Expos days and two throws from Rick Ankiel in the same game, with the idea that quantity matters too.
Hard to argue with any of them, really. And of course it’s hard to judge these or Cespedes’ throw against old school throws which went down before video of great plays became as commonplace as they are these days. Personally I think Guillen’s is the most impressive due to the distance and how rarely you see someone nailed at third by the right fielder compared to base runners getting nailed at home. But like I said, it’s hard to argue.
But why argue? Let’s just watch:
All of them great, and I’m sure there are many others which match them. But I hope we can all agree on something: watching cool throws like this is way better than any home run highlight reel.
