Blake Perkins is Playing a Safe Center Field This August. The Risk-Taking Comes Later.

It'll take you a while to convince me that Blake Perkins is anything short of a great center fielder. It'd take you a while to convince Starling Marte of that, too. Perkins still moves like a great defender out there. Although he was playing about 50 feet deeper when Jeff McNeil hit a would-be game-tying, ninth-inning single in a game earlier this month than he was against Santiago Espinal in an identical situation last June, he merely used that space and time to close hard on the ball and make a throw at almost 100 miles per hour to get the out, the same way he got an out (with a quicker release but not as strong a peg) last year. 

A glance at his defensive metrics for this season, though, will at least attempt to sway you into disbelieving in the Brewers' defensive whiz in center field. Perkins is grading not only as less than exceptional, but as worse than average—and that huge difference in positioning between last year's critical situation and this year's is one microcosm of the reasons.

Under Quintin Berry (and without a major injury in his recent past), Perkins played an extremely aggressive center field. He didn't hurl himself recklessly into outfield walls or dive just for fun, but he was a risk-taking, playmaking outfielder. Moving in so shallow against Espinal was a crystal-clear example of both Berry's willingness to gamble on his own instincts and information and Perkins's willingness to go along with bold moves and to take up unusual positions to get him to unusual balls.

That's not happening this year. On that McNeil single, even though the tying run was on second base, Perkins's positioning was about ensuring that a ball didn't get over his head and put the go-ahead run in the same place. More broadly, all year, we've seen Perkins play behind the ball or pull up when danger was present. Here's a line-drive single that, had he taken a different route off the bat, was catchable, but on which he merely made sure a double was impossible.

He did something very similar on this hit by James Wood, around the same time.

These are both sinking liners that would have required Perkins to read them excellently off the bat and make an instantaneous, risky decision to take the direct route to the ball; neither would have been a guaranteed catch. Both were possible, though, and even past versions of Perkins probably would have attempted them. This year, he's not doing so very often.

Here's one more, different example: a ball hit to the base of the wall on which Perkins slowed up and played the ball off the barrier, rather than trying to catch it and collide.

These aren't bad plays, and Perkins isn't getting huge demerits for them. He did get stiffly penalized for this clank job, but it feels like a more isolated incident, so we won't worry about it. The score at the time made it unimportant that he lost focus at the catchpoint.

These four examples are all drawn from the same two games, which might tempt you to think Perkins just had off games afield. There's more to it, though. His routes have been more conservative all year. Whether he's consciously protecting himself from another serious injury or just doesn't have enough live, recent reps to get the jumps to which we've become accustomed, he's not covering quite as much ground or seizing quite as many opportunities in center as he did the last two years.

Whatever the reason, that's perfectly ok. First of all, with Jackson Chourio on the injured list, it's important that Perkins stay healthy. The Brewers have good outfield depth, but it's all in play already, thanks to Chourio's hamstring issue, Jake Bauers being down for a while, and Garrett Mitchell being out for the year. They also have a great deal of margin for error right now. Their long winning binge has opened up an edge in the division that won't require them to sweat much the rest of the way. What matters is the playoffs. Keeping Perkins healthy now matters more than any ball he might catch by taking more chances. jn the outfield.

For at least as long as Chourio is out, Perkins will be the regular center fielder. Thus, if any of this is rust Perkins is still shaking off, we should see that fix itself imminently. In watching, though, it looks more like he's being intentionally careful. In that case, expect to see more or less what we have seen so far from Perkins, until the race for a particular playoff spot reaches an improbably dramatic point or until the playoffs themselves arrive.

It's more popular (and more fun, really, and certainly easier to spot) when a player gives incredible, high-level effort on every play. Over the long season, though, everyone has to find some places to go at 80 or 90 percent, instead of flat-out. That way, they survive the year relatively healthy and with something left in the tank for the postseason. Perkins is saving his big plays for Octonber. In the meantime, opponents might find an extra hit here or there against one of the game's elite defenders. Don't be fooled. He's just biding his time.