We’ve entered into the Statcast era, but just before the Statcast era, we had to make do with more subjective evaluations. Among the evaluations was the Fan Scouting Report, a Tangotiger project to crowd-source player defense. One of the categories to be evaluated as part of the Fan Scouting Report has been arm strength. Okay, so, getting to the point, Ben Revere became a big-league regular in 2011. I looked at all the reports for outfielders who were regulars between 2011 – 2015, splitting into individual player-seasons. This is a five-year window, yes? I sorted all the players in ascending order of perceived arm strength. I isolated the worst 20. Here’s how many times the following players appear in the worst 20:

Overall, combining the seasons, Revere rated second-worst in arm strength. He also tied for worst in arm accuracy, so, you know, that sucks. Revere has a weak arm, relatively speaking, and he’s always had a weak arm, relatively speaking, and this is all to establish the setting. Revere is a center fielder who can barely throw, and that’s why Miguel Montero went and tried to tag up on a routine fly near the track.

“Bold,” is one thing you could say. “Disrespectful” would be no less accurate. Montero clearly didn’t respect Revere’s throwing arm, and, well, there’s really no reason to. But this time Revere got the last laugh, and it’s not like his throw was even particularly impressive. It was off-line and short of the bag, but Montero might’ve spent too much time thinking about Revere’s arm and too little time thinking about the fact that he himself is a 32-year-old catcher. Yeah, Revere has gotten a lousy rating out of 100 in arm strength. Montero just last year got a 25 for his speed.

The best part of all: Statcast era, right? I asked Daren Willman about the Statcast reading for Revere’s assist, which was his first of the season. Willman:

Doesn’t look like the system captured the MPH for that throw…

Even Statcast doesn’t know what to do with a Ben Revere outfield assist. The entry’s blank. As blank as Joe Maddon’s mind grapes.

Revere now has as many assists this year as Jason Heyward.