Posted by mitchrapp on 1/4/2011 12:37:00 AM (view original):
We all win, you don't know jack.
I bet there are hundreds and hundreds who have never scored from 3rd, less than 2 outs with the infield back. What are you, 7 -- star of your tee ball team?
Really? Hundreds? In the history of baseball? I guess that proves your point.
I doubt it's even close if we're talking about actual groundballs. Althought, you could be right, it's probably happened to Carlos Gomez about five times in the past two years. But that's because his baserunning IQ would be 1, not because that's how you play baseball.
I don't have much of a need to throw out credentials, but I feel confident saying that I played at a higher level than a vast majority of people here. Obviously there will be some legit pros who played at a higher level, but I did make it slightly above tee ball.
I also played SS. Wasn't much with the glove, but did have a pro-caliber arm. Here's my problem with your take: any halfway decent baseball player gets at least a ten-fifteen foot secondary lead with no one playing him close at third. If I'm at SS, even with a pretty strong arm, and someone hits me a groundball, I can attempt to make the 120 to 140-foot throw, hope that it's on target, and hope the catcher applies the tag, all before the runner gets across the plate, just to keep it a four-run game instead of three late in the game...or...I can make the easy throw, clear the bases with two outs, and keep my team up three with very little chance of a big inning.
As a player, I take the latter option every time, and I would bet every coach in the world would, too.
So, knowing that the SS is almost certainly going to first, why in the world would the runner hold at third? Stupidity, I suppose. But any non-super idiot is going on a ball to the middle infield and will never be challenged.