12/18/24
October 11, 2014
SportsFilter: The Saturday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Jarrod Dyson getting caught stealing last night raises a question: Can the player making a tag push the sliding runner off the bag? To me, it looks more like a push by Jonathan Schoop than an overslide by Dyson. I thought it was weird the TBS crew never even suggested that possibility.
posted by rcade at 04:07 PM on October 11, 2014
MLB shows off their funky new stat casting by showing Lorenzo Cain running around the bases.
I would LOVE it if this information was real-time, and they used it during the broadcasts on big plays.
posted by grum@work at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2014
rcade: Jarrod Dyson getting caught stealing last night raises a question: Can the player making a tag push the sliding runner off the bag? To me, it looks more like a push by Jonathan Schoop than an overslide by Dyson. I thought it was weird the TBS crew never even suggested that possibility.
I caught up with the recap on MLB Network, and they really dug into this one. From what I gathered, it is of course not a legal move on the part of the fielding player; somewhat similarly, there was a game-deciding big play during the ALCS last year I believe, where an innocent play at 3rd was ruled interference because the Red Sox 3rd baseman was very arguably "interfering" with the runner while going after the ball thrown from home.
What MLBN was saying last night is it is purely a judgment call, made at the discretion of the umpire. However, because the question is one of intent, it's apparently not something that can be called for in instant reply- meaning, Ned Yost couldn't contest the play and demand a replay, because the umpires would say "No, he's clearly off the bag at one point" and they wouldn't assess the "intent" portion as a replay matter.
For whatever it's worth, in my opinion even after multiple replays, I couldn't say with 100% certainty that it was a clear shove, as opposed to part of the sweep of the glove. It was clearly a tag with a lot more force behind it, which MLBN went on to report was an actual gameplan from Showalter to keep the Royals closer to the bag by tagging aggressively and holding the glove there, since the Royals tend to overslide the bag a lot.
grum@work: Very cool! I bet it will be in broadcasts real-time in the next few years. I do like that style, where you can get a clear sense of how close they're getting, when the throw is released, etc, all as one motion. They'll have to come up with a good way to cut to the camera focused on the tag smoothly, however.
posted by hincandenza at 12:08 AM on October 12, 2014
Goon.