It’s Time to Change the Slide Rule
On Saturday night, Javier Baez crushed a fastball from Santiago Casilla, hitting it to almost exactly the same spot he hit his game-winning home run on Friday night. Having hit the ball 102 mph at a 26 degree launch angle — balls with those characteristics were home runs 65% of the time this year — Baez dropped his head and started to jog towards first base. He didn’t really put it in top gear until he rounded first base and saw that the ball had hit the wall, and that there was going to be a play at second base. Once at full speed, he covered enough ground to beat the throw pretty easily, and dove in to second base before Joe Panik could apply the tag. He was easily called safe, and attention turned to his health, as he appeared to dive into Panik’s knee, and was suffering the consequences of the collision.
Two minutes and 49 seconds after the play had ended, however, Baez was called out. The Giants had challenged the call, as has become a custom for nearly every close tag play at second base, because it was possible that Baez not maintained contact with the bag during every millisecond of his slide into the base. So, the review umpires in New York re-evaluated the play, and saw this.
As Baez dives into second base, his hand comes off the bag as his body catches up to it, and during the exchange of having his arm touching the bag and his body laying entirely on it, there is a brief period where neither is in contact with the base. Panik’s tag happens to occur during this exact moment.
According to the way the rules are written, Baez is clearly out. He was off the base when he was tagged while Panik had the ball, and that’s the rulebook definition of one of the ways the runner can be called out. From rule 5.09(b)4:
(4) He is tagged, when the ball is alive, while off his base.
Baez was tagged, when the ball was alive, while off his base. This ended up being a pretty easy call for the replay booth, so an often-homer off the bat ended up turning into a single with a 7-4 putout. And yet, despite the rule being correctly applied, I think MLB needs to have a serious conversation this winter about whether this makes baseball better or worse. I vote worse.
When there’s a close tag play at a base, the essence of the question being asked is “did the runner reach the base before was tagged by a fielder in possession of the baseball?” That’s really what we care about; who got there first? But because replay has given teams the ability to ask umpires to review tag plays to determine maintenance of contact, we’ve now rephrased the question, and we’re no longer asking if the runner beat the tag, but if the runner beat the tag and slid in such a way that he managed to never stop touching the base during his slide.
Many people don’t have a problem with this. After all, it’s how the rule is written, and if you don’t want to be called out, just slide better, right?
I might be the only person who doesn't hate the replay rule. If you are not touching the bag and get tagged, you are out. This isn't hard.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 9, 2016
Rather than bitching about replay, why don't we expect players to do a better job at sliding so they maintain contact with the base?
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 9, 2016
What we frequently hear on plays like the Baez dive is that he should have gone feet-first, not head-first, both because of this possibility but also because it’s safer. But sliding in feet-first actually makes it more difficult to maintain contact with the bag all the way through the tag. Last postseason, we wrote about a couple of examples of this kind of replay with feet-first slides.
Here’s Terrence Gore, sliding into third base.
Here’s Rougned Odor, sliding back into second base.
The “just slide better” mantra is easy enough to defend, but in practicality, it’s pretty clear that many of the best baserunners in the world can’t really do this every time, or even close to every time. There are so many instances of runners momentarily coming off the bag due to the momentum of their body as they slide (or dive) that this replay challenge has become routine on almost every close play at second base. It isn’t like this is simply a matter of correct technique; what we’re now asking players to do is very difficult.
And we’re only asking them to do it at second and third base. At first base and home plate, there are exceptions written into the rule that allow a runner to touch the base and continue on past it, acknowledging that running all out in order to beat a throw will often require momentum to carry the runner past those two bases. At second and third, however, we’re now pretending that it should just be that easy. Slide better, as Passan says.
Personally, I’m not all that interested in forcing runners to learn how to slide in such a way that they can touch second or third base continuously through their slide. That has never been the standard to which runners have been held, and I don’t see the value in holding current runners to that standard at just those two bases now. Baseball already has two on-the-books rules that allow runners to beat a tag at a base and continue to be called safe even if they stop making contact with that base, and I think it’s time to bring that kind of reasonable logic to second and third bases as well.
My suggestion? Let’s have second and third base represent the base of a vertical safe area, in which a player is safe once he touches the base and remains safe so long as a part of his body is in the area immediately above the base he’s sliding into. In other words, you initiate the safe zone by touching the base first, and then once you’ve touched it, the area of the base becomes an extension of the base itself, so if your body is momentarily over but not perfectly on the base, you’re still safe.
Yes, it’s still going to require a judgment call from officials, and we’ll still see plenty of replays on tag plays at second and third base, but instead of looking to see whether the runner kept his hand on the base for every millisecond of the tag, we can now simply look at the position of the players body in relation to the space above the base, a much easier thing to judge. We should get fewer challenges and fewer replays in general, and players who beat the throw to second or third base will be called safe more often.
This rule change would fall entirely within the spirit of the exception at first base as well. Runners there are allowed to overrun the base so long as they turn into foul territory, making it clear they are not trying to advance to the next base. If a player’s body is still completely over second or third base, it remains clear that they are not attempting to advance to third or home. The only reason we don’t allow overruns at second or third is because of the possibility for advancement to the next base, but if it’s clear that advancement isn’t being attempted, the runner should be able to still be called safe regardless of whether he’s touching the base during the entirety of his slide.
The maintain-contact part of the rule just isn’t something that makes baseball any better. It has added replay slowdowns to a play that wasn’t ever previously thought to have been called wrong, and it turns exciting close plays at second and third into boring dissections of frame-by-frame video, at no real benefit to the sport.
I’m glad the sport didn’t force Josh Donaldson to maintain contact with home plate yesterday as he raced home for the series-ending run against the Rangers. The game is better if runners can simply show that they beat the tag at the base without forcing them to learn how to “slide better”, whatever that means. The game is about getting to base safely before the ball gets there. Javier Baez did that, and hopefully in 2016, MLB will figure out how to re-write the rule so that on a similar play, the runner can be called safe, as they have been throughout baseball’s history.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I’m with Passan here. The reason players slide in the first place is because they aren’t allowed to run through those bags. If a player’s slide is so violent that they come off the bag then they should be tagged out.
And collisions will only get more violent if players aren’t slowing down as they approach. Are we then going to have to give players a “lane” like at home base too?
Really, you anti-contact in all forms people are now advocating for mandatory ‘slowing down’ before reaching a base?
Then the second baseman shouldn’t be able to jam his knee right into the sliding path.
When the second baseman has the ball he can jam his knee where he pleases at his peril.
It’s the runner’s responsibility to get there before the second baseman gets the ball and do so with enough control that he can stay on the base. If he can’t, he ought to stay at first.
The runner is not rewarded for being caught for his own recklessness.
its not a force play, so I could see the second baseman’s presence there being interference with the runner, who has the right to the base once he has established he is safely there. just as if he outright pushed him off the bag.
As I mentioned above, Panik was not actually obstructing Baez’s path to 2B. Look at the video clip again…
But that’s not what happened here. Panik’s knee remained on the far side of the bag and was fully there *before* Baez got to the bag — and he never actually obstructed Baez’s path to 2B.
In basketball, Baez would’ve basically been ruled for charging, if there’s going to be any ruling at all.
Sure, this is not basketball, but there’s a reason why that rule exists for basketball. And if you wanna argue about who should have that space given context, it might be helpful to consider the basketball logic in this case.
Maybe I’m missing something, but why can’t the rule just be that you are allowed to “overrun”/lose contact with the base if you slide? The only reason you don’t have this rule for 2B/3B is the question of advancing, but no one slides if they are going to try to advance, right?
Players would game this by always oversliding and getting a head start to the next bag if the ball gets away. It would also counteract the collision provisions.
So, players would overslide the base, sliding past in a different direction, in order to get a head start on advancing to the next base?
Wouldn’t they be sliding past the base, as in the opposite of “rounding it”? Doesn’t that increase the distance they’d need to run to reach the next base?
I couldn’t agree more. It just gives me a sick feeling to see a runner called out for coming off the base for a split second in the middle of their slide. Just feels wrong….
I’m with this guy. It’s like getting caught on a technicality. Actually, during the Red Sox/Indians game this happened:
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/205218532/lonnie-chisenhall-out-on-red-sox-challenge/
And I really enjoyed the discussion the announcers had that came out of it. I forget who said what but they debated if calling a guy out because slow-mo HD replays showed he was off the bag for a fraction of a second was “in the spirit” of the rule.
I don’t know the right way to go but to beat a throw and a tag and then be called out because, in this case, your belly came off the bag for .2 seconds has gotta be frustrating. To have that kind of scrutiny on tag plays and then not be able to, say, challenge a called strike for strike 3 is kind of …inconsistent? I don’t know. I’d say give minor leaguers a nice raise then deal with stuff like this.
I disagree. That was a horrible slide. The duties of a base runner are 1) beat the ball to the bag and 2) MAINTAIN contact with it. To fail to do either is an out. Chisenhall beat the ball, but didn’t want to scratch up his face because of his bad slide, and removes his hand from the bag and lifts himself off the ground with it. If being safe is purely “beating the ball” then let runners overrun every base like first base. Otherwise, this should be a legit out and nothing to complain about.
Finally, a comment of reason.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, especially when you consider situations like Rizzo’s foot being pulled off the bag in last night’s game … where it was obvious to everyone except the replay booth. Same with the Rizzo “foul tip” that never hit the ground.
It drives me crazy that replay is not getting obvious calls correct, but can be used to show where a player comes off the base in the natural transition of sliding from initial contact of the base to weight shifting for balancing (and coming off the base for a fractional point in time).
Is this where we’re at in the rules? Really? Like are we going to check each pitch to ensure that every pitcher’s side foot is, in fact, contacting the pitching rubber … because lots of times they aren’t.
I get sliding past the base or away from the base, but coming off the base for a fractional time to balance or shift weight is a bit much.
Amazing that this actually feels to wrong to someone. If you can’t slide correctly (staying on the bag) then you should not be sliding or should be called out once you screw up! Where does this end? It’s not different than giving a guy a HR for missing the timing of the pitch by a split second, or missing the sweet spot of a bat by a couple millimeters. This could be improved by not spending 5 minutes (exaggerating) on every review play, however.
the stink of desperation was strong on bochy that night
Because he…challenged a call and got it reversed? Yeah, how desperate must he be, to try and get a double turned into an out in a playoff game. What exactly is the criticism here?
it would be better for a team to rely on actual offense than technicalities on the other team’s part. the rules are the rules, so it’s not like he was wrong in the challenge. at that point in the game it was mostly just reaching, cause they weren’t getting anywhere by playing to score. but if it was the other way around he’d most likely think it’s a bullshit stipulation. which it is. baez cleary beat the throw, and didn’t overslide the bag, his body was over the plane of the bag the whole time. it’s bush. idk i thought that was clear, any more questions?
Yes, holding teams to standards the rule book has laid out is bush.
being petty is bush. cause none of the rules as written are ever flawed right? there was a point were the rules made it permissible to bowl over the fielder in hopes of knocking the ball out when they were trying to tag you out. does that mean it wasn’t a glaring fault to the integrity of professionalism?
“There’s a strawman, waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
‘Cause he knows its all worthwhile.
He told me
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie.”
you forgot your fedora
Why is it either/or?
oh yeah he desperate alright …
yeah
We replaced it with the calculator.
Baez slid late, if he slid properly then he would have stayed on the bag. Players are skilled enough to slide without coming off the bag. We shouldn’t have to change the rule to accommodate bad sliding.
he was twice his body lenght away from the bag when he started his slide. he slid directly to the bag and finished his slide on top of the bag. how is that bad sliding?
Because he did not stay on the bag at all times. It is one of the top priorities when planning your slide.
I like this suggestion, but under this rule, Odor would still be out in the example above, correct?
I think it comes down to intent and control. Without adding a safe zone, the rule could basically be that if the runner doesn’t make a move for the next base AND doesn’t overslide the bag (meaning that he can physically no longer touch it), he is safe.
LIke the rule at first base – it isn’t about which way the batter turns, it’s about whether, in the umpire’s judgment, he made an attempt to advance.
Basically, make it a judgment call, except in the case of a rulebook-defined overslide.
It doesn’t make baseball any better. It was an unintended consequence of the replay system. The question is whether the fix is worse than the problem. I can easily argue that it is. For two reasons: One, it will force us to go down the road of giving replay umpires more judgment calls. I’m not sure we want to go that route. The entire point of replay is to avoid human judgment as much as possible. Well, at least one point. (Yes I know that replay umps deciding whether a play is to be overturned or not is a kind of “judgment” – thank you for pointing that out).
The second, and more important reason, is that this will create unnecessary controversy which, again, is one of the primary reasons for replay – to avoid arguments and controversy. There is no getting around the fact that some replay umpires on some days and on some plays are going to rule a player safe when he was significantly and clearly off the bag and some replay umps on some days and on some plays will rule a player out when he was momentarily and insignificantly off the bag. There is simply no way to write or enforce a rule that is not going to be inconsistent or unfair at times. Do we want to go back to the days where managers (and players/fans) are incredulous about calls that appear to be clearly wrong or unfair? That is guaranteed to happen from time to time when you give the replay ump a judgment call like this author suggests.
“A safe zone above the bag?” That doesn’t have the potential to be completely ambiguous and inconsistent? What if a player is standing 3 feet away from the bag but his outstretched hand is above the bag when tagged? I guess he is safe. What if a player is stretched out along the ground next to the base and his finger is one millimeter off the bag, but not above it when tagged? I guess he is out.
I did a Twitter survey about whether my followers at least preferred the current situation or a new rule requiring judgment. It was 50/50 (as I expected).
Interestingly when I asked, Would you reconsider your “yes” vote (you prefer a new rule) if I told you that I though that I could live with the old rule rather than going down the road of giving replay umps more judgment calls, most people said, “yes,” or “maybe.”
If I am reading your second concern correctly, I don’t think you properly understand Dave’s suggestion: “What if a player is standing 3 feet away from the bag but his outstretched hand is above the bag when tagged?” The player first has to make contact with the base, which is not apparent in your hypothetical. This isn’t the “ball crossing the plane of the end zone” rule.
Stated another way: the base runner has to first make contact with the base, and, if in the process of stopping after making contact with the base, the runner happens to come out of contact with the base while remaining over the base, the player is still assumed to have remained in contact with the base the entire time.
This is not possible in your hypothetical, unless you are suggesting that a runner first makes contact and then over slides the bag so much so as to go completely past it, but stop *just* soon enough to keep an outstretched finger over the bag. Given that base runners sometimes have problems keeping contact with the bag even when directly over it, despite the physical presence of both the bag and defender assisting in the stop, it would seem unreasonable to suggest that they could develop enough body control to slide completely past the bag while keeping a hand over it at the end. Even if they could, I fail to understand how this would result in the runner being safe more often. Trying to slide in this way would simply result in their being injured more often, due to violent collisions at the bag, and in their being out more often, given the likelihood of sliding completely *past* the bag, which opens up the opportunity of be tagged out.
While I am reading all of this, and listening to comments talk about players who “don’t know how to slide”, I am wondering if anyone has watched numerous slides, and types of slides, to see if during the natural motion of the slide, contact with the base is maintained constantly after the initial contact.
You know how we think we accurately observe common things, but then we see something different in high-speed, slow-motion, cameras?
With the weight-shifting, energy-transfer, momentum, etc during a slide … I would think that it is possible that numerous runners come “off the bag”, even for a fractional second during the natural course of the slide.
I’m not talking about slides intended to avoid a tag, or slides where they slide past the bag.
I agree that this situation has created more issues than it has solved. To me it ranks up there with critical items such as “is the pitcher’s foot literally touching the rubber or is it just a bit in front?”, “Is the batter’s pinky toe outside of the box when the pitch is being delivered or is it right on the line?”
We are worried about all this stuff and we can’t even fix the damn “lefty strike” or high pitches that are in the strike zone and closer to the center of the zone than they are to being out of the zone, being called balls.
This makes 2 years in a row where we have controversy regarding sliding.
“Personally, I’m not all that interested in forcing runners to learn how to slide in such a way that they can touch second or third base continuously through their slide. That has never been the standard to which runners have been held, and I don’t see the value in holding current runners to that standard at just those two bases now. ”
Dave lays out a very well reasoned argument with a clear proposed solution that, to me, is concise and eliminates the perceived problem. That being said, the above selection simply is not true. Prior to replay, runners have always been held to the standard of maintaining contact with a base while being tagged in order to remain safe. Even without replay, these types of calls where players lose contact with the base and are tagged out were not unheard of. Replay has certainly made them more prevalent, turning would be safe calls into out calls that would not be made with the naked eye, but I ultimately do not agree that it is a bad thing. In my opinion, a key part of successfully reaching a base and remaining safe is the ability to execute a controlled slide that complies with the rules as currently written–if you are tagged off the base you are out.
I think both positions are reasonable and defensible, but this is one of the rare times I do not agree with Dave.
Agreed. What Dave says he isn’t interested in is the exact thing runners have been assumed to be trying to learn for a century.
Replay does change the standard by which base runners are judged, as it opens up the opportunity to see things that were previously unobservable. It’s one thing to note when a guy bounces off a bag with a tag applied. It’s another for a manager to throw a hail-mary challenge flag in the hopes of turning up a single frame of tape in which the runner comes off the bag while the tag is on.
Again, the concern here is not when the runners over slide the bag and are tagged out – those runners are still vulnerable to being tagged out in this scenario. The concern is runners who have clearly won the bag but are called out on a previously unknowable technicality.
I respectfully disagree. The standard remains the same under the replay system (contact with the base during the tag), replay just provides new evidence to use applying the standard. By rule, the player has not clearly won the bag if he is not touching it while the tag is applied. I personally see no reason to change that rule, but I understand the other side of the argument and see value in the dialogue.
Prior to the implementation of replay, I can’t ever remember seeing a player called out on a similar play to the one in which Baez was called out. Sure, when players slid past the bag by a hair, they were occasionally called out, but not when their torso was a fraction of an inch above the bag a fraction of a second before their knee hit the bag after they’d clearly beaten the throw by touching the base with their hand.
The standard remains the same, but the application of the standard is very different. No umpire would have called Baez out on that play before replay. Not a single one.
What about things like the hidden ball trick? That’s essentially losing contact with the base for a split second well after you’ve already beaten the ball there. And just to play devil’s advocate, what about something like a hidden ball trick in the middle of a play? The standard has always been that you must maintain contact while the ball is in play, I’m not sure why slides should be any different
There’s no rule at home plate allowing someone to slide past the base as much as the runner is no longer a runner once he touches home before being tagged/forced out. I get having an issue with these petty replays but I’d rather just live with it than to start tweaking the rules and ending up with even more complicated issues of “breaking the plane.”
This is a good point. If you start adding rules around “safe zones” and whatnot, you’re beginning to emulate the NFL’s rules around what constitutes a catch. Overspecifying can lead to confusion. I’m not saying it definitely would in this case, but that is a possible outcome.
While I agree with Dave on this, the biggest issue I had with the replay and reversal was the time taken to make the call. I understand that they want to get the call correct, but if it takes more than 60 seconds maybe the call on the field should stand.
How about no slow motion replays? If the runner only loses contact with the bag for an undetectable instance when viewed in real time, then he’s safe. The replay is used to get multiple angles that the field umpire could not see. Potentially this would only apply to ball-and-runner plays. Fair/foul, home runs, catch/trap, etc. could still use slow-motion. Or whatever. No slow motion all around. Seems like a baseball way to handle it.
I think a lot of this goes away if you make the managers challenge before seeing a replay. In that case you only get challenges on more clearly disputed calls and much less of the incidental microsecond pop off the bag crap that was clearly an unintended consequence of replay. .
While I agree with your idea in principle, it wouldn’t be very practical in its application. If you say that managers can’t hold up play for 20 seconds while they wait for a replay, they will find a way to hold up play in other ways. If their team is on defense, he’ll have the pitcher shake off a bunch of pitches or have the catcher go out to the mound. If they’re on offense he’ll have the batter get something in his eye and need to call time out. It’s not ideal how it is but it’s better than what we had before which was perfect games getting un-perfect.
uhh … no
This, to me, is becoming MLB’s version of football’s “what is a catch?” conundrum. For the NFL, they’re taking away what look to be obvious catches because of small technicalities, and it feels like we’re doing the same thing here to an extent. Yes, Baez was technically out, but something about him coming off the bag for a couple tenths of a second and being called out for it just feels like it’s not in the spirit of the game. We all know he beat the throw fairly easily, and it doesn’t feel right to reward the Giants for something this nitpicky.
If baseball and being safe was all about beating the throw, just let runners run through the bags like at first.
Exactly. That’s dumb. Sliding with proper technique is just as important as beating the ball to the bag. A bad slide means an out. Plain and simple. Every example in this article (and comment section) were of poorly executed slides. We don’t need more rules to coddle the unskilled, learn to slide the right way, how batters have for a century.
Listen, I know it’s somewhat of an illogical argument. A guy comes off the bag and gets tagged, he’s out. That’s how it’s always worked. But in these rare instances where he’s off the bag for .2 seconds, it just feels outside of the intended use of replay to call him as such. I’m not usually a gut feel kind of fan, but it’s the way I feel in this case.
It’s not like we’re arguing to make allowances for players that slide past the base, or fail to touch it altogether. That would be “coddling the unskilled.” I’m not sure Baez’s slide a result of improper technique, unless the only definition of proper technique is “never, ever, even for a millisecond losing contact with the base.” It was fine outside of that split second, and I think that there’s a middle ground where we can recognize that his slide was imperfect but close enough to still be awarded the base. Dave’s suggestion of a vertical safe area is a perfectly fair compromise, IMO.
My issue with this argument is maybe a philosophical difference in sliding. You slide into the bag not over it. If you slide into the bag, you don’t have to worry about popping up over it. I’m not suggesting that it’s still not possible to lose contact while sliding in (see Odor above), but you shouldn’t be sliding on top of the bag anyway. If players just slide into the bags, you would have way less collisions at second base as well on the double play.
All this time I thought the “spirit of the game” was that base runners are supposed to be touching a base while being tagged in irder to be safe
I think the rules of the game and the spirit of the game are two different things. What you’re hinting at is the former.
Joe Posnanski wrote about this last year and suggested that replay run at game speed. You can look from any angle and reverse a bad call, but if there’s no way for the naked human eye to see that he’s off the base, then he isn’t off the base.
Here’s Posnanski’s piece
http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/replay-lose-nuance-of-game/
Does that work for home runs, or foul or fair hits, or tags by a fielder, or tough sliding maybe catches? If you want to correct bad sliding by just hiding it behind using the naked eye, you better agree to that standard across the landscape of replay.
All the slides here were bad technique. If merely beating the throw was enough to be safe, give runners a lane to run after the base, like at first. Which is silly for other bases. These batters all had issues that caused them to improperly slide. Baez, for example, was too arrogant and wanted to look cool with a slow jog and head down, but once he realized he needed to run, he slid late and too hard to try to make up for that lost time enjoying his hit. He’s out because of it, too bad.
I’m in agreement with the spirit of this solution but the reality is that we have the technology and we have to build the rules around it. If the umpires simply choose not to utilize it you may as well not even have replay, because you’d be back to having situations where fans and TV (which would definitely run slo-mo replays) could see officiating mistakes but there would be no way to fix them.
I like the spirit of this.
I think it is absolutely [insert a bunch of cuss words] that we’re using replay for little things like this … but not for balls and strikes.
We are using technology to reverse calls that weren’t that big of an issue to begin with, but not for ball/strike calls, check swings, etc.
I recall earlier this season that the Twins were hurt twice in one week on this type of play. It was Miguel Sano and I believe Joe Mauer that both attempted pop-up slides at 2nd base but briefly came off the base as they popped up.
I hated that they were called out, but I absolutely agreed with the call in each case. If you’re not on the base and you get tagged, you’re out. Implementing “safe zones” leads to ambiguity on how high you’re allowed to be above the base while still being considered safe. I don’t want to leave yet another thing open to interpretation for an umpire. “One inch off the base is okay, but two inches means you’re too far and thus are out.” As another commenter suggested, that’s like the NFL messing with the definition of a catch.
It sucks for Baez, it sucks for the other runners that have come off the bases in the past and will in the future, but seriously, slide better.
I disagree with this article. He slid very poorly, due to his arrogance and lack of hustle from the batters box. Baez knew he had to make up ground, so he rushed a late slide and had too much momentum and not enough dirt to control his body. That’s on him.
arrogance and lack of hustle led to a late slide? I’m not sure how you manage to draw the connection between his actions in the batters box and the late slide.
Does every batter who slides late also have it relate to his actions getting out of the box? does every batter who is rushing slide late? or are you just making up connections to fit your narrative?
If Baez didn’t think he had hit a home run, he would have gotten to 2B faster and wouldn’t have needed the late slide (because an early slide would have slowed his momentum, possibly causing him to get to the base after the tag).
Not sure how you got upvoted and he got downvoted. Quality of his slide is unrelated to anything precipitating it. You are right he could have hustled and not have to had slid, however he did slide and his comment was on the quality of that.
Watch where he slid from…if that’s late, then i guess MLB needs to implement a slip and slide between 1st and 2nd base to meet your expectations
What does why Baez didn’t get to the base sooner have anything to do with whether he should be called out for being tagged while momentarily losing contact?
Finally we’re on the same page Dave. I think it’s great and one of the more infuraiting rules that need to be addressed this offseason. But I think we should take it one step further. It’s kind of ridiculous to make them touch the bases at all, and sometimes when the runner misses a base and has to go back and tag it it really affects my enjoyment of the play. I mean if he ran past the base clearly he would have been safe. So I guess what I’m saying is get rid of the bases and let the damn kids play ball.
This has to be the most ridiculous suggestion for a rule change I’ve seen in a long time. A “safe zone?” There already is a safe zone. It’s called the base. If you’re touching the base, you are in no danger of being called out. Replay is used to uphold that rule. Your suggestion shouldn’t even be considered for little league, and luckily it won’t ever be for the majors.
Why stop at rewarding terrible sliders? Bring back “the neighborhood play.” Let’s give fielders a safe zone where they only have to wave their glove in the general direction of the runner to get an out. How about automatic outs for outfielders that run towards ball?
The fact of the matter is that Baez should have ran hard out of the box until the ball clears the fence(65% HR rate isn’t exactly a no doubter). IT’S THE PLAYOFFS AFTER ALL. Fielders get an error if their throw is off line or their foot comes off the bag, this is no different. Human error can decide outs, runs, and games in baseball. Look no further than the ending of last night’s Jays-Rangers game.
If this is the way you want to go, why not just stipulate that the replay will be observed only up to the point when the runner first touches the bag? So anything that happens after that is not reviewable. If the runner comes off the bag later in a flagrant way, the umpire will probably see that and call him out. But if it’s such a close thing that replay is needed, he won’t be called out. IOW, let the umpire’s naked eye make the determination of what a safe zone is.
Agreed. I think this a good solution and keeps with the “spirit” of the rule.. I should have read all the comments before posting mine.
I get upset when there’s an obvious blown call, but it can’t be overturned because that type of review is not allowed. If you have the ability to review the call, why limit it?
exactly. Should have read this before I posted. Make it non reviewable. If he comes off the base enough where we can all see it in real time, the call will be made. Stop the silly reviews to see if there’s a quarter second when his foot was 1/8″ off the bag.
What if MLB changed the replay rule to only allow replay to review if the tag beat the runner to the base (i.e. prior to the baserunner’s initial contact with the base) unless there is a second attempt by the baserunner to reach the base. For example, if Javy Baez makes initial contact with the base but then slides past the base and reaches back in a second attempt then such a play would be reviewable. But managers/umpires would only be able to review initial contact with the base and not be able to review if contact with the base was made through the tag.
I think this rule is stupid. That said, as long as it is actually called equally fair for both teams, there are much bigger issues to worry about imo (defining and enforcing a real strike zone being one).
I’m not a professional baseball player and i don’t watch every single mlb game every year, but it seems to me that enough players do manage to slide into bases without screwing this up.
Again, I think this rule is dumb and petty, but seeing as how many players are able to abide by it and I don’t really see any great alternatives to it, I think that it is something of less concern in the grand scheme of things.
Look at the Gore play above to see that Dave’s proposed rule isn’t likely to end up as simple as he says. Did a part of Gore’s body stay over the base on that play? Tough to say, we might have a better idea from a different angle, but it looks like his foot bounced off the bag and away from it (not just up). Or maybe part of his bent knee stayed over the base? And if Gore touches the base, but no part of his body continuously remains over the base, does he then need to touch the base again to “re-establish” contact and get the benefit of the vertical zone? And if he doesn’t need to touch the base again after all of his body moves a few inches off the base laterally – but merely get into the vertical area over it – then how is that distinguished from a player who rounds the bag a few feet but is diving back?
The current rule at least has simplicity on its side.
Agreed 100%. If “part of body must remain above the base” isn’t a can of worms I don’t know what is.
Yup, slippery slope adding subsections to the rule as it stands. It begins to be more of a judgement call than black and white.
I’m done with replays. I’m done with replays sucking the excitement out of close plays and turning them into exercises in forensic videography. I’m done with watching replays on zoomed-in high-speed cameras being advanced frame by frame like an episode of CSI. And I’m particularly done with the fact that replays are wrecking good moments while still allowing egregious mistakes (like the Indians-Astros foul ball and the Cards-Reds walkoff) to stand.
Nothing about replay has made the game better.
Seems like the easiest and cleanest way to fix the problem was the tag only counts and the moment it is applied. If the runner is tagged while he is on the base he is safe. If he comes off the base the tag would have to be reapplied for it to be an out.
yeah, sorry dave, i don’t agree at all.
So instead of encouraging players to slow down and make controlled slides that allow the stop on the bag, you want to encourage them to make hard slides that carry them over the bag and into the opposing player, increasing the prospect of injury?
Bad decision.
One thing that could be done immediately without any rule changes would be to emphasize the rule against pushing a player off the base. If a player is called out by being a fraction of an inch of the base for a fraction of a second, then any tag, no matter how light, could conceivably have caused the player to lose contact with the base. So basically what you could do is just always call interference if a tag occurs after the player has touched the base. This wouldn’t have saved Baez, but it would have saved Gore last year.
With all due respect to all involved parties here, I feel like I read discussions all the time complaining about how umpires don’t call the strike zone to the letter of the law. Let’s have robot umps that call the strike zone perfect is a paraphrased common refrain. Then people want to complain because the get a call correct because they just don’t like a rule. You can’t argue that we want every single call made correct and that umpires shouldn’t have an impact on a game, then complain because a call was made correctly. People some time are going to come off the bag. If you are off the bag, you are out. Let’s not try to complicate the game any more than necessary.
Also, the statement that it’s pretty clear that the best players can’t be expected to slide in and hold contact every time is absolutely correct. If we’re going to make rules because a professional baseball player can’t do something correct 100% of the time, then we need to overhaul a whole lot more rules than are currently out there. Might as well just call folks out on all routine groundballs because the average player should’ve made the play.
I thought the “slide rule” was what the D-Backs FO still uses to evaluate player statistics, and yes, it is time to change.
I dunno…I sympathize with both sides here, to an extent. “Baseball=version of / metaphor for life.” Much nonsense, some of it eloquent, has been written around this equation. OK, but let’s get to specifics. “Should baseball become more like 21st century techno-bureaucratic office work?” I would say NO, but that’s just me. Obsessing over video is kinda what we do in the 21st century, so maybe it should play a LARGER role in baseball!
So I’m going to propose that least favored of all things, a compromise solution. Dramatically educe the role of replay without eliminating it altogether. You need an incentive strong enough to eliminate the vast majority of trifling challenges. I would certainly deny all team personnel real-time access to replay, as some have suggested. And I would also make the penalty for an incorrect challenge very heavy: get it wrong, and you lose the right to challenge for the rest of game and a significant # of additional games.
If a frivolous challenge in game 3 of a 7-game series means you don’t get any more challenges til game 7, then you’re not gonna challenge anything except a clearly game-shifting decision. Which, I think, is more or less how it should be.
When I played I used the hook slide 90% of the time, I would slide farthest side of the base from where defender would receive the ball and only my hand would ever be on the base. There is concern for coming off if done properly.
Doesn’t the proposed solution to a problem that doesn’t seem to be universally regarded as a problem simply exchange one set to questions for another? For instance, if a runner can be safe because his fingertip was in the safe zone but three feet or more above the bag and clearly not in contact with it, is that an improvement over the status quo?
“what we care about [is] who got there first?”
First, I disagree strongly with that. When a live ump has made such an out call, I’ve never heard a fan groan, “But he was just off the base by an inch for a split second!”
Second, the “vertical zone of safety” concept seems a worse can of worms than the problem it’s meant to solve. It, too, would create long review delays. Will we need to add vertical camera angles?
And last, beware the slippery slope. Once you excuse these runners, will you next excuse the fielder who drops the ball after a swipe tag? Or the standing runner who lifts his foot for a moment and is caught by the hidden-ball trick? Or the pitcher whose balk is just a tiny flinch that the runner didn’t even see?
Once you start trying to strip the game down to “what we care about,” it doesn’t take long until you’ve changed the essence of the game. It will be easier to adapt behavior to the interface of the new technology and the long-standing rules, than to change basic tenets of safe and out.
I could agree with stricter limits on when a play can be challenged. But I’m not changing the rules just because we now see things more sharply.
Eliminating review altogether seems like it would make both sides happy!
Things will be “how they always have been” in regards to the rule and its application, and guys won’t be called out for losing contact for a small time increment since umpires cannot see with that level of granularity.
Considering that the scoring of a run is the ultimate objective of any baserunner, that the safe crossing of home plate simultaneously accomplishes both that objective and the removal of the baserunner from further participation in the active play, it is more reasonable to state that there is one base (first) at which baseball makes an exception to its maintenance of contact rule. This point is supplemented by the fact that home plate is a plate not a base, a distinction that seems more likely to have come with a difference (beyond simple need for a flat surface) than without.
The above being established, we can turn to other potential reasons why first base would be treated differently than second and third. Thankfully, an alternative reason exists. Accomplishing contact with first base ahead of a completed catch and touch of first base by a defender or ahead of a tag of the relevant runner establishes the runners presence on the initial of the bases of that comprise the basepaths.
I submit for consideration that the above points are the bases (pun intended) for the differential treatment of first base and home plate, that thereby the premises for Mr. Cameron’s above article are incorrect and that at the least Mr. Cameron must re-establish justification for the proposed change. Furthermore, as to the change itself, I say nay. It is a solution in search of a problem. Imagine, if you will, a runner taking his lead off second. He stretches his left arm toward second base, reaching it just far enough for his outstretched finger to hover in the fly-zone above second base. The pitcher whirls and fires to the second baseman. The runner moves not. The second baseman catches the ball and applies the tag. Is the runner out? Should we be forced to contemplate this absurdity, let alone write a rule accounting for it, one way or the other? Woulds’t thou have us play American Football? Heaven forefend.
In conclusion, Baez was out, because he was out. If Baez’ outness is a natural end of the advent of replay then so be it. In point of fact the preciseness cited here as a bad thing is the preciseness advocates of instant replay so coveted in the first place. I am not using this case as an argument against replay. The change is made. Let it settle naturally, without the admixing of various apologias and compensating whatnots.
I voted this up both for its reasoning and for not skimping on words in the service thereof. I’m so sick of the “TL/DR” mindset.
Breakaway bases? Supposed to safer, and I feel like they’d help here too.
I don’t see the need to change anymore rules. The problem is manager should be required to challenge plays based on what their eyes tell them and not have 30 seconds to have some video guy reviewing these in slow motion. Eliminate the 30 second rule, make it 5 seconds and managers throw a flag on the field when they want a review. That will eliminate this stuff. If you can have 2 challenges in the post season, given them 2 in the regular season, and then we can eliminate 6-10 30 second delays on close plays that don’t end up getting challenged, so no harm done in terms of pace
It ain’t that hard people
Historically, the overrun rule at first base was a compromise. Players were getting injured in collisions, which upset the owners, and first base was the most frequent site of collisions. There was fierce opposition to changing “the way it’s always been”, but a special rule for first was adopted as an experiment. It was expected that the rule would either be rejected or extended to the other bases; instead the compromise stuck, for over a hundred years. I have been unable to find an online reference to when the overrun rule was adopted.
I think a comprehensive study of a week or month or season’s worth of slides should be made to determine how often the runner loses contact with the bag.
Just my opinion, but I err on the side of not making a change.
Sliding is a skill. You’ve got guys that are actively coming up with ways to slide and avoid tags, with athletic swim moves and the like, for example:
http://mlb.mlb.com/images/2/0/4/134133204/070115_chc_rizzo_slide_med_mm2j4nr3.gif
http://mlb.mlb.com/images/7/5/6/146833756/090115_cletor_lindor_slide_med_x3n1xkvx.gif
These are instances where the ball has beaten the base runner and they have made a good play to avoid the tag, despite being beaten by the throw.
Either way, whether you can expect talented athletes to stay on the base throughout a slide or not, I don’t see the point in introducing grey areas to something like this. Umpires have, and can still, call a guy out or safe on the field on these types of plays where a base runner may have lost contact with the base. But nowadays, replay can try to ensure that the call is correct.
Completely agree with the author. Have been arguing for this exact interpretation (once touched during a slide, the space above the base is still safe if the leg, torso or arm – when sliding head first – is above the bag) for a couple years now. No offense to those arguing that the rule is OK as is, but they don’t seem to understand about momentum and movement. It is almost impossible to hit a base with the front foot, for example, and not have that foot or leg “bounce” up the air.
It’s a simple fix. Every umpire who ever lived knows the difference between oversliding a bag and just being slightly above the bag which can only be seen on replay. And it should be fixed NOW. Why wait until next year. It’s a no-brainer in my opinion. How do we get a petition to the commissioner started?
“And we’re only asking them to do it at second and third base. At first base and home plate, there are exceptions written into the rule that allow a runner to touch the base and continue on past it…”
This is because 1st base and home plate have exceptional circumstances associated with them. The former involves a force play at all times, whereas 3rd and 2nd base do not. When 2nd and 3rd base do have a force play in effect, then simply having the throw beat the runner while the defender touches the base will suffice. Of course, the runner must also stay on the base while the play is live. At 1st base, there is an additional exception, the runner may choose whether or not they will pursue extra bases by either running inside of the baseline or running along it or outwards towards foul territory, and thus conceding their right to pursue extra bases. In so doing, they are awarded 1st base safely if they have beaten the initial force play there. This peculiarity may not be feasible at other bases because the layout of the field, and where the runner is coming from.
At home plate, once the runner has safely touched the plate without being tagged or forced out if applicable, then he is a scorer, and no longer a runner. If he has been tagged or forced out, then he is out, and no longer a runner. He has no more right to round bases once he is ruled out, nor indeed any need if he has scored.
I understand the sentiment of the article, and respect the right of the author to opine. However, to present this argument as being entirely rational without having fully rationalized it, which is evident in ignoring these exceptions when the initial equivalency was posited, is a step too far.
I couldn’t agree more. Getting called out because there’s 1/2″ of space between the runner’s body or foot and the bag for a fraction of a second second while the fielder has a tag applied is NOT what replay is for. I like your thought, but I don’t think we to change the basic rules of running the base, and I certainly don’t want to make over sliding, or overrunning 2B or 3B legal. Why not just change what is reviewable? Maybe something like this…….
“Momentary loss of contact with the bag, after the runner has safely touched the bag, and his body remains over the bag, is not a reviewable play. Safely touching the bag and losing contact by oversliding, or otherwise losing contact with the bag while not directly over the bag and being tagged is still subject to review.”
I’m an advocate of the “air space rule”, which is that during a slide, once you have touched the base, as long as a part of your body is touching or occupying the air space above the bag, you are technically on the base. Replay is good enough to determine this by now.
Players should wear tassels. Fixed. Thank you America. Good night.
Is there actual legitimate discussion of this type in NFL comment sections as well? Such as “Well, the guy had the ball and he didn’t get two feet in bounds but he was so close for a split second that we should just give it to him. Or “He just went out of bounds for a split-second, lets make in bounds a judgement call.” “He was tackled and his knee DID hit the ground, but only for a split-second, he should be allowed to run another 45 yards.”
Vertical Safe Area idea won’t work. You’d be replacing judgement calls with other judgement calls, and it would require a camera placed directly above the bag to provide a definitive view, impossible in open-air stadiums.
Stay on the base through the whole slide! Not hard to learn and practice.
Sliding used to be a skill that was practiced by the players. Ty Cobb had something like 8 different slides and he’d choose the one he’d use by looking at the baseman’s eyes. I like the idea that, if your slide is a bad one, you’re out. Let’s not de-skill the game. Dinger Madness is already doing a pretty good job of that.
I keep seeing this referred to as an “unintended consequence” of replay.
I was under the impression that replay was added to get every call right. So, what is unintended about this?
Before replay there was a certain amount of judgement and ambiguity in very close plays. Replay got rid of that ambiguity. Now we are supposed to add a rule that reintroduces a certain amount of judgement and ambiguity?
It just seems like a bunch of nonsense to keep going back and forth
Totally right on every point, Dave. I don’t get all these people routing for baserunners to be penalized because of minute technicalities. They must be insurance agents or something.
Oh my goodness, I couldn’t agree more. I get why people are on the side of ‘if you’re off the bag, you’re off the bag’, but to me it’s getting kind of ridiculous with the challenges. When it comes down to the smallest amount of time a person is off the bag that’s annoying. I really feel that using common sense take a step back and realize the player beat the throw.
When we’re looking at when a 1B, for example, actually ‘catches’ the ball in a challenge, it gets broken down to that same amount of time, but in the end most of the time we can’t tell when the ball is ‘in the glove’ and we use common sense to decide if they’ve made the catch before a player reaches the base or not.
We’re getting way too picky on getting things ‘right’ instead of just enjoying the game. We move closer and closer to players needing to make a baseball move and the ambiguity that goes with that. Let’s just find out if a player beat the throw.