Let’s Build a Scouting Report on Lucas Duda’s Arm
You’ve got an opinion on the Eric Hosmer play. Y’know, the one where he broke from third on a ground ball that didn’t get out of the infield grass and scored the tying run in the ninth inning of the World Series? Y’know, the one where if he would have been out, the game would have been over but he wasn’t and now the Royals are world champions? That’s the one. You’ve got an opinion on the Hosmer play, I’ve got an opinion on the Hosmer play, and even if you say you don’t have an opinion on the Hosmer play, well, that’s your opinion.
Immediately, people began debating whether he’d have been out with a good throw. Because Lucas Duda didn’t make a good throw. But that’s not the part that has my attention. The result was the result. I’m more interested in the process.
You see, the legend of the Kansas City Royals’ advance scouting department has grown to near-mythological proportions. The stories say it was the advance scouting department that discovered David Price tipping his changeup. Price’s Jon Lester-like avoidance of pick offs to first base. Jose Bautista’s inclination to throw to second base from the corner in right field — which allowed Lorenzo Cain to score from first on a single in the ALCS. Now, the advance scouting department has struck again:
@AmazinAvenue How does it make assumptions when the Royals internally talked about taking chances against Duda? This wasn’t willy-nilly.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 2, 2015
This has been the set-up. I want you to now forget everything you know about the Hosmer play, about Lucas Duda, about what the metrics say about him and what you’ve seen with your eyes, about the Nostradamus-like premonitions of the Royals advance scouts and about everything you’ve read since last night. To the best of your abilities, wipe the slate clean.
Slate clean? Cool. First, the most basic information about Lucas Duda. He’s 29 years old, he’s a Major League baseball player, and he throws right-handed. He’s roughly 6-foot-4, and he weighs 255 pounds. His first season in the Majors, he played exclusively left field. Since then, he’s transitioned to become a first baseman, but for his career, he’s spent 40% of his time in corner outfield spots, and 60% at first base. In 3,000 innings at first base, he’s committed three throwing errors. In 2,000 innings in the outfield, he’s committed two more. Based on that information and that information alone, give me your opinion of Lucas Duda’s throwing arm:
Now for Phase Two. It’s a little tricky to pin down all the times a first baseman threw a ball with intent, but I was pretty thorough in my searches and with the help of database guru Jeff Zimmerman I’m willing to say with about 95% confidence that I found everything I was looking for. Everything I was looking for amounts to this:
- Every throw Lucas Duda made from first base this year; and
- Instances of Lucas Duda throwing home from first base, from past years; and
- Instances of Lucas Duda throwing errors at first base, from past years.
Remember: clean slate! You don’t know anything about these three items. You’re about to, though, because I’ve prepared 20 video clips. Twenty clips is a lot! I get that. But they’re all roughly four seconds in length, and this is your best chance to watch baseball for the next five months. You can knock these out in two minutes. Best part is, you get to pretend you’re an advance scout for the Kansas City Royals! You’ve always dreamed of working in a Major League front office. This is your big chance. Watch with a keen eye. Try to pick up on any useful trends. Along with basic arm strength and accuracy, look for things like footwork, transfer, and mechanics. Keep in mind: you’re an advance scout for the Kansas City Royals and this is the World Series!
Okay, Mr. Advance Scout. You’ve done your individual research. Now, tell us your opinion of Lucas Duda’s throwing arm, given the basic information provided at the start, plus your film study:
You’ve seen about all there is to see. That was roughly every throw Duda made this year, plus his throwing errors from years past, plus his throws to home. I couldn’t find any instances of him throwing across the diamond to third. The Royals advance scouts did more homework than this, but they watched all the same clips you just did. Your personal opinion, now, should be set. Let’s fold in some outsider opinions.
First, we’ll go with the Fans Scouting Report. On a 1-100 scale, Duda’s arm strength has been rated by the fans as 40, 41, 23 and 40. His accuracy has been rated as 32, 35, 21, 45. First basemen typically don’t score too well in the Fans Scouting Report, but every year he’s been included, he’s scored in the bottom-half of the arm sections.
Now, to pull from two columns written, one by Jeff Passan and the other by Andy McCullough. These two might be more plugged-in with the Royals organization than any other reporters on the planet.
‘[Hosmer had] heard, before the series began… that first baseman Lucas Duda was susceptible to aggressive baserunning. As Yost said: “Make them beat us.”’
‘[Hosmer] knew the first baseman, Lucas Duda, is a mediocre fielder.
“Bless his heart, Duda,” first-base coach Rusty Kuntz said. “He’s a good bat.”
The Kansas City scouting report on Duda mentioned his sidearm throwing motion. His volleys often tail away from the intended target. And so catcher Travis d’Arnaud reached in vain as the ball skittered away. Hosmer slid across the plate to tie the game.’
The Royals scouts say that they saw Duda had unorthodox, sidearm throwing mechanics. They say they saw a lack of consistent accuracy. They say they saw that Duda didn’t respond well to unusually aggressive baserunning. Now that you’ve got basic info, film, plus the reported word of the Kansas City advance scouts, one more poll related to Duda:
McCullough’s technical specifics are interesting, but Passan’s note might be the most important part of the calculus in Hosmer’s decision, in my opinion. Maybe you noticed it in the clips above, but, as far as I can tell, Duda’s only ever thrown home, from first base, three times in his entire career. He’s never had to make a throw quite like the one he made in the ninth inning of Game Five. Hosmer’s got good enough speed. The Royals had a 3-1 lead in the series. Third baseman David Wright’s throwing strength, as reported by both Passan and McCullough, as evidenced by recent Fans Scouting Reports, and as evidenced by this year’s Statcast data, is among the worst in the Major Leagues. It would have taken strong throws from both Wright and Duda to get Hosmer at home, and a clean tag by d’Arnaud.
I’ve tried to abstain from injecting my own opinion into this piece, but it kind of feels like the perfect storm to take a risk in attempt to capitalize on the weaknesses of your opponents by forcing them to make a play. And it sure seems like the Royals advance scouts did their homework and nailed another one. Granted, all that information wasn’t running through Hosmer’s head during the split-second he needed to make a decision. Hosmer certainly knew some, if not all, of this info beforehand, but sports are reactionary. He saw the grounder hit to Wright. He knew nobody was there to cover the bag at third, lessening his risk of taking wider secondary lead as Wright looked him back. He saw Wright hesitate after looking him back. He took the risk. It paid off.
TangoTiger ran the math and figured Hosmer needed to be safe roughly 33% of the time for it to be a worthwhile risk. Because this is all fascinating to me, I want to include one more poll to wrap this all up. Try and forget the fact that Duda made a bad throw and Hosmer was safe at home. Only consider what you just learned in this post, and answer the question: did Eric Hosmer make a wise decision in breaking for home?
August used to cover the Indians for MLB and ohio.com, but now he's here and thinks writing these in the third person is weird. So you can reach me on Twitter @AugustFG_ or e-mail at august.fagerstrom@fangraphs.com.
I like the mention of Wright but consideration of Travis d’Arnaud and his ability to catch and make the tag. The throws home that are in the clips seem to be force plays, the play here with the tag required makes a difference in the calculation.
I didn’t consider this at all last night, but you’re right. In the clips, Duda’s throws consistently arrive high. They’re not slow or late or wildly off line, but they’re almost all high. A high throw right on line is in time to get Hosmer if d’Arnaud makes a quick and clean turn, but if he doesn’t, Hosmer is probably safe.
You want to throw it higher when it’s a force out, hit the guy in the chest. I’m sure Duda knew the situation just as well. This should have almost nothing to do about Duda’s arm and rather the simple fact that the Mets HAD to make that play, where the Royals could live another day if Hosmer gets tagged out.
Hosmer made the right call, you don’t win World Series’ sitting on your thumbs.
The advance scouts may have picked up some other things by watching his warmup, etc. But two things occurred to me:
1. He didn’t need it to be successful 33% of the time for it to work. Gordon was on deck. He’s about a .270 hitter since he came back, and he’s not looking to walk there. 28% success rate makes it a worthwhile gamble, esp. w/ Familia on the mound. And FWIW, I think he does score about 30% of the times he attempts this.
2. Almost every play they showed of Duda was of him throwing the ball after fielding it, and with time to set up. The Hosmer play was different in that he had to throw quickly and do so after having caught it. Also, this is a force play, and not a tag. He doesn’t just need an on-target throw here- he needs one that’s to the third base side and down…otherwise, Hosmer is still probably safe. Every time Duda had to make a quick throw, the throw was high. The one time that he does catch and throw, it’s high and to the arm side- EXACTLY what he did in Game 5. In the play above, the throw wasn’t as bad, Duda had more time to make the throw, and the runner didn’t slide.
3. Someone had mentioned that Duda could’ve stepped off of first, and thrown home immediately, cutting down the time and also the distance. Problem with this is that his team is still up a run. If Hoz is safe, who cares? The bases are empty and two men are out. You have to take the sure out there, even if the run scores.
“Bless his heart, Duda, he’s a good bat.”
Ow. Was that as thorough a cutdown in person as it sounds here?
Yeah, I’ve been around enough southerners to know that blessing someone’s heart is what you do right before you stab them in it.
Sounds like something Barbara Bush would say.
It’s rude, it’s cruel after you’ve just beaten a team, it’s uncalled for.
This is more crazy luck for the Royals. The scouting reports say his ball tails as he throws, yet he manages to miss gloveside on this throw, not armside like expected. Duda actually threw the ball fairly straight for once, expecting it to tail, but it never did.
I don’t really agree with this – his sidearm throwing motion makes him more likely to miss armside but also more likely to miss gloveside. It’s all a matter of release point. He released it too late, so it went too far gloveside. And there’s more margin for error in the vertical direction because d’Arnaud is taller than he is wide, so Duda’s sidearm motion just made it easier to miss his target, whether it be armside or gloveside.
If they just said that he’s inaccurate because he throws sidearm, I’d agree, but they said “the ball often tails away from the intended target” which would mean armside. It’s not a big deal, but it’s just another glimpse into how little anyone can predict individual events.
Not trying to call you out on this because maybe you didn’t see this angle, but nothing about the throw could be considered straight:
https://gifs.com/gif/m8aEdw
I saw the throw on the full replay, but not in GIF form like that. In this case, I mean straight as in “on a line,” not accurate. There was maybe a little bit of tail on it, but it’s hard to tell from that angle. He just pulled it so bad that it would have needed to be a Colon comeback sinker for d’Arnaud to catch it.
One more article about how the Royals aren’t good, they’re just lucky..
There is literally not one mention of luck in the entire article. As someone who had zero rooting interest in the series, I have read all the articles today as being in awe of the Royals, and rightfully so. There certainly has been no disrespect of their accomplishment, so give it a mother-effing rest.
Ugh, accidentally upvoted this when I wanted to reply. Sorry, all of Fangraphs.
This was a bad comment. And boring.
“Was Hosmer’s run a good idea? Let’s talk about it!” is not accusatory. It’s an exploration. It’s also not denigrating the fact that Hosmer made an aggressive play, or that the Royals didn’t make errors when their opponents did. That’s part of winning! It’s okay! It’s also okay to talk about how percentages suggest you ought to play and whether a given read is a good one. This is what they do here. It’s interesting. Let us explore this with them!
Knowing what your opponent will do isn’t luck, it’s doing your research.
Wow! Someone is seriously lacking basic reading comprehension skills.
Does anyone really believe the Mets were the better team this year?
No, this is the natural outcome of two lame teams playing in the WS.
95-67
Top Record in AL
7 All-Stars
AL Pennant (2nd straight year)
World Series Champ
You only wish your team could be that lame
I’m a Royals fan, and even I know the team didn’t deserve that many players. Ignore the effects of the emphasized media campaign and look at the numbers.
Infante getting 2.65 million votes and finishing a mere 159k behind Altuve and a whopping 1.55 million over Kipnis pretty much invalidates All-Star voting as a means of judging the quality of teams.
You can at least say they deserved the Home Field advantage. haha
Does anyone believe that they weren’t evenly matched enough that a couple plays couldn’t have significantly affected who won the series?
Yeah, it’s impossible to say that the Royals still wouldn’t have won but it is hard to get rid of the nagging feeling as a Mets fan that 1 play or move in 3 games and it could have been 4-1 Mets.
Game 1: Familia meatball quick-pitch (or Cespedes-Conforto not catching a catchable inside the parker).
Game 4: Murphy error, or Colon for more than 1 batter, or Familia for 2, anyone but Clippard, or at least get him out after 1st walk).
Game 5: Duda error (or Wright goes home), or Familia for the 9th, or at least after Harvey walks Cain.
The Royals were better. And of course the Mets also took advantage of some Royals errors or gaffes. The Mets’ gaffes were at the crucial points though.
You get the feeling the Royals would have won anyway, but 3 plays swung 3 games. The teams were fairly close and it denigrates the Royals accomplishment to say they didn’t beat a pretty damn good team that was right there with them most of the games, and had a lead in every game.
The Royals are especially impressive for having come so close last year and having to go through the playoff gauntlet all over again and doing it. Fun team to watch (unless your team is playing them).
I can’t help but feel the same way. The went into the 8th with a lead in each of those games but they simply couldn’t execute.
Royals were better, obviously, but it’s just so damn close. At the very least, the world series exposed just how bad the Mets can be on defense. d’Arnaud couldn’t throw anyone out to save his life. Wright’s motion on this throws is clearly being affected by his back. Duda was never stellar but I thought he had improved this year. Murph…well, he giveth and he taketh. That inside the park homer should have been an error on Cespedes. And so on and so on.
The Mets are better positioned than they have been in a while to continue to get to the postseason consistently with the talent on the roster and to come from the minors. A key signing here and there and they could easily have a shot to repeat as NL champions. It’s always a crapshoot but the organization hasn’t been this stocked with talent in a while.
With all of that said, the series will leave a bad taste in my mouth simply because of all of the errors and one pitch by Familia.
In addition to TDA being unable to throw anyone out trying to steal, the lack of pitch-outs was infuriating.
Great exercise. Thanks for putting this together.
I’ve always been curious, how do you compile clips like this? I’m assuming you identify each play you’re interested using the available play log database, but do you then need to go to each game/inning/situation to get the clip?
Or is there a more professional tool than standard MLB.TV that lets you do this in an easier fashion?
Appreciate the kind words. It’s all BR Play Index and MLB.TV. On BR, you’re given the inning, outs, baserunners and count, so that makes it fairly simple to find each play.
I’ve kind of got it down to a science by now, too. On MLB.TV you can skip ahead to the start of half-innings. Each at-bat takes ~3 minutes and there’s roughly 30 seconds between pitches. So if I see a play happened in the top of the 6th with two outs and one guy on, that’s three batters. Click on the top of the sixth, skip nine minutes into that inning and you’ll usually be right about where you need to be, then you can fast-forward or backward 30 seconds a piece for each pitch. It’s all pretty swift once you get the hang of it.
Wow. Extra kudos to you then.
Beyond the process you described, I think to me, the most frustrating part would be the wait time just to get the game streaming initially.
Not sure what your internet situation is, but it typically doesn’t take more than 10 seconds or so before I can skip ahead to the chosen half-inning
How do find his defense plays on BR Play Index? I’ve only found how to get batting and pitching info.
Doesn’t this search method only find plays where he recorded an assist or was charged with an error? Wouldn’t it miss any play where he attempted a throw, but it was wide, high, late etc. in such a manner that the runner was safe, but no error was charged?
What Evan said.
All of the clips show a play where an out or an error was made by Duda. I find it very hard to believe that he never made a throw that didn’t result in an out or error. In fact, the evidence of Duda making poor throws might exist in plays that didn’t come up in your search.
Results largely align with my feedback. I didn’t see any glaring weakness – at least not enough to suggest that Duda would totally botch the throw. I’m also assuming that scouts are monitoring pre-game warm ups and other areas where you could see his arm on display.
To me, he was largely accurate. However, he was SLOW often times and as was pointed out above, throwing to make a tag is an entirely different deal than throwing for the force out. Location has to be incredibly precise and we just don’t have enough information in the clips to know just how precise Duda is.
At the end of the day this seems like a reasonable risk to take given the circumstances. However, I would also think that Duda makes a good enough throw 2 out of 3 times to nail Hosmer.
The one thing I noticed in all these clips is that Duda rarely steps into his throws. Watch his feet, and he’s usually stepping to the side and throwing mostly with his arm instead of his legs. I would not teach anyone to learn to throw by watching him because in the language of pitching, his delivery is not repeatable.
You missed one crucial throw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ijs5_81HE
It’s the most similar one to the play that happened last night that Duda has ever done. The runner was about exactly the same distance away.
Of course a damn triple play would slip its way through my search. Good find!
I’ve .giffed this and included it in the post. Thanks again
No problem.
Ooh, and d’Arnaud makes a great turn for the tag, too! It looks more and more like Hosmer should have expected to be toast.
Nice find.
How do we get from the vast majority of votes being Duda has “an average” or “below-average” throwing arm for a first baseman in the final iteration of the scouting report to the majority of people concluding it was “probably worth the risk” based on Tom Tango’s assessment that in order for that to have been a good decision, Hosmer would have to have been safe 33% of the time? It seems an implied premise used by most voters would have to be that a “major-league first-baseman with an average to below-average arm can’t make that throw at least two-thirds of the time.” Is that what other people think? Substitute “high-school” for “major-league” in the final quoted statement, and I’m still not sure I’d agree.
I still think the fact that the Royals’ championship expectancy would be 75-80 percent even losing this game (reducing downside of failure), while getting into a bullpen-bullpen matchup minus Familia and Herrera favors the Royals strongly in this game (increasing upside of success), needs to be part of the risk assessment. The 33% figure is player-blind. The players still available make it a better gamble, though I can’t say how much.
Factor in Wright’s seemingly subpar arm, Duda’s seemingly subpar arm, his apparent inexperience making this throw, the fact that d’Arnaud still has to catch it and apply a good tag, the fact that the Royals were one win away from being champions and that, even if they lost, they still had two cracks at it at home, and I think the poll results make sense
Yeah, I’m slowly coming around from, “Gimme a break” to “Okay, maybe it sort of makes sense when you take everything into account.” I am definitely of the opinion that they should just let the Royals advance scouts run the team bc they clearly have a time machine.
You can also factor in the likelyhood of the next batter getting a hit off of Familia. He held opposing batters to a .206 avg this season. Even if you only give Hosmer a 30% chance of scoring it still seems like the better odds.
This seems right to me. It wasn’t a very good gamble in and of itself, but it was a gamble using house money. You’re a hero if it works; if it doesn’t, things are still pretty good.
Yeah, I’m taking my chances with Duda over Familia.
Despite ‘blowing’ 3 saves (really 1 ), he had a 1.80 ERA and a .60 WHIP over 5 IP in 4 games.
I completely agree with this. The odds of scoring on that play were probably better than the odds of getting a two-out hit off Familia. That, to me, was the biggest factor.
I’ve heard people say that it was Flores’ ball. Two things: One, I never want Wilmer Flores taking a groundball that David Wright can get to. But two, Flores floats his throws worse than Wright does.
“I was shuffling along with David and as soon as he turned his head to throw to first base, I saw an opportunity to steal a run,’’ said Hosmer, who scored easily because Duda’s throw was wide of the plate. “With [Jeurys] Familia on the mound, hits were going to be hard to come by, and I had to be aggressive.’’
Familia drove the decision, not Duda.
It’s also the reason I think it was smart to run. The stuff about Duda, ehhhh, but Familia is tough to make good hard contact off so I think that it was better to take a chance and force the play.
My only real beef is that I think Hosmer could have broke earlier. Wright has a bad arm, is angling the wrong way, backhanded the ball, and momentum was against him. If Hosmer had started at contact I think it would have taken a heckuva play by Wright to get him at the plate
I also suspect leaving the potential tying run at third last year may have had some impact on Hosmer’s decision to be aggressive. I bet half the Royals spent the off-season thinking “If that ever happens again, I’m going.”
“I also suspect leaving the potential tying run at third last year may have had some impact on Hosmer’s decision to be aggressive. I bet half the Royals spent the off-season thinking “If that ever happens again, I’m going.””
This, I actually think, was the biggest part of it.
It comes down to where Hosmer was and the fact that Wright faking a throw home does nothing to deter Hosmer because there is nobody on third base.
If Wright throws home, Hosmer just has to beat Wright back to the bag, which he had forever to do.
The only way Wright actually deters Hosmer back to third is by running at him.
It was a good move.
Think of it this way: SF makes that play last year, which is why they won.
But wait, you just said faking a throw home doesn’t deter Hosmer since he just goes back to 3rd. So, could Wright have faked throw home, Hosmer goes back, and then Wright throws to first?
Yes he should have faked it. While Hosmer may not have bit. He would have been less read to run. Heck he could have faked a throw to first. To avoid a double play Hosmer has to absolutely break as soon as he throws. So a fake throw probably causes Hosmer to bite.
I don’t think faking a throw home does anything, because Hosmer knows that he can beat Wright back to 3rd. Nobody is on third, so it’s a footrace and Hosmer is closer to the bag.
Hosmer only moves back to 3rd if Wright starts moving towards 3rd or towards Hosmer. If he does, Hosmer can’t just stay there or go home, he has to go back to third. All he needs to do is get his momentum towards third, which is something he didn’t do.
Moving towards Hosmer and throwing to first is a mighty tough play, but that little deke he gave him wasn’t enough.
Alternatively, Wright could have fake threw to first to bait Hosmer, but I don’t think he thought Hosmer would run home.
Also, any fake throw that doesn’t nab Hosmer means giving up the out at 1st and now it’s 1st and 3rd with 1 out. Wright’s gotta get the out there.
He’s got to keep Hosmer from scoring on that play.
1st and 3rd with 1 out and a 1 run lead is still better than bases empty and a tie game and 2 out.
That’s an opinion, not a fact, but once the game was tied, it was basically over.
Face it, if you have a reliever who induces piddly grounders that your infielders kick around the stadium, you’re not winning.
I certainly noticed in these clips that Duda seems unwilling to put everything he has into a throw, which makes his throws take a little longer to get to bases than you’d expect. But I don’t see how that tells you that he wouldn’t be good at it if he had to make such a throw without thinking. However, I thought it was a good move for Hosmer to break for home, as much as I can’t stand him…
The Mets infield was atrocious all series long and I told my dad 3ish minutes before the Duda throw that an error was coming. They have made high-leverage infield blunders all series long and it seems to be in their head a bit at this point. It wasn’t their last one.
Couple this with the amount of time it takes Wright to get the ball to bases and you have a play that is “Probably worth the risk.”
I noticed this as well, the throws generally seemed soft and he was slow to release them. The thing that stood out more than anything is that most of the throws to second on force plays were not followed by throws back to first. Perhaps it was the extra effort he put on the ball last night that caused it to be so inaccurate?
I think that (i.e. the slow throw) may be the result of how he sets up when throwing. It looks like he frequently squares and plants his feet, rather placing his left foot forward and shifting his weight forward as a right handed person normally would.
And you thought I’d be the one making an error.
Wilmer played great this series. Murph and Wright, not so much.
I think when you add in game context, it was no doubt worth the risk. You know there is a very good pitcher on the mound, who doesn’t give up hits readily. You know you have two games at home if thrown out. That had to be part of the calculation, as well.
I’m a Mets fan who is active in politics. This BS about the KC advance scouts reminds me about how the political reporters AFTER an election proclaim those who ran the winning campaign geniuses & those with the losers idiots. Did Passan or McCullough write a word about Duda’s arm before November 1?
Who would ever say anything about advance scouting while a series is going on? That’s giving away information that may help your team. None of the Price or Bautista stuff came out until after the Toronto series, and it would have been an egregious mistake to say anything before the games with that team are over.
I just read this from Joe Posnanski. KC 3rd Base Coach apparently wan’t informed that running on Duda was a great idea.
Admit it, you sent (Eric) Hosmer didn’t you?” baseball Hall of Famer George Brett is now saying to the Royals’ third-base coach, Mike Jirschele. They are talking about the Royals’ latest impossible escape, ninth inning of Sunday’s Game 5, the New York Mets leading by a run, when Royals catcher Salvador Perez dribbled a grounder to third base. The Mets’ David Wright fielded it cleanly, looked back toward Hosmer who was on third, and then flipped his usual underhand throw across the infield.
The instant Wright let go of the ball, Hosmer took off on a kamikaze mission for the plate.
“Admit it, you sent him!” Brett insists.
“Are you kidding me?” Jirschele says. “As soon as he took off, I thought, ‘Oh (bleep!)’ But Eric, you know, he read it. He felt it.”
Your excerpt doesn’t show that. It shows that the 3b coach thought running in that situation against that 1b was a bad idea.
Great job, August. It’s amazing what we can do these days.
One thing I’d add is that Hosmer didn’t actually take that big a lead off third. He could have taken a much bigger one given how far away Wright was. To me, that makes his decision to go more curious.
I like Paul Swydan as a writer, but I thought he lost his marbles on twitter last night when he wrote that Wright should have run towards Hosmer instead of throwing to first, and that Wright had a chance to tag Hosmer out. As you (Dave) said, Wright was pretty far away from the bag and Hosmer didn’t have a big lead. No chance he could have gotten Hosmer out.
I’m 100% with Paul Swydan here. A-Rod pretty much said the same thing on the post-game wrapup. He added that Sal Perez is slow, giving Wright more time than with any other Royal.
A-Rod knows this stuff better than the three of us combined times fifty.
He also said it was Flores’ ball to begin with. That’s another issue, but I think running a step or two at Hosmer gets him momentum in the right direction.
Keith Hernandez on the SNY postgame made the same point about the ball belonging to Flores. I don’t see how anyone could reasonably expect Wright to let that ball go by when he had a clean play on it.
In hindsight it would have been fun to see if Wright could pull a Manny Machado style juke and lure the runner off third, but for that to work Flores would have had to bust it to cover the bag, and the replay showed him in a jog.
Well, there are really two issues there.
Should Wright have taken a step towards Hosmer to make him hesitate more? Sure, I can see why someone would think so.
Did Wright have a chance to tag Hosmer out? This is where I thought Paul lost his marbles. Based on where the players where, there’s absolutely no way Wright could have come close to beating Hosmer to the bag, short of Hosmer tearing an ACL and falling to the ground.
I think Wright did his job. He looked him back enough to where when Hosmer broke towards home, the Mets were in a good position to get him out. You can’t blame Wright for Duda’s throwing error.
Agree that Wright isn’t beating Hosmer to the bag, but if he’s reverses his momentum back to third, he’s not trying to score.
A throw home doesn’t do that, cause nobody’s on third. Only Wright making his way towards Hosmer does it.
Which is something A-Rod pointed out when he said Flores should have made the play. His momentum is towards Hosmer, so he’s more likely to go back to third.
Wright’s momentum was towards first. All he could do at that point was a fake pivot, which didn’t fool Hosmer one bit.
Now, of course, it’s perfectly likely that Flores boots it or throws it in the stands, but the textbook play is Flores takes it, freezes Hosmer (he’s in a better position to do this than Wright is) , and gets the out.
Good read. I like the video collection and allowing us to pretend scout. All said, we are talking about major league quality athletes who must at some level establish their ability to make consistent outs, and Duda being average, below average or whatever he is as a fielder is surely good enough to be playing professional baseball.
Seeing the infield grounder to third, Hosmer froze. He doesn’t extend his secondary lead that he took when the ball is pitched – even as the ball pulls Wright away from the bag. He only starts to extend his lead when Wright breaks eye contact with him. There is no one within 35 feet of third and Hosmer’s lead is still 9.5 feet when he breaks. Should Eric Hosmer have been thinking of scouting reports on Duda, I can only imagine he would have been looking for a more aggressive lead than his standard lead on an infield ball and would have surely been further up the line – especially given where the ball was hit.
It’s fun to think that the Royals outsmarted NYM and had a great game plan and scouting report. I imagine Hosmer wasn’t thinking any of that and just was being aggressive as being up 3-1 and down to your last out is the perfect time to try that sort of aggressive move.
Sure seems like Hosmer should have been further down the line.
Unless he felt he really needed to bait a throw or something which really would have been brilliant, I guess.
But yeah, I was most surprised he wasn’t about 10 feet further off the bag by the time Wright threw the ball to first. Maybe Wright wouldn’t have thrown then? I don’t know. Fun play.
Great points. Hosmer could/should have taken a larger lead. But I think Wright has a rep as a smart defender and did a good job looking him back. But yeah, there was a bigger lead there for the taking.
Don’t know about that. Too far down the line a Wright has him in a rundown. He has to be close enough to get Wright to throw to first and far enough down to score. Hard to argue with the result.
Hosmer may have been baiting a throw. If Wright looks up and sees him 20+ feet off the bag, I think there’s no way he throws to first. Obviously everybody would be safe, but I doubt Wright would willingly concede the tying run just to get an out. Maybe he would’ve faked a throw to first in hopes of getting Hosmer to leave early.
Agreed – fake throw to first by Wright would probably be the move if he had to do it again. Still plenty of time to take a peek at Hosmer, maybe freeze him into not going, and get Perez at first.
One of the best articles on baseball I have ever read. Just fantastic. Thanks.
From those clips I saw a 1b who has lazy feet, an irregular arm slot, a weak arm and is bad at making throws where he has to move from point of reception. His transitions looked good and he can make the throw to second very well as long as he doesn’t have to move to get the ball past the runner.
I think the nice throws where he spins in place both directions and then goes to 2nd are illustrative: the spin forces him to pay attention to his feet and get the back one around behind him. When he doesn’t spin and is hurried and/or has to move his whole body his laziness and bad arm mechanics betray him.
I don’t think there is any other conclusion but that the Royals advanced scouting was correct and gave them a serious advantage in that situation.
Personally, I would go so far as to say that Wright’s weak arm and D’Arnaud’s allegedly weak tagging are not necessary to make Hosmer’s decision smart.
And smart or not, that move took massive cajones.
And I think the weakness of his arm and general bad footwork and laziness can be seen by how the 2bs never have a chance to return the ball to 1b: the throw took too long to get there and Duda doesn’t/can’t get back.
Yeah, I think it is the footwork. He plans them and squares them towards his target, rather than placing one in front and shifting his weight forward with the throw.
Yeah this is a more in depth description of my take away from watching the clips. In most of them, Duda gets the job done because he can take his time and get his lumbering body in place. But his poor footwork and lack of any consistent mechanics make him vulnerable if rushed. In most circumstances, he would simply opt not to make a difficult throw if he were rushed – which is why you don’t see too many complete disasters in these highlights.
It’s also probably why you don’t see ANY throws to 3rd.
In this situation, obviously, he had to make a throw. We all saw the result. Duda isn’t a butcher but he’s poor enough that it was worth the risk.
“It’s also probably why you don’t see ANY throws to 3rd.”
There aren’t many situations that would require a first baseman to throw to third, though.
One thing not mentioned enough due to the positive result was why didn’t Yost pinch run for Hosmer when he was on second? Between Dyson and Mondesi, one of them would have had a better chance to score from second on a single than Hosmer. It didn’t factor in so its ignored. But still a bad move not to make the switch.
kendrys morales already played and they had no one who could play first+ hosmer is quite a bit above average runner for a first baseman. seems pretty standard
Because if he scores they’re going to need a first baseman, and while Hosmer isn’t a burner, he’s probably the best baserunner among all first basemen. Running with Mondesi and moving Zobrist over to first is a plausible move if Hosmer is stuck at first. But once he’s at second, the Mondesi-Hosmer speed difference is less likely to get you the tying run than giving up Hosmer’s bat in extras is to cost you a run. (The game didn’t play out that way; scoring from first on an infield grounder takes every bit of speed you can find. But the odds were against that happening.)
How many active 1b make that throw consistently? In other words, who do you not/never make that play against?
Miggy I say yes.
A-Gon in LA I say no way he goes.
Goldy I say no.
And also, Hosmer is a 1b and not that great defensively. So maybe he knows more about the difficulty than non-1bs?
Heh. Would Hosmer run on Hosmer?
Votto? Rizzo?
Buster Posey.
He has the arm strength and accuracy to make the throw. But does he have the feet? And he has what 116 games total at 1b? Harder decision though.
Votto has a cannon. He’d definitely make that throw. Rizzo too.
Goldy is a really good thrower. I bet he makes it more than 2/3rds of the time.
First of all, Hosmer is out if Duda even gets the throw in d’Arnaud’s general area. We’re talking about that play as a TOOTBLAN that extends the series unless the Mets make an error – which is what happened, so we’re talking about it as heads-up baserunning instead. Hosmer’s not fast enough that Duda has to make a perfect throw, he just has to execute under extreme pressure. Which is hard to do, and that’s certainly not a routine throw for a first baseman, but I’ve got to think that any major-league player makes it more than 67% of the time.
But, and this is a big but, I’m intrigued by the idea that the Royals advance scouts saw this coming. Did they see something that made them think challenging Duda’s arm was a good idea? Did the coaching staff, seeing the scouting report, pick up on that? Did the coaching staff then prepare the players for a range of scenarios when they might challenge Duda’s arm? Did the coaches have enough credibility with the players that the players internalized that, and is that why Hosmer decided to break for home last night? Because if all that is the case, if this was an advantage the Royals identified and planned to exploit despite how unlikely it was to ever come up, that’s a really well-coached team.
Or Hosmer took a risk, and it worked out because Royals.
This from Joe Posnanski makes it appear that third base coach didn’t think Hosmer should run. Which if true, implies scout story is BS or coach ignored it – Admit it, you sent (Eric) Hosmer didn’t you?” baseball Hall of Famer George Brett is now saying to the Royals’ third-base coach, Mike Jirschele. They are talking about the Royals’ latest impossible escape, ninth inning of Sunday’s Game 5, the New York Mets leading by a run, when Royals catcher Salvador Perez dribbled a grounder to third base. The Mets’ David Wright fielded it cleanly, looked back toward Hosmer who was on third, and then flipped his usual underhand throw across the infield.
The instant Wright let go of the ball, Hosmer took off on a kamikaze mission for the plate.
“Admit it, you sent him!” Brett insists.
“Are you kidding me?” Jirschele says. “As soon as he took off, I thought, ‘Oh (bleep!)’ But Eric, you know, he read it. He felt it.”
It does not imply either of those things.
I’m not scout, however, my personal take from the gifs was that Duda’s arm seems reasonable accurate, but fairly weak. Additionally, his footwork seemed quite bad, he seemed to be off balance on many of those throws (which is probably why the resulting throws seemed fairly weak).
That said, I think anyone being honest with the first two questions should have answered “I don’t have enough information”, because none of the information provided gives us ANY idea where he falls RELATIVE TO OTHER first basemen.
(I opted to give a real answer to the third poll question, because I’m prepared to side with the scouts’ assessments.)
Why does it matter how many other 1b make the throw or should not be run against there?
Duda was the 1b at the time.
He’s talking about the poll questions, which asked us to compare Lucas Duda to other first basemen.
Ah yes. I was wrong. He was correct. I guess I mis-read those questions as to whether or not Duda was good enough defensively to make that throw with enough frequency to make the play unwise. That was not the question.
I agree with your assessment about balance – it seemed that in many of the throws he appeared to not be stepping into the throw or was concerned about getting back and covering the bag to which his momentum was disrupted.
With that, it’s hard to develop a scouting report as you could argue his arm is strong enough to make these throws, or his functional throwing is weakened by his lack of basics and technique.
If collisions were allowed and the throw was slightly more inline, d’Arnaud would have ended up in Marlins guy’s lap.
Looking at twenty throws to 2nd gives me no idea how he will handle a throw home.
There’s only one throw ( the triple play ) that is relevant to this discussion.
It’s like watching clips of Jon Lester toss strike after strike and then asking “How close to the first baseman do you think Jon Lester can get the ball on a pickoff attempt ?”
Great idea though showing all the clips. Too bad only one was of a throw home.
And lastly, Hosmer was much closer to home than Puig was on that triple play, and Puig ( surprise ) didn’t look to be going full speed trailing 7-2.
I think this is wrong. The clips show very well the quality of Duda’s arm strength, his footwork and his mechanics. That is really all that is necessary to make this particular decision.
I don’t see it. And having great “arm strength, his footwork and his mechanics” to one base does not translate to the other bases.
For example, Mariano Rivera’s throw to second in game 7 of the 2001 World Series: “the most costly error in World Series history”.
None of Duda’s throws to 2nd base or home were anywhere near as off as the throw he made last night, which tells me that a combination of the situation and the surprise factor was the real cause of the error, not some notion that he doesn’t have the arm to make that throw, even in Spring Training.
I see him closer and starting his slide. Either way it’s close, and you’re right that an on target throw beats Hosmer.
Hosmer wasn’t any closer to home than on the Puig triple play. If anythign he was farther. Watch the replay, as the ball is sailing past d’Arnaud, Hosmer is just reaching the Home plate cutout. He was dead to rights by any halfway decent throw.
Duda is another casual fielding 1B. He doesn’t police or patrol the field properly like he should. Royals took advantage of it.
You probably should watch Duda play. He doesn’t prance around the field, but he’s not a “casual” fielder in any regard. He made a bad throw, physical error. Not lackadaisical.
Duda got a slow throw from 3rd while his peripheral vision saw Hosmer bolt for home and he probably heard Perez barreling down on the edge of interference. Then he caught the ball, pivoted, had to throw around Perez in a hurry and choked it. He unclutched under pressure and in the face of unexpected aggression by Hosmer.
one thing that stood out in most of his throws to 2B was that the ball arrived late. that’s not all on him, but my evaluation would be that his accuracy was for the most part OK, but his arm appeared abysmally weak. perhaps it is not actually weak, but rather he is very conscious of making poor throws and so slows it down. aiming the ball, rather than throwing the ball if you will. conversely, a player with a lot of confidence in his throwing would react more fluidly and zip the ball over there like second nature.
in short, i could see how putting pressure on him in a huge situation would take him out of his comfort zone where he usually softies the ball across the infield, force a hurried and more effort-full throw, and lead to a mistake.
a very cool exercise by the way. watching all the clips in a row really makes you notice things you otherwise would miss.
I’d say he was sacrificing speed for accuracy as well.
As someone who watches most Mets games, my scouting, while admittedly not objective, is far more comprehensive than most advance scouts. Duda has the appearance of a big, lumbering fielder, and he’s hardly nimble in the field, but he is, in fact, a much better fielder than average. More specifically, his arm is much more accurate than the vast majority of 1b. I get the adoration of scouting, data, etc., but sometimes, there’s just luck, and this was one of those times. Duda’s typical throw gets Hosmer by ten feet, and the game is over. Hosmer got lucky, Duda made a rare poor throw, and fortune favored the bold. Luck. Good for them.
Did you watch those clips? Which starting 1bs is he better than defensively?
But that is not really relevant in the end. In those clips I saw a defender who was not accurate or consistent enough to make that play unwise.
And Hosmer does not need to have anywhere near 100% confidence in success to make that play wise.
These types of comments always make me laugh. Watching “most” mets games and being admittedly biased, does not make your “scouting” more comprehensive than the people who are paid to do it for a living. For one, how do you determine that he is far more accurate than the majority of 1B, only watching “most” mets games. To really make that claim wouldn’t you need to watch “most” games for every team? Then to top it off, you blow off advanced scouting in favor of “luck” despite your whole premise being about your scouting which tells you he is better than the “vast majority” of 1B. It doesn’t take any scouting to say that a good, clean throw gets Hosmer out. That is obvious. This whole article is about the calculated risk Hosmer took and whether or not available information actually supports the decision.
First, this is a cool post.
I think I would just add that guys that throw like this (1st baseman especially) like to have and create angles to throw from. For instance, turning a double in front or behind the bag is comfortable for him because he has a clear lane to make a throw. On the triple play against the Dodgers he comes off the bag and creates that diagonal lane to throw from, which takes time, but he makes a good throw. In a later clip, he gets flat footed on a double play ball and doesn’t have time to clear a lane, and the ball sails. Only two clips, but worth noting. I re-watched the clip from last night and he has no time to try and create a throwing lane, and with Salvy coming up the line he has little to no space to create a good throwing angle.
TO which I should add, if you’re scouting him, then I guess you want to put him in situations where he doesn’t have time to use his footwork to create lanes and space.
What a cool idea to set up the clips like this to play scout. As a previous poster said, it really lets you see patterns when you get the quick over and again views.
Has anyone seen a major league scouting report? I seriously doubt that a report has this particular situation in it. I wouldn’t be surprised for it to pick up on the footwork issue driving bad arm mechanics, particularly under duress.
While Hosmer’s move to the plate was audacious, it really matches with the way the Royals have played all season. Whenever possible they seem to have taken extra bases where it takes a perfect throw to get them. It seems like that has only cost them about 15-20% of the time (subjective observation – I would love a stat on that). The Royals baserunning DNA this year was to force the opponents defense to execute.
I suspect that besides being an aggressive team to begin with, the end of the 2014 World series has a lot to do with that. I think Gordon would have been out by a mile if he tried to go home but the defense would have had to execute. As previously pointed out Hosmer’s run wasn’t that big of a risk with game 6 at home being the downside. It was a “dare to win” rather than an “avoid losing” play.
Hosmer’s mindset is the ground ball. Wright is fielding it at SS going away from the bag and at this point Hosmer can’t think of a reason not to go for it. He’s probably wrong, but not if the bar is at 33%. Texas or Toronto maybe he can think of a reason.
Has there ever been a more arrogant baseball team/staff than the KC Royals? It’s a nice story. Last year they were enjoyable to watch because hey it’s the Royals suddenly having a good year. This is a franchise that has finished .500 or better 6 times in the last 25 years and reached 90 wins for the first time in 26 this season. Suddenly they are the shining example of scouting and game planning genius because they decided to forgo home runs and walks in favor of singles and less k’s. They have it all figured out because they decided to play aggressive (sloppy and reckless when it doesn’t work) baseball at the plate and on the bases?
Am I the only one who finds it weird that the ultimate example of failure and outrageously bad decision making — so bad that comparatively the Mets history is one of raging success and glory — is now going to be looked at by the media and their own fans as a powerhouse with geniuses at the helm of this World Series winning machine? Please…
Congrats to the Royals and their players. Here’s the deal though….they won a series in 5 games that they never once took charge of. They didn’t come out and slap around another team. They waited to lose and the Mets saved them from themselves with an amazing assortment of painful mistakes. The Duda play was not a good play by Hosmer. It was an absolutely awful decision that was only beaten in it’s awfulness by the throw that should have been an easy out. The Royals scouts saw that one coming? Sure. The Royals scouts amazingly figured out that a) a closer would blow his first game in 3 months b) a reliever would walk 2 batters in a game where no other Royals walked and those 2 batters had no interest in walking because they would rather have “put it in play” c) those walks would lead to a weird hop and a brutal error and d) a first baseman wouldn’t be able to make a throw from first to home that would have had the runner by 15 feet. e) the Mets would hit 1 double in 5 games.
COngrats Royals.
“Your championship was pretty dumb and you’re not very good. Congratulations to you.” Seriously, this is a lame nonsense.
Nobody took charge of the World Series in 2011 or 2014. In 2002 and 2003 the winners were outscored. In 2001 the Diamondbacks had to come back from 3-2 down, but they outscored the Yankees by more than 20 runs for the series, so is that charge or not charge?
They scored a lot more runs off the Mets’ starters than the Cubs did, and they gave up fewer runs than the Cubs did.
It’s seven games at most. Control is illusory. Sorry.
The Royals did not scout the closer blowing three saves because you don’t scout “Tends to blow saves.” It’s not a thing. But how good he is probably made them more likely to be aggressive on him, since they weren’t likely to get a lot of normal chances.
I don’t know what (b) means, but no, the Royals did not scout that. What they did was take their usual approach to hitting, which sometimes actually does result in walks! Not often, but sometimes. So be it.
The Royals did scout that the Mets are bad defensively, especially in the infield. Every one of their five infield starters has a defensive weakness, and they did their best to take advantage by being even more aggressive than usual. It worked. Sometimes it wouldn’t. That’s baseball!
The scouting of the first baseman’s throw is the point of this piece. Whether they scouted it right or wrong is exactly what we’re talking about.
The Royals hit only one homer in five games. That’s a regular season trend of 32. I don’t think anybody scouted that extra base hits would totally disappear on either side.
At any rate, your second paragraph sort of has the makings of an argument. But what you’re really trying to suggest is that in-game decision making is not Ned Yost’s (or some of his players’) strength. And I think most Royals fans would agree! But the counterpoint to this argument is building a roster efficiently with good players is a really good way to win games, even if their specific decisions aren’t always great. The Royals did that.
So too did the Mets, by the way. Part of the reason the Royals never “took charge” is that the Mets were really good. But the Royals trusted their bullpen and the Mets didn’t. The only game where the starter got better as the game went on, Game 3, was the one they won. They scored a lot, but they also made their bullpen irrelevant that night. When it was relevant, they lost.
Besides, all of this talk about deserving and taking charge is ridiculous when we’re talking about the ridiculously small sample size of a seven-game series. The baseball playoffs aren’t designed to decide which team is best. If MLB cared about that, they’d have one 30-team division and decide a winner after 162 games.
The Royals won. The Mets lost. The Royals won the World Series. The Mets didn’t. I’m a Mets fan. I was never ready to call the Mets the best team in baseball if they won the WS. I was ready to say they won the World Series.
As a Mets fan, I have absolutely no doubt that the Royals won this series.
Well, as a Royals fan, I can tell you that despite loving the team and being beside myself that I watched them win a World Series, I do not like Ned Yost and never have. They will probably give him a statue next to Dick Howser in the outfield at the K and I still won’t like him. I am constantly questioning his in game decision making. For whatever reason, the players love him, which clearly plays a role on this team.
Just because a prediction fails or the less likely scenario happens doesn’t mean its luck. Thats why this article is so interesting. Given the game, series, and scouting information, this play can be looked at as calculated risk, rather than a WTF moment.
So, the more I watch these, the more I’m seeing something else in his throws. Look at his hips, not his arm. In almost every case, his left leg is swinging to his left, opening up as he throws rather than going straight toward the target.
This isn’t necessarily bad. You have greater margin for error in throw accuracy if your step and your arm are in the same plane: sidearm with side step (either direction) or overhand with straight step. You can adjust your release or throw strength to compensate as you make instant judgments of your step. The tradeoff for sidearmers, however, is that you give up some of the power from a straight step.
Most of Duda’s throws look accurate but not very hard. His throws home: bases loaded Dodgers, bases loaded against STL, 7-2 against the Dodgers. In all three cases, he opens up his leg noticeably.
In the 7-2 game, in particular—the closest comparison to the situation he faced with Hosmer—he takes a full extra hop before he throws. It’s a great throw to a catcher who makes a perfect turn! But if he takes an extra hop to let him open up that leg, we are no longer saying Hosmer is out by a mile. It’s a later throw and slower throw. It’s a close play. Yesterday I liked how fast his transfer was to throw home on Hosmer. But that transfer isn’t his norm, and it seems like it contributed to the bad throw.
This is a sample of twenty, or of three, or of one. Not a lot, as August says. But maybe enough that you think the guy has to choose between fast and accurate, and you know the third baseman has to choose the same. If Duda beats his own tendency, you are out easily. But if he doesn’t, that 25-33 percent chance of making it seems like it was a good bet. Still far more likely to be out than safe, but making the extra play is what they’ve done all year. Give it a shot.
Wright’s throw was slow.
It appears to me that Duda often doesn’t close his left shoulder before he throws; that is, he tends to throw while facing the target. You can see this, for example, in 2 and 4, also 6 and 7 — it’s like he’s flinging the ball as opposed to quickly turning the shoulder and then throwing with authority. My dad used to call this “aiming” the ball; to me, it feels like when I take a 3/4 swing in golf and aren’t attacking it aggressively.
This works fine when you have time and just have to get adequate accuracy and speed on the throw, but when you really want to fire it in there you need to get the shoulder turn. I haven’t looked at a replay of the throw in question, but if he was trying to throw extra hard with that “open” motion it’s very easy to screw up and hold it a little too short or too long.
Check the GIF above. Duda threw with lazy feet and fully open to the target. And he held it way too long.
“…the fact that the Royals were one win away from being champions and that, even if they lost, they still had two cracks at it at home, and I think the poll results make sense…”
Again, the score in the series has no bearing on the break even point of the play. It would be the same (around 33%) whether the Royals were up or down 3-1. It might SEEM like one can take more chances when up 3-1, but “seeming” and being true are often two different things…
There is a whole section on evaluating the throwing arms of first basemen in Bill James winshares book.
Honestly, I think they just caught Duda napping. This is conjecture on my part, but he just did not seem to be quick to the receipt and transfer of the ball, I think he assumed Wright held Hosmer and no way he would break.
I applaud the Royals, world champs, extremely hard to do, let alone after losing the prior year to get all the way back. But I think the whole advance scouts is the new inefficiency is a bit much.
That was a play worth being aggressive on. The ball that was put into the corner that Cain ran on and never stopped, it was worth being aggressive on.
Play aggressive is not really an advance scout thing, it is simply an agreement that you managers and coaches are not going to fry you.
At the end of the day, I think the sting of the tying run standing 90 feet away on a feeble pop up in foul territory is what drove the Royals. Last year they played to tie, this year they played to win.
If you look at the snapshots from other sites of where Hosmer was as Wright threw the ball, where he was as Duda received and threw the ball, it was obvious that with any average throw to Travis that Hosmer would have been a dead duck with time to spare. Duda just did not execute the throw well at all. Even if it was offline to an extent there was enough time for Travis to turn and get Hosmer. Duda rushed it and choked unfortunately. On one of those videos above throwing to home you do see he also threw slightly to Travis’ right. He is no Keith Hernandez for sure.