“To err is human.” To understand what an error is in baseball is impossible.
We’re a few weeks into the season now and while we can’t figure out to much from what has happened so far, but we can rant about things that bother us. So I’m gonna have fun with that for awhile.
Does anyone know what an error is? Really? Do any of the people who actually know what an error is work as an official scorer for a team? It’s almost once a game where a play will happen and while watching at home you say to yourself, “That has to be an error.” Only to have it scored as a hit.
The plays are usually called one way or another to protect the home player. The home player doesn’t want the error, or the home player wants to get credit for a hit. The players and the management actually have a phone to call the official scorer and can complain about his calls.
All of this leads to different calls from different scorers and there is no consistency between stadiums. That leads to mass hysteria and crying from people like me. So I’ve used all my brain power to come up with a new idea. I don’t have much brain power, so this idea probably isn’t the greatest, but I don’t see you coming up with anything. Although I’d love to, throw some comments on the bottom of this, or better yet, head over to the forums, there’s a clicky button up on top of this page that sends you over to the forums, and tell me and everyone else you’re ideas to fix the error situation.
My idea is to do away with errors completely. Get rid of them. Do away with fielding percentages and all things that revolve around errors. Enough with trying to figure it all out.
What do we place there instead? I think it needs to be a two part system, one lesser form of mistake that isn’t as harmful to a players pride and fielding ratings, and a harsher form of mistake that really look bad.
The first, lesser form, is for small mental errors or when you make an error attempting to make a play. For instance, in the Twins/Red Sox game today (April 22nd), Joe Crede hit a wicked ground ball to shortstop Nick Green, green knocked the ball down and then rushed a throw to first. Youk was unable to come up with the throw and Crede beat it out. Green was credited with an error on the play. Should the play have been made? Yes, absolutely. Was it as bad as some errors that have been made? No. But as they say, they all look the same in the box score. I don’t know what to call this level of error. Brain fart, mental lapse, hustle screw ups, screw ups, I don’t know, I’m open to ideas.
The second level of error is for the truly horrible plays that leave fans pulling their hair out. When a player is set up to make the play on a routine grounder and the ball bounds right through their legs, or when a ball pops right out of a fielder’s glove on a fly ball. Also any error committed in the final innings of a game. I’d like to call these effe ups, or complete effe ups, but I don’t think that’d go over well. So a “what the…” or a “hair puller” are other names I’ve come up with. I’m not good with names, so you guys have to come up with them for me.
If we change this up, we’ll still know who the good fielders are and it will help certain players who make the routine play and occasionally boot a difficult play. I think this would be a more fair system and would be a better judge of the fielding capabilities of the players.
What do you think?
