Thoughts on Updated Team Fielding Stats
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:38 amThe improvement that SOM made yesterday to the Team Fielding stats -- simply the ability now to sort the columns in the table, same as the hitting and pitching stats -- triggered a number of thoughts. One is how nice it is to see that info in a more usable format, and another is it was great of SOM to finally do that for us.
But another thought was about the game of baseball itself. From the game's beginnings in the 19th Century and through to the Deadball Era, the essence of the game was defense -- team defense, in particular. Putouts, assists, and errors were on at least equal footing with offensive statistics in importance to players and fans alike.
Box scores through this period and beyond didn't list each player's RBI in a game. Instead it listed their PO, A, and E. Game accounts in newspapers dwelled almost entirely on the exploits of the pitchers and fielders' "corkers (good plays)" and "muffins (errors)," rather than hits and runs scored.
I knew a coach of my son's Little League teams who, in the very first practice, would gather the players for a meeting and ask, "Who knows what is the object of the game of baseball?" Invariably the kids would say "score more runs than the other team." The coach would answer, "No. Baseball is the only game where the defense controls the game ball. The object of the game is to keep the other team from scoring runs."
More than a century has passed since Babe Ruth and an endless succession of HR sluggers have shifted the focus from defense to offense. But sometimes it's still fun to watch a game and pay closer attention to the skills and canny of the team in the field in suppressing runs.
PS: OFast in the Team Fielding table stands for Outfield Assists. It took me a day to figure that out, because I was reading it as "Oh Fast...."
But another thought was about the game of baseball itself. From the game's beginnings in the 19th Century and through to the Deadball Era, the essence of the game was defense -- team defense, in particular. Putouts, assists, and errors were on at least equal footing with offensive statistics in importance to players and fans alike.
Box scores through this period and beyond didn't list each player's RBI in a game. Instead it listed their PO, A, and E. Game accounts in newspapers dwelled almost entirely on the exploits of the pitchers and fielders' "corkers (good plays)" and "muffins (errors)," rather than hits and runs scored.
I knew a coach of my son's Little League teams who, in the very first practice, would gather the players for a meeting and ask, "Who knows what is the object of the game of baseball?" Invariably the kids would say "score more runs than the other team." The coach would answer, "No. Baseball is the only game where the defense controls the game ball. The object of the game is to keep the other team from scoring runs."
More than a century has passed since Babe Ruth and an endless succession of HR sluggers have shifted the focus from defense to offense. But sometimes it's still fun to watch a game and pay closer attention to the skills and canny of the team in the field in suppressing runs.
PS: OFast in the Team Fielding table stands for Outfield Assists. It took me a day to figure that out, because I was reading it as "Oh Fast...."