TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Unwritten Rule No. 478

The Alamo Defense

Last week, the Royals and the White Sox were deadlocked in the bottom of the ninth after a wild see-saw of a game. The Sox loaded the bases, scored the tying runs, and still had the bases loaded with nobody
out.

Tony Pena is no ordinary manager in many ways, but once again the unwritten rule book was trotted out for this situation, which says you pull in an outfielder and have five infielders. In this case the "extra" infielder was Juan Gonzalez, who for an infielder is a great hitter. And Gonzalez, as the unwritten rulebook states, was placed pretty much right behind second base.

This is one of the unwritten rules which I really don't understand. For one thing, I don't think I've ever seen the ball hit to the new fifth infielder in this situation. In other words, it never works.

That's why I call it the Alamo Defense. No matter how many times they remake it, when you ring your troops around the perimeter against superior forces, superior forces always triumph in the end.

Let us contemplate the options here in this situation, which is quite difficult indeed. The concept behind
the fifth infielder is you pull in the corner guys -- presumably your two best outfield arms -- so that
with a flyout they might be able to make a throw to the plate. The fifth infielder is also presumably to
provide extra coverage in the infield, to be able to intercept the ball straight up the middle in time to get it home.

The normal infielders are pulled in, of course, as they would be for any defense against the runner scoring from third in a close situation. Sometimes I see the fifth infielder playing in front of the second base bag, but often as not he's behind it.

Now think on this for a moment. The guy they've pulled in from the outfield has the worst arm, and yet
if the ball is hit at him, he's got the longest throw of any of the "infielders" out there, straight home. We're assuming he's not the world's greatest infielder, either, since he's playing the outfield. How likely
is this to produce an out at the plate?

What I have seen happen more often than not is a bloop to center or just over a drawn-in infielder that
would've been a pop-out but instead scores the runner.

More to the point, reducing the number of outfielders eliminates a "sector" of the field where a flyout-throwout play may be possible. And it really doesn't make any sense for the two remaining outfielders to shade towards center, as we've seen so often. A ball hit to the outfield isn't going to change its
habitual direction just because one of the outfielders isn't there at all; all this defensive positioning
does is take two defenders out of position.

Here are some alternative fielding positions, all of which seem to me like they'd provide superior defense in the Alamo Defense-Last Stand situation.

• Shortfielder. Why not borrow a page from softball and play the extra man in the short left- or right-center position? That would cover bloops over the second baseman or shortstops' heads and would allow the outfielder on the appropriate side to play just a bit further back. One thing an outfielder probably can do competently is field a pop-up.
  
• Add a REAL 'in'fielder. While I don't see a lot of balls hit straight up the middle hard enough to allow the fifth infielder to rifle it home, I do see a lot of balls that are squibbed right in front of the plate. Why not pull in your third baseman so he's two-thirds of the way to the plate, and put the fifth infielder in the normal third base position?
  
• Three outfielders straight away. Why not just pull the centerfielder into the dead away position about twenty feet behind the bag, and play the other two outfielders shallow but dead-away? A dink to centerfield would be defended against this way.
  
• Play for the triple play. OK, this may not be a high percentage play, but if you're going to get out of the inning, why not get out in style? This means playing the first and third basemen closer to the bag, playing the middle infielders in but in their customary positions, and playing the "extra" infielder ON the second-base bag. A line drive to any one of them is more likely to get two the easy way, and a sharp grounder can be sent home or a lazy one the "long" way around -- the runners have a tendency to just watch the guy coming home and dog it, while the runner from third is running all out on contact, so why not go for that 6-5-7-3 triple play? For that matter, you don't want your outfielder on the pivot, so put him in either the second or shortstop's position (depending on whether it's a righty or lefty batter) and put the experienced pivot man on the second base bag.
  
• Double bunt-defense. Put your corner infielders even with the pitcher; put your middle infielders half-way; pull your two corner outfielders in very shallow for pop-ups and your centerfielder covering the left or right side of the inner outfield, depending on whether the hitter's a righty or lefty. This covers any ball in the air that could result in a throw-out at the plate, any ground ball hit softly, and any ground ball hit sharply up the middle.
  

I don't know which of the above defenses would work the best, but I'm pretty sure any one of them would work in the Last Stand situation better than the five-infielder straight-away-and-in defense in the unwritten rule book.

You could look it up if you could find that book.

--The Crank

posted by The Crank 5:47 PM