26
2011
Rule Change: Collisions At Home Plate
An article by Former Writers
It’s always tough to see a young player with such a promising career getting injured, especially when the injury was avoidable. Masked behind the Reds-Phillies’ 19-inning debacle, a serious injury occurred to promising young player, raising many safety concerns in baseball. The San Francisco Giants were working on defending their World Series championship, when it took a huge left turn when their ROY catcher, Buster Posey, went down with a serious ankle injury in the 12th inning of Wednesday’s 7-6 loss to the Marlins.
Posey was run over by the Marlins’ Scott Cousins and was in pain on the ground before having to be helped off the field, unable to put weight on his left foot. He was taken for X-rays but the results have not been revealed. Posey is also scheduled to undergo an MRI today.
“A catcher’s so vulnerable there,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s the toughest play in baseball. (A runner is) bearing down on you. You hate to see it. He’s our guy behind the plate, so hopefully you get good news there.”
This play has raised red flags with some people when it comes to the safety of players, and knowing the MLB Players Association, they’re gonna want to take action on it. Last year I wrote a piece about keeping the safety of players during injury avoidable situations when Kendry Morales had an ankle injury and had to go to the disabled list when the Angels celebrated his walk-off victory. Similar occurrence last year when Indians’ young catcher, Carlos Santana, injured his left leg after a collision at the plate with Ryan Kalish.
Buster Olney, of ESPN, talked about this issue on Twitter this morning saying:
In the big-picture question of risk/reward, the play of blocking home plate, to save one run, is just not worth it. Not even close. blocking home plate. The answer of “That’s the way it’s always been done” is not a good enough answer. Have catchers tag runners like 2B, 3B. MLB and the Players Association should step in and ban the play of a catcher blocking home. It’s just not worth it, for anyone involved. Agent for Buster Posey will call MLB and raise idea of rule changes regarding collisions between runners/fielders.
I have to agree with this, as other players agree like Braves reliever, Peter Moylan, agreed on his Twitter account.
Managers don’t want their outfielders diving into walls and getting injured, like Bay and Pagan have, or wanting pitchers to use their bare hands to grab a line drive near them. However, they expect their catcher to just stand there and get blasted by a player running as hard as they can at them, with the sole purpose of running them over and deliver a jarring blow to knock the ball out of their hands. Baseball is known as a very limited contact sport with the only contact between players is tagging a runner out or a slide tackle at second base.
There are plenty of alternatives to having a catcher stand his ground and allowing a runner just run him over. It would have been better to just wait for the runner to get closer to the plate, taking a step forward, and applying a sweeping tag on the runner. I remember playing catcher in high school and the rules banned catchers from blocking the plate and also banned runners from running over the catcher on purpose. Of course this is not the rules in the majors. But Bud Selig can’t just ban one without the other. And this is not a change in rules that will affect the views of baseball, as this type of play happens rarely, maybe once every two weeks.
Also, the fact that the Giants working on getting the NL West division and defending their World Series championship possibly being diminished as their cleanup hitter having a possible season-ending, career-ending injury for a run in a game in May. A little different if it was game seven of the WS. The only positive thing I can think of coming out of catchers blocking and runners blasting them, is showing that they will give up their bodies for their team, but when you have to go to the disabled list for weeks or months, quickly becomes a negative.
Just thought I’d bring up an issue of safety to reduce the number of players, and great players, on the disabled list. So should MLB and MLBPA take action to change the current rules, or is the culture of this sport just too important to change a rule that applies to an occurrence that happens maybe three times a month for all of baseball?
About the Author: Former Writers
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Apparently, Buster Olney is overdue for an appointment with his gyno.
Because he doesn’t think players should be encouraged to injury themselves and others?
Posey was blocking the plate, as he should. Cousins did what he could to score, like he should. Tough play, but clean. Too bad he got hurt, but that’s what happens.
To save one run?
That “ONE” run cost SF the game, so YES, to save one run. It’s been part of the game for 100 years, so why should the rules change because of one player? What if that catcher was Henry Blanco or David Ross, would we be having this conversation? Absolutely NOT, because no one cares one way or the other about backup catchers, right? But because it’s the Giants special little Buster Posey, all of a sudden collisions at home plate are evil and should be eliminated. Where was this call when Pete Rose run over Ray Fosse in the All Star Game?
This is a ridiculous call by a player agent who’s only worried about his commission if Posey’s career is somehow shortened by this play. He’s not worried about Posey. Again, I ask, if his client in this situation was Ronny Paulino would he be calling the commissioner of baseball for a rule change? NO. Because Paulino wouldn’t represent nearly as much commission for the agent. Why doesn’t someone ask Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk or Mike Scoscia if the rules should be changed? You know, the one’s who put their careers on the line on those plays.
First of all, one play does not win or lose a game.
Second, what do they get now that Posey is out for however long? How many runs would otherwise produce on offense or rpevent on defense?
“Where was this call when Pete Rose run over Ray Fosse in the All Star Game? ”
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about that for a long time.
“This is a ridiculous call by a player agent who’s only worried about his commission if Posey’s career is somehow shortened by this play. ”
Buster Olney is not an agent.
“Why doesn’t someone ask Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk or Mike Scoscia if the rules should be changed? You know, the one’s who put their careers on the line on those plays.”
Are they doctors? No? OK.
I was not referring to Buster Olney. I was talking about Posey’s agent, Jeff Barry I believe, who was quoted as saying that he was going to call Joe Torre in the Commissioner’s office to bring this to their attention about a possible rule change. And you ask Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk because they played all those years, endured their fair share of collisions at home plate. Collisions are a part of the game. There was nothing, absolutely nothing dirty, or wrong with Cousins’ play. Can you list all the catchers who have been seriously injured over the last 10 years, or 20, due to a collision? It’s a shame that Posey got hurt, no doubt. But it’s no cause for a rule change. Again, I want to know if this were a no-name back up catcher who got hurt would anyone give it more than a cursory “oh, that’s a shame” and let it go at that? What if that were the Mets’ Mike Nickeas or Phillies’ Brian Schneider that happened to, would anyone make a fuss about it? No.
Oh, let’s ask Carlton Fisk…wait a second, after a collision in 1974, Fisk switched to the swipe tag in order to preserve his career.
Guess that answers that.
I understand that Fisk thing and saving his career, but after winning the gold glove the year before he would never win one again in the next 21 years and he got hook slided to death on those close ones and was a terrible plate blocker in those instances. He did have the long career and never had a collision again.
I’d like to hear that call. With Torre’s years of catching experience, he’ll get a good laugh out of Barry! A catcher has a much better chance of coming through a collision OK than the runner does. That protective gear may be designed to stop a baseball, but it does a good job of protecting a catcher from a runner, too.
You donutz the parrot are a sissy, you want a sissy game, play tiddley winks. wait, its too dangerous for you. The guy on the chat box who called you an a@s@s is the smartest guy here.
Rarely happens, but occasionally does. Very difficult to legislate this out of the game.
That’s what I was thinking. Even if you do pass a rule, you’ve got several generations of players, coaches and umps who still have this programmed into them.
Xtree:
I’ve been playing and watching baseball all my life. Blocking home plate is dumb. We have all sorts of rules prohibiting interference with runners, but we’ve allowed this football type of play to continue. Football players have protective gear, baseball players don’t.
Tagging a runner, yes. Trying to prevent the runner from touching the base with hands or feet is just asking for trouble. Also if blocking were prohibited, the head first slide would be less dangerous
I’d say don’t change the rule. Have every play like this reviwed and see if the runner had other options (like the outside corner to go for) be fore the catcher caught the ball or if the catcher blocked the entire plate before getting the ball. If the catcher had left part of the plate open for him and the runner still hit the catcher before he had the ball, give him a 2 game suspension, if the runner had no other options or the catcher HAD the ball before contact. No suspension.
If Posey had caught that ball he would have had time to protect himself before he got hit. Posey has his leg blocking the plate obviously before he got the ball (he never did get the ball) The runner had nothing he could get to cleanly and the ball beat him there and he could tell this simply by watching Posey’s reactions as he came in.
I don’t have a problem with what Cousins did there at all.
Spot on t agee. Any possible dirty play should be reviewed and if the league determines it was dirty then fines and suspensions. But this was not dirty and you could tell that Cousins was concerned about Posey after the play which indicates he had no harmful intention. If a rule change is made it will have all the appearances of being made because a star player got hurt. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if this were a .220 hitting backup catcher (Henry Blanco for instance) no one would be talking rule change.
Catchers don’t have protective gear?
His ankle was injured. FB players wrap theirs.
Des, I’m fairly certain, catchers have facemasks, helmets, neck guards, chest protectors and a shinguard on each leg.
Why don;t we play without outfield walls then?
If the catcher can not be hit then they also have to change the rule to say the Catcher must not be in the running lane and give the runner acceess, not block the plate. Just as it is at all the other bases.
True that. Make it the same across the board
Looks good to me.
Let’s also remember that much of the catcher’s gear is to protect against damage from baseballs, not to protect like a football lineman’s gear.
Yeah the protection is all built to stop sharp penetration not blunt force…
And it’s all front facing anyway! The majority of force in a collision is going to be on the back end!
I have no problems if they wish to protect the players better but like I said if they make one rule they have to make sure it’s not all one sided and give the catcher the ability to block the plate so he can’t touch it without going through him!
Posey has a broken leg and torn ligaments. Huge blow to defending champs
Whoa! That would explain why he was writhing in agony. Sucks for G-Men.
Now they really need Reyes’ bat, God forgive me.