At Least We're Not at the top...

[GammaZeta]

Tom, you have to think of it like this.

An outfielder in baseball should catch 100% of the balls hit to him. That is why he is paid millions to play the position.

In reality, an outfielder does not catch 100% of the balls hit to him. Maybe it's the sun, not fast enough or a bad bounce. Something out of his control. Most of those are forgiveable.

But what happens when he starts dropping pop flys? Not putting in the effort to run to the warning track? Maybe bobbles the ball costing the team a run.

You can't blame the catcher. You can't blame the pitcher. You can't blame the hitter, the fans, the owner, the heckler, the umpire, the media, the people on the street, the hot dog vendors, the teammates, the coach, the bullpen.

You blame the outfielder. Why? Because it is the outfielders job to catch 100% of the balls. Reasonable or not.

Now there is some leeway. Maybe 900 out of every 1,000 balls hit to him are caught. Maybe the league average is 850 out of every 1,000.

But what happens when he starts catching 750 out of every 1,000? Or how about 500 out of every 1,000. How about 250 out of every 1,000? Sure, not everyone may be totally in his control, but when do you say enough is enough and pull him?

What I'm saying is, our outfield seems to be dropping a lot of balls. I'll give him a few for the sun in the eyes or a strange gust of wind, but other than that, I want to make sure our outfielder is hustling and running as fast as he can to every single ball hit to the outfield.