Do I have to enumerate why this post is so stupid?

Sure... although I'm not sure "stupid" is appropriate to the new and improved kindler gentler forum. :)

Seriously, my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek ... but in every tag play you're trying to get an angle where you can see the ball coming in, the runner coming in, and then the tag when it happens (along with the base, obviously).

3BLE on a throw from F5 or F7 is going to leave you blocked from the tag very very often.

1BLX gives you zero options, meaning your stuck there so if the play gets weird such as throw slightly up the 3B line and runner going inside you are completely straightlined. 3BLX gives you the best angle for any swipe tag and the option of rotating to either 1BL or going to 1BLX for an angle on any other play.

In my association if you go to 1BLX you are going to be dinged hard on a eval and not going to move up to. You'll be working JV for life.

Time after time, I come on there, see one guy defending this position or that, despite the fact that 4 or 5 (or 10 or 25) people are telling him he's wrong. The man stubbornly insists he's right, slicing and dicing rules or quoting this book or that ... referring to instructions received at the I'm Famous So I Have a Clinic - Clinic.

I (and the 4 or 5 or 10 or 25) come to the conclusion that Don Quixote is an idiot. Even if someone tries reasoning and tells him to ask his clinician, he stubbornly stays on his spot like the North-Moving Zax.

Looks like I'm the stubborn Zax here. So I'll bow to the majority and admit I may have been taught wrong - and will definitely bring this up at the next clinic.

Call 'em how you want. But nobody who's been trained recently takes many plays, if any from 1BLX anymore.

Good luck to you, you call 'em your way, I'll call 'em mine.

No One?



Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | SD@LAD: Padres plate a pair on surprise steal of home - Video | MLB.com: Multimedia

Read my entire post. Carefully. And on this play the positioning still wasn't that great, but he might have been pinned. I haven't seen this clip for a few weeks.

My point was not to critique your statement, or whether you are right or wrong in positioning for plays at the plate because, as you have already stated, "Call 'em how you want".

Rather, whether you start 1BLX, point of the plate, 3BLX or any other place, you have to adjust to the play, the level of ball, the catchers ability and anyone of many other varibles to get the call right. We sometimes get so hung up on perfect positioning and still forget that it is a suggested location to start from but, do what you have to to get the dang call right.

Looking and acting professional is good for perception but, that greatly diminishes when you don't get the call correct.

Couldn't agree more!

Is it just me, or had anyone else noticed more arguments over missed calls since MLB went with 3BLX? I always thought somebody was only trying to build a better mouse trap with this idea.

A) MLB, AFAIK, has not embraced 3BLX.
B) No.

How do you figure? I have probably 100 clips of plays at the plate and nearly all of them have the PU at 3BLX.

I'm not seeing it across the board. To be honest, I see a handful of guys using it, and the rest kinda do whatever they want.

May just be a perception thing.

It might be a perception thing.