THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Well, you aren’t wrong in what you are saying, *but* I am not 100% clear on what you said.  Punto is rounding third at a sharp angle.  He’s not coming in perpendicular to the bag, he’s rounded his path immediately and is circling, so the 3B coach (also to see the play) has to be down the line.  That’s the path of Punto’s vision as well.  The coach could have been stopping and Punto didn’t look, but the coach cannot be at the bag, and Punto should be “picking him up” as soon as he takes off.  The play was behind him, so he has to put 100% reliance on the 3B coach to tell him. 

The video I saw didn’t show the coach (although I have seen people claim the 3B coach told him to stop), and I think Punto ran head down through the stop sign.

I don’t think I agree. 
The 3rd base coach could not have given him a stop or go sign until he saw whether the ball was going to get through. 
Punto was already on the 3rd base dirt patch when Jeter fielded the ball. At that point, Punto has to look down to make sure he touches the base without breaking stride. Punto can’t look back up again until he touches the base, at which point the coach needs to be positioned in his line of sight. Which he was.  He might have been 2-3 steps too far down the line, but I think he was basically in the right area.

If the 3B coach is standing near the bag, perhaps he could have yelled at Punto to stop. But, as Punto said, the crowd was so loud he was sure the ball had gone through. The coach could not assume that Punto would hear him through the Metrodome din. He had to be standing in Punto’s line of sight as he rounded the bag. And of course Punto should have been looking for his 3b coach. That is Little League Baserunning 101.

The coach is not really giving him a stop or go.  Since the play is behind him, Punto is relying totally on the coach, as Chris is saying.  He has to be running hard the whole way, meaning that the default is a go.  The ONLY thing the coach can do is give him the stop sign.  Not giving him a sign is the same as giving him a go sign.

The only way he gives him the stop sign is if the ball stays in the infield.  The only way for Punto to stop running in time is to be able to pick up the coach early enough.  The coach has to be way closer to the bag than being half-way down as he was.

I don’t think any of us are in the position to place blame on the runner or base coach in this situation.  In order to answer this question you need to know what the team policy or how they were trained to handle a situation in which the runner was rounding third base for a possible wave home or stop.  Perhaps the way the Twins players were trained was to pick up the third base coach down the line, perhaps not.  My guess is the base coach knows where he is suppose to stand and it’s the runners job to pick up the coach.  From the replay, the third base coach obviously had the “stop” sign up and in plenty of time for him to easily get back to the bag if his momentum carried him a little past it.  In post-mortem, Punto said he thought the ball got through the infield by the crowd noise, so he went for it.

vr, Xei

Xei: good point.  It should be a snap for someone to look up other similar situations (groundball hit up the middle) with runner on 2B and 0 outs, and see where the 3B coach was standing.

The coach threw up his hands as soon as Punto stepped on the bag, and he was in Punto’s line of sight. Punto had plenty of time to stop.
Perhaps you are right that the ideal spot for the coach was closer to the bag, and being there might have made it easier for Punto to see the stop sign. But your original statement that the mistake was 100% the fault of the coach implies that the runner did not have an obligation to look for him.  The baserunner MUST attempt to pick up his 3B coach in that situation. The replay shows he clearly did not.

mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/2009/10/11/mlbtv_nyamin_7046367_1m.mp4 :video with different angles

1) Alex pointing to 2B.
Is it possible this may have deked Punto into assuming Jeter didn’t have a shot, the ball got through to CF, and Alex is honestly signaling Melky to toss it in to 2B to keep Span on 1B?

2) The crowd is reacting to Jeter being unable to make a play @ 1B or 3B because of how the ball was put in play but is it possible that Punto misinterprets the crowd reaction by assuming the ball got through to CF?

If you have a third base coach, why would you need to “interpret” the fan reaction?  That was ridiculous of Punto to say.

Just two questions/thoughts

1. I don’t know if it’s true, but lets say the coach has coached in that position the whole season. Shouldn’t some responsibility then fall on Punto for not adjusting to a fact like that?

2. Punto running with his head down is bad anyway, because not only do you have to look for a coach, no matter where he is, but running with your eyes to the ground slows you down. One of the basic running skills you learn is to run with your head up.

When I saw it via instant-replay during the game, it sure looked to me like Punto blew through a stop sign, picked it up late, and then slipped as he attempted to return to 3rd.

It didn’t seem like the coaches’ fault to me.

To me it didn’t seem obvious that Jeter couldn’t get the runner at first.  I thought Jeter was going to throw to first, and I’ll bet Punto and the 3rd base coach thought the same.  It was a great heads-up play by Jeter to look home.  I’m not a big Jeter fan, but he does seem to be really extra aware of what’s going on.  I think pretty much every other SS would have thrown to first.

Ok, I’m watching the replay now.  Note that the audio/video is not synched, if you watch it at the half-way point.

When Jeter fields the ball, Punto is already on the dirt of the 3B bag.  That means that he would score EASILY had the ball gone through.  Easy.

When Jeter fields the ball, the coach is at the L of ALDS, which is in-line with the pitcher’s mound, so pretty much at the half-way mark (45 feet or so).

The line-of-sight for Punto is the edge of the 3b coach’s box.  THAT is exactly where the coach should have been.

The coach put up the stop sign exactly when Jeter got the ball.

Span was about 30 feet from home plate, and given the way Jeter was positioned and balanced, I don’t think anyone would have thrown to 1B, given that Punto was already about to round 3B.

oops: Span was about 30 feet from 1b

#12— Here’s how I saw it.
Once Punto is on the dirt, he had to look down at the base to make sure he touched it without breaking stride. 
I know what it is like to round 3b hard and you must look down at the bag when you get close to it, lest you step awkwardly or miss it completely.

Unfortunately for the Twins, the moment Punto looks down for the base is when the coach threw up his stop sign, and Punto failed to look up for it again until it was too late.

What would have happened had the coach put up the stop sign quickly?  That is, before the ball even got to Jeter, the coach stays near the bag, and gives Punto the hold sign?

And then, suppose the ball gets past Jeter.  At that point, Punto coasted into 3B, and now has to restart his engines.  How bad is that?

Well, seeing that when you are in a SF situation that you start cold on the bag, having Punto already coasting to 3B, and then telling him to get the engine back up, while the ball is going to be rolling to the CF, that’s an easy run.

As I said, if the ball gets past Jeter, it’s an EASY run.  Easy.  The ball would have taken several hops, if not an outright roll, to CF.

I think this was a poorly executed play all-around, but the coach should have thought the entire play through.  He’s got exactly one job to do, and he didn’t do it.

That’s a valid point, and if Ullger had been closer he might have had better luck getting Punto’s attention. But you seem to be making an assumption that Ullger should have immediately been able to see that the ball would be caught by or have passed by Jeter before Punto put his head down to round the base.  That would have been a risky assumption to make at the crack of the bat.

If the ball reached Jeter after Punto looked down, and Ullger was right there at the base, Ullger would not have been able to give him the stop sign.  It was safer for Ullger to be down the line where he could be certain that Punto would not miss him as he rounded third. 

So, yes, Ullger could have been better positioned, but he would have had to make a very risky assumption. He was better off just making a less risky assumption that Punto would have the smarts to glance up as soon as he hit third.

If only Punto looked up…