Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
Forcing guys to be on the dirt, will probably have the bigger impact, but still be pretty light overall. Some of these well hit balls won't have that guy 30 feet back of the first baseman in shallow right getting that one hop screamer as a routine play. From what I remember watching Baseball in the 80's and early 90's was that ground balls that got past the pitcher tended to be base hits. Now those get fielded by the Shortstop or 2nd baseman. I don't expect that to change as teams see too much defensive value in taking that part of the field away when it comes to ground balls.
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And players are just much more athletic and better at defense then 20 years ago
Its a catch 22 - You need more 'room' to get a base hit with faster, bigger, better athletes, but that would require moving the bases further apart which allows the INF to play further back and allows them to have more range!
I agree forcing the INF to play closer would actually solve a lot more problems (maybe even moving the dirt/grass line closer to home and requiring you to be in more)