Pitchers, Catchers, Wild Pitches & Passed Balls

[canyonjoe]

Having a background in baseball, I consider a Wild Pitch to be one in which the catcher has no shot at stopping, catching, or blocking the ball to prevent a runner from advancing. Since MLB does not consider a passed ball to cause an earned run, that has to be on the catcher.

My daughters were the battery for the HS season the last two years, so when a PB/WP occurred, one of my girls was getting the blame.

I used the GC records to make my girls aware of their mistakes and try and fix them. We lost a game in the playoffs because of a passed ball on my daughter that allowed the runner on 2nd to go to 3rd. She then scored on a sacrifice fly on the next pitch. We discussed how important it was to prevent that runner from advancing in the hopes she won't do it again. For the record, it was a bad passed ball. She just whiffed at the ball.

That's not how it's scored in baseball. Just because they had a shot at stopping it doesn't make it a PB. Just hitting dirt doesn't make it a WP but anything such as a short hop to the C, but if you bounce it at plate level and it gets by it's almost always a WP. That's doesn't mean I don't expect my catcher to make the play but it's still a WP. Any good C wants to stop anything and feels they can but for scoring purposes that's not how it works.

 

[Sweet Lou]

My wife use to keep score for our adult baseball team when I was younger in the age before kids. She thought any ball hit in the general direction of a fielder should be caught and assigned A LOT of errors when she started. We had to have a discussion with her about what ordinary effort meant.

 

[erniekru]

That's not how it's scored in baseball. Just because they had a shot at stopping it doesn't make it a PB. Just hitting dirt doesn't make it a WP but anything such as a short hop to the C, but if you bounce it at plate level and it gets by it's almost always a WP. That's doesn't mean I don't expect my catcher to make the play but it's still a WP. Any good C wants to stop anything and feels they can but for scoring purposes that's not how it works.

Awesome, looked up the rule and yep, you are correct. Any pitch (baseball rule) that hits the dirt is a wild pitch.

from 10.13
The official scorer shall charge a pitcher with a wild pitch when a legally delivered ball touches the ground or home plate before reaching the catcher and is not handled by the catcher, thereby permitting a runner or runners to advance. When the third strike is a wild pitch, permitting the batter to reach first base, the official scorer shall score a strikeout and a wild pitch.

 

[radness]

How did you come to the conclusion for the bolded above?

It was a brief in a nutshell description.

A ball in the dirt is not automatically a wild pitch!! Again, just like with errors, the differentiator should be "reasonable effort".

in 8u, all balls in the dirt should be officially scored as wild pitch (but they're not, pitcher parent heads would explode!)
in 18u, a ball in the dirt MAY be scored a wild pitch depending on location and if the ball gets passed the catcher (ie, in front of the plate or in the correct river not a WP but a Passed Ball. In the batters box or oppo river, WP all day.

In regards to stolen bases, my opinions are if the catcher has anchored that runner at 1B for multiple at bats and the first pitch in the dirt she successfully gets to 2B, I'd say that the pitch enabled the runner to get to 2B.. To me that signals Wild Pitch. However, I've scored it many times as stolen base because it is a grey area. But just like hitting, there's situational pitching and that pitch in the dirt enabled the runner to advance, should not be put on the catcher IMO.

To your added comments~
Are definitely part of the discussion of how important it is to some people how things are described in the scorebook or not!

To the comment about a pitch being in the dirt is why it enabled a runner to reach second base.
I disagree the dirt always interferes.
Pitches in the dirt are not an excuse for runners to be able to steal bases.
That is one of the reasons why I teach Fielding dirt pitches rather than only blocking them.
We know that discussion!

This leads further into the discussion
of why I posted about this.
Wild pitch or not catchers still have a responsibility!

 

[softgabby]

An explanation of My Mind Set On the field.
Is not to say the way the score book is done is wrong. it is a perspective shared about being a softball player on the field.

We know that there are some pitches that are considered wild pitches and others considered passed balls.

Which means in the score book if the pitched ball bounces in front of the catcher it is considered a wild pitch.
And if it got by the catcher it would not be considered a passed ball.

For the purpose of being a defensive player.
It is my mindset that it does not matter if it is considered a wild pitch it is still my responsibility as a defensive player/catcher to play the ball and control it. Which additionally includes not letting Runners on base Steel the next base.
'Field and Fire'

(For this reason I set the expectation that I am not released from the possibility of an error because it is considered a wild pitch.)
*The ball is still in play and it is my job to control it.
If the ball gets by me just because it's in the dirt I consider that an error.
*Because I know that everybody else in their defensive positions have the responsibility of Fielding grounders.
Hold that responsibility to myself regardless if it came out of the pitcher's hand!

In my defensive player mindset...if I cannot cleanly receive the ball, I want to keep that ball in front of me so I can quickly make a play. Like, if I dropped a called strike three, I need to be able to quickly fire to first.

So, I wouldn't say a ball that's knocked down is a wild pitch. I'd argue a passed ball is one where I could receive the ball but couldn't and it goes to the backstop. A wild pitch would be a pitch where I didn't have a prayer of receiving it.

Sent from my SM-S127DL using Tapatalk

 

[CoachJD]

An explanation of My Mind Set On the field.
Is not to say the way the score book is done is wrong. it is a perspective shared about being a softball player on the field.

We know that there are some pitches that are considered wild pitches and others considered passed balls.

Which means in the score book if the pitched ball bounces in front of the catcher it is considered a wild pitch.
And if it got by the catcher it would not be considered a passed ball.

For the purpose of being a defensive player.
It is my mindset that it does not matter if it is considered a wild pitch it is still my responsibility as a defensive player/catcher to play the ball and control it. Which additionally includes not letting Runners on base Steel the next base.
'Field and Fire'

(For this reason I set the expectation that I am not released from the possibility of an error because it is considered a wild pitch.)
*The ball is still in play and it is my job to control it.
If the ball gets by me just because it's in the dirt I consider that an error.
*Because I know that everybody else in their defensive positions have the responsibility of Fielding grounders.
Hold that responsibility to myself regardless if it came out of the pitcher's hand!

I think from a player's perspective and not a statistical one, this is a great mindset to have. It's taking responsibility and ownership of your actions on the field.

I can think of plenty of plays from my time as a player where I didn't make plays and they were definitively not errors. They weren't necessarily even plays that everyone else thought I should've had. But I know I could've made those plays. I know what I did wrong (a slow first step, not reading a bounce right and recognizing it just a little late, etc.).

It's probably best to just not think of things in scoring terms. Call them "plays that should have been made." In fact, I actually somewhat track these for our players (usually when we're in a particularly rough defensive stretch). I think it's perfectly acceptable to do this, and it's completely unnecessary to worry about how it's scored in the book in this context.