what's up i'm coach dan blewett in this video let's talk about the recent video of ronald
acuna jr beating out what's been called a routine ground ball to shortstop and whether or not this
ball was misplayed or it was properly played and he really just beat out a routine grounder
all right so if you're new here i'm coach Dan and what i want to do in this video is really
talk about the difference between miss playing a ball and properly playing a ball because there's
been a lot of headlines that he beat out this routine grounder which to me means that this was
the ground ball that was played correctly played perfectly and he was just too fast to get the out
which in this case you know we'll go through you can make a decision for yourself i'm going to give
you my opinion at the end that's going to be up for you to decide whether this ball was really
played properly by didi gregorius or if he made a mental error somewhere and misplayed it so first
what i think we need to do is get the definition of what does it mean to misplay a a ball as an
infielder so obviously we all know this when we see it right but sometimes it's a little bit hard
to pick up a great example is an outfielder you've all seen and you've probably done this just like i
did when i was a kid it still happens from time to time even in the major leagues an outfielder
will take their first step where forward and then go oh crap and then they start running back and
they don't get there in time and the ball beats them and it falls over their head for a you know
a double or whatever that's clearly a misplayed event right he took the wrong initial step
couldn't recover in time and didn't make the play now if the outfielder took a step in ran back and
then still caught it you could say he misplayed it but he recovered it so he's still got the out
no one really cares so essentially there's a bunch of different scenarios number one you could play
it properly and get the out like you play it perfectly and you get the guy out you could miss
play it and recover and still get the out or you could miss play it and not get the out and a miss
play could be physical it could be an error or it could be mental typically when we say a misplay
it's mental where you still basically fielded it and then didn't get the out obviously you know
only with outfielders you really see that like wrong step and it becomes a base hit so really
if you're saying something was played properly and they couldn't get the out then you're essentially
saying that no player could have made that play and that's what's really in question here so let's
look at the acuna tape which i have here and i also have it slowed down so let's see it in
real speed right here boom he beats it i mean he just barely beats it right so let me replay that
again and the first thing i want you to look at is does dd gregorius play this ball with urgency
that's the first thing that we need to look at here is does he play this with urgency
i don't see a lot of urgency there and if this is if i know and uh you know this goes back to
as a baseball player you have to have a mental checklist that goes through the scenario the
situations what's going on who's the runner who's on base what's the situation where are you going
with the ball in his head he needs to know this is essentially the fastest man in the major leagues
even if you know maybe he's not always a 31 feet per second runner which he did right here
he's still really fast and if he wants to turn on the jets he obviously has them
and gregorius needs to know i need to move quick on every ball that i get just like he would with
someone like billy hamilton where everyone knew it was going to be a bang bang play no matter
where billy hamilton hit it so here i don't see urgency right away do you do you see an
urgent uh movement now the other thing that i've heard on twitter um because i tweeted about this
is how many steps does he take here so gregorius himself quoted that he took one step in through
is that true so let's review it here as it goes slow so he's got it there's one
two three four five and six so his feet go right left right left right left six steps now i don't
know if we call that and this is a good another good question what is a step in baseball is it
one shuffle which would be right foot left foot is it each individual step i don't know that's
actually a really good question i don't think anyone really defines that so much again we kind
of know like a step when you see it but i know what we saw here is right left right left right
left six feet touched down before he threw this ball now as we go back to video here let's also
look at how far he runs when he gets this ground ball that's a pretty big sort of question mark
turn that he's making watch this he's pretty deep in the infield this is a lot of ground that he's
covering with the ball in his possession he's probably running i don't know 10 12 feet before
he finally throws the ball right here he was over here before way up in the corner and now he's
probably run a good 10 or 12 feet with the ball in his possession so you have to ask yourself again
is that urgency is that the way a shortstop should handle the situation when the fastest man in the
major leagues hit him a ground ball even if he hit it 109 miles per hour which he did it's a good
question but he did take six steps with his right left right left right left before throwing it
and then he throws it 88.4 across the diamond which is obviously hard but you know if he'd gone
over the top would he have thrown it harder um you know again this is the question here we're asking
is could any major league shortstop have made this play if the answer is no then he played it
properly and he really just beat out quote unquote he beat out a routine ground ball but would you
say that none of the 30 major league short stops could have made that play i'd say at least three
quarters of major league shortstops make that play here's the last thing i want to draw your
attention to is initially and this is hard to see unless i can stop it is right away look
right here man i just crushed that his first step is back he drop steps this ball so the question
is was this the same as an outfielder initially going back on a fly ball where dede maybe made
the wrong decision reacting to this super hard hit ground ball which it was super hard hit which that
you know the advantage of hitting the ball hard is your fielder's behind you um they can
sometimes react the wrong way but he clearly drops steps back so was this the same as an outfielder
drop stepping for or going forward on a fly ball and then beating him over his head where because
gregorius made the initial wrong step going back that he just essentially couldn't recover
and he had to move his feet you know six steps to make the throw to recover because of the body
position he was in and then because of that he couldn't get the out whereas maybe all the
other major leaguer other major league shortstops either hold their ground or just move sideways a
little bit or they charge it a little bit and now they've cut down that throw dramatically
and they don't have to move their feet six steps like he did and they can make that throw faster
so you have to ask yourself was this the right or wrong initial step and did that just essentially
mean he was he was screwed he couldn't recover from it and make this play and that might be
the the answer that he just he initially stepped back which you can see that he did and because of
that he couldn't recover but again i don't see the urgency from him this does not look like you know
i got no time this looks like i've got time and oh wait crap he was really really fast and it looks
like he just gets caught off guard so the bigger overarching point here is not to find fault and
gregorious but it's to talk about this play from a coaching perspective and as a player perspective
big league shortstops are expected to make that play i mean let's just be honest that's my opinion
i think he misplayed this he initially took a step back and i don't see the urgency if i'm
i'm a pitcher and i turn around i see him take six steps and then throw and the guy's safe
i'm like dude get rid of the ball and i think in the dugout someone on his team had to have
said the same thing like hey man you gotta know who's running this is the fastest guy in the
big leagues right now you know you gotta get rid of that ball faster and i can't imagine gregory
should be like i couldn't have done anything differently to get him out i played it perfectly
and any other major leaguer would have played it exactly the same because i don't think that's
true either i mean you start taking some of the better uh shortstops in the league like
in drelton simmons you don't think andrelton simmons makes that play i don't think it's
even a hard play for him i think he just takes a half step forward you know moves through it
and that's an easy play and he's out by two steps and really if gregorius gets rid of the ball
with any urgency he's out by a whole step because it was just barely he beat it it was bang bang
even with him taking those six steps that we saw running about 10 or 12 feet with it which we saw
so again leave me a comment did i get this right did i get this wrong did i miss something what's
your perspective what is what does a miss play mean to you and you know the thing
to remember is big leaguers they're still not perfect they're humans they make the the play
almost every time but they still make mental errors once in a while and they obviously still
make a handful of physical errors every single year so we can't expect perfection out of them and
this might have been one of those times where he just like man i just made the wrong move initially
wasn't thinking that he was going to go as hard as he did and i kind of gave him an out i gave him a
free base so anyway thanks for watching leave a comment below and i'll see you in the next video