Does speed even matter?

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, Sessh said:

It seems he hit the ball off the left field wall and was still thrown out at first. That's.. kind of impressive really.

I used the bb-ref event finder to look through all the non-strikeout outs of Lombardi's career.  Only once did he ever hit into an play started by the left fielder that ended up with another out, and that was him lining into a triple play.  As far as the box scores go, there are no plays listed as LF-1B, or LF-(other stuff)-first base.

Every event isn't 100% right in the box scores, especially going back 80+ years.  But nothing is there matching his description.

[OsEatAlEast]

I'm in the group that became a fan in the 80's. I might be nostalgic but it seemed that players were just fundamentally better all around back then. Especially comparing the defensive skills of our outfielders to O's teams of the late 80's and early 90's. I find myself constantly after seeing a homerun land in the first row of seats saying to myself "I really miss the days of Brady Anderson, Mike Devereaux, and Joe Orsulak!" It just seems to me on balls they would have been camped under ready to make a try for our current corner outfielders are still trying to find the wall. No first step quickness whatsoever.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, OsEatAlEast said:

I'm in the group that became a fan in the 80's. I might be nostalgic but it seemed that players were just fundamentally better all around back then. Especially comparing the defensive skills of our outfielders to O's teams of the late 80's and early 90's. I find myself constantly after seeing a homerun land in the first row of seats saying to myself "I really miss the days of Brady Anderson, Mike Devereaux, and Joe Orsulak!" It just seems to me on balls they would have been camped under ready to make a try for our current corner outfielders are still trying to find the wall. No first step quickness whatsoever.

I think that's more of a case of the current Orioles just not being good.  My take is that fielding today is better than it's ever been, but it's just less important because there are fewer balls in the field to catch.

[makoman]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I used the bb-ref event finder to look through all the non-strikeout outs of Lombardi's career.  Only once did he ever hit into an play started by the left fielder that ended up with another out, and that was him lining into a triple play.  As far as the box scores go, there are no plays listed as LF-1B, or LF-(other stuff)-first base.

Every event isn't 100% right in the box scores, especially going back 80+ years.  But nothing is there matching his description.

I don’t know if your search catches these,  but looking on bb-ref at old box scores in the past I’ve seen quite a lot that said batted ball out: no further information or something sorta like that. I guess 30s data is spotty. 

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, makoman said:

I don’t know if your search catches these,  but looking on bb-ref at old box scores in the past I’ve seen quite a lot that said batted ball out: no further information or something sorta like that. I guess 30s data is spotty. 

There's definitely some of that.  But maybe 5%?  Or less. 

But then I wanted to make sure I was looking for the right thing and Googled an Omar Infante/Jose Bautista 9-3 putout from 2014 and it clearly wasn't right in the box score.  The play I think it is was labeled a line out to RF. 

So the Lombardi play might be there but just not properly annotated.