Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.13.73.120 (talk) at 23:32, 30 April 2007. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

In baseball, an error is the act, in the judgment of the official scorer, of a fielder misplaying a ball in a manner that allows a batter or baserunner to reach one or more additional bases, when such an advance should have been prevented given ordinary effort by the fielder.

The term error can also refer to the play in which an error was committed.

An error does not count as a hit unless, in the scorer's judgment, the batter would have reached first base safely but one or more of the additional base(s) reached was the result of the fielder's mistake. In that case, the play will be scored both as a hit (for the number of bases the fielders should have limited the batter to) and an error. Similarly, a batter does not receive credit for a RBI when runs score on an error, unless the scorer rules that a run would have scored even if the fielder had not made a mistake. For example, if a batter hits a ball to the outfield for what should be a sacrifice fly, and the outfielder drops the ball for an error, the batter will still receive credit for the sacrifice fly and the run batted in.

If a play should have resulted in a fielder's choice with a runner being put out and the batter reaching base safely, but the runner is safe due to an error, then the play will be scored as a fielder's choice, with no hit being awarded to the batter, and an error charged against the fielder.

Passed balls and wild pitches are separate statistical categories and are not scored as errors.

Statistical significance

Traditionally, the number of errors was a statistic used to quantify the skill of a fielder. However, fans and analysts have questioned the usefulness and significance of such a practice. The error has some flaws as a metric for fielding skill. Notably, mental misjudgments, such as failure to cover a base, are not considered errors.

A more subtle, though more significant objection to the error, as sabermetricians have noted, is more conceptual—in order for a fielder to be charged with an error, he must have done something right by being in the correct place to be able to attempt the play. A poor fielder may "avoid" many errors simply by being unable to reach batted or thrown balls that a better fielder could successfully reach. Thus, it is possible that a poor fielder will have fewer errors than an otherwise better fielder.

In recent times, official scorers have made some attempt to take a fielder's supposed "extraordinary" effort or positioning into account when judging whether the play should have been successful given ordinary effort, however this still leaves a statistic, such as Fielding percentage, that is based on errors as a dubious way to compare the defensive abilities of players.

Statistical records for errors

In Major League Baseball, Herman Long holds the Major League records with 1096 errors in his career between 1889 and 1904. Bill Dahlen, Deacon White and Germany Smith are the only other players to make 1000 errors during their MLB careers. All of these players played at least one season before 1900, the 20th century record is held by Rabbit Maranville with 711 errors. The leader among active players is José Valentín with 273 errors as of the end of the 2006 season.

• Baseball statistics