That might be difficult... "Preston Michael Tucker is an American professional baseball left fielder for the Kia Tigers of the KBO League."
I mean, Lucroy has to stand somewhere in the vicinity of home plate. He is the catcher. He is suppose to defend home plate. At no point is he ever really blocking the plate, maybe one foot in the base path. Certainly at the end Jake takes a huge lunge to the inside and wallups Lucroy far away from the plate.
I get it, I understand the rule and that why he was suspended. Not sure 100% that it applies here, Jake guessed wrong.
At the end and in hindsight, yes. The only thing Jake did wrong was guess which side to dart to. One foot on the basepath means he has to go around Lucroy. From where I stand, Jake gets a 2 game suspension for guessing wrong. How does that sound right to anyone?
Did Lucroy drop knee and slide such that he was directly between Marisnick and the plate? Was Marisnick unimpeded on his way to plate? Lucroy defintely blocked the plate. He was trying to field the ball so that does give him so latitude. However, the rule also requires the catcher to "use best efforts to avoid unnecessary and forcible contact while tagging a runner attempting to slide". Lucroy's dropping the knee and thrusting towards Marisnick down the line is hard to say he was trying to avoid forcible contact. Marisnick was running on the inside part of baseline the entire time except for his juke step that he used to go even further inside. In other words, Marisnick was headed directly at Lucroy the entire time. Lucroy slide up and even further inside mirrored Marisnick's move. If Marisnick doesn't deviate, they have a collision and it is just as violent. The only question is whether Marisnick was sliding. I think Marisnick thought Lucroy was going to follow the ball and the deviation in his path was going to cause a side swipe instead of the head on collision.
Lucroy doesn't have to give Marisnick the entire plate or get out of his way. He stayed on one side of the line and left a wide open path for Marisnick on the outside. He moved when the ball was approaching - to catch the ball, but he remained on the inside of the basepath and left Marisnick his open path. The fact that Marisnick decided to run inside the bathpath the whole time is not on Lucroy - that's Marisnick's choice and was a bad read. Lucroy got on the side of the plate that made it easiest to catch the ball and swipe tag someone. I'm pretty sure if you created a "where to position yourself" video for where the ball was coming from, MLB would say Lucroy was exactly where they'd want him to be and doing exactly what a catcher should do.
I think MLB wants players to go outside of the baseline and not inside. You usually see players slide on the outside coming home while sliding their hand over the base.
Plenty of people have been calling for Jake's blood. He has been vilified outside of Houston. A lot of people want his head on a pike.
The deciding factor wasn’t simply a violation of the rules either, though. If there wouldn’t have been as violent a collision and he violated the rule, he would have been called out and there wouldn’t have been a suspension. You shouldn’t expect a guy to not give everything he’s got on a potential scoring play. Jake is being scapegoated because there is public outcry. The right call was made, but suspensions should be withheld for situations where there was purposefully initiated violent contact. Similar to the nba, and nfl. Intent should matter in situations like this.
Lucroy was perfectly fine until he dropped knee and went at Marisnick (i.e., when the ball hits his mitt). I'm sure that since Lucroy is in hospital the MLB would agree because of optics. This looked like a textbook pre-collision rule blocking the plate move to me. He is required by rule to give his best effort to not have a forcible collision. His positioning, the way he tried to catch the ball, and his dropping the knee and thrusting suggests he knew Marisnick choose inside. No way he makes the play if Marisnick went outside the way he dropped knee and thrusted inside. Marisnick is allowed to run inside the baseline. He wasn't dodging a tag. If he never deviated his path. He would have been fine. The rule is all about intent. Marisnick is not allowed to deviate his path with the intent to collide with Lucroy. Marisnick is not required to dodge Lucroy. Marisnick is not required go around Lucroy. The only one required to not make best effort not to have forcible contact was Lucroy. The question is did Marisnick deviate his path with the intent to collide with Lucroy. To me it looked like Marisnick was trying to score and deviated his body away from the center of mass of Lucroy at the time of juke move. Lucroy made a mirror move at practically the same time such that they stayed in line. As it is based on intent...if Marisnick had a "bad read" in your words, he should not have been suspended. I will say play looked odd. Marisnick and Lucroy both made weird movements.
Players usually slide to the outside of home plate. Jake took the wrong path. He didn’t intentionally hurt Lucroy but he probably deserves at least a one game suspension.