LLWS Southeast Regional - Play at 3rd

[Umpy]

At the 10:43 mark in this recap there's runners on 1st and 2nd, fly ball to left field.  U3 goes out, and there's a play at 3rd with no one there to make a call.  I reviewed the Little League 4-man guide and it said this should have been covered by U2, how is U2 supposed to get into a good position in time for a force play at 3rd?  I feel like PU is the only one who's going to have a good look here.

 

[Tborze]

PU has HP coverage here. 
Based on the situation of this play, I get where you’re coming from, but we can’t change mechanics based on this one situation. 
If anything, U3 could have gotten both. 
 

[Jimurray]

47 minutes ago, Tborze said:

PU has HP coverage here. 
Based on the situation of this play, I get where you’re coming from, but we can’t change mechanics based on this one situation. 
If anything, U3 could have gotten both. 
 

He might have confused "watch the ball, glance the runner", with "watch the fielder, don't watch the ball, don't glance the runner".

But to be fair he did have to keep looking at the fielder until he could judge a fair ball and signal it. Not.

[JonnyCat]

10 hours ago, Umpy said:

I reviewed the Little League 4-man guide and it said this should have been covered by U2, how is U2 supposed to get into a good position in time for a force play at 3rd? 

That's one of the disadvantages of U2 working outside on the 60' diamond. 

On that particular play, PU is locked because of RISP, U3 goes out on a fly ball coverage. U2 now has multiple base responsibility of 2nd and 3rd. But, U2 also has tag up responsibilities of R2. In a perfect world, U2 would bust inside and shade over towards 3rd for any play there, at the same time keeping an eye on R2 for a tag up. On a big diamond, it's easy to do, because U2 is already inside, just has to turn and all plays are right in front of you.

On the small diamond, the play happens so fast, there's hardly a chance U2 is getting inside. Depending on where U2 started, if he started in C, the best he can do is turn towards the ball and keep an eye on R2, and at the same time, maybe start shading towards 3rd for a potential play. But even sliding towards 3rd is risky on the outside, as it makes getting a look at the tag up of R2 difficult, and you may put yourself in the line of a throw back in towards 2nd.

If U2 was lucky and started in B and got a good read on the play, he could have busted inside keeping an eye on the tag up. Once the ball hit the ground he could have kept going towards 3rd for the potential play. But you have to get a good read and hustle to get into position. You could also make up some ground after you saw the play at 3rd, by moving towards 3rd when making your call. This would be the ideal way to take that play. LL gives U2 the option of working B or C in a 4 man.

But the reality is that most of the umpires you see working LL Regionals and World series, are not that well versed in 4 man mechanics. Most of them rarely do it during the season, they may work a few games with it in All Stars. Most LL umpires work solo or 2 man during the regular season. Honestly, from my experience working 2 Regionals, and instructing and training at LL Western Region, many of the LL umpires I see aren't even well versed in 2 man. They just work mainly solo. Not a criticism, just the way things are. I notice at all the LL Regionals and WS, most are the umpires are good on the plate, but they struggle on the bases. LL is trying to change that, but the base work, IMO, is an area that needs the most improvement.

BTW, the 4 man mechanics you'll see in LL Regionals and WS, is slightly different than what is shown in the LL 4 man guide. In the Regionals and WS, U1 is locked and never busts inside to split bases. Or that's what they are moving towards. U3 is supposed to come inside to split if U2 goes out with RISP. Not sure if it is being taught at every Region, but that is what they are teaching now at least from the West.

[Velho]

2 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

BTW, the 4 man mechanics you'll see in LL Regionals and WS, is slightly different than what is shown in the LL 4 man guide.

This is what is in manual we refer to (it's from 2021). It is different than we practiced locally as recently as 2022 though (which had U1 would covering 1B & 2B when U2 went out with RISP).

 

[stevis]

8 minutes ago, Velho said:

This is what is in manual we refer to (it's from 2021). It is different than we practiced locally as recently as 2022 though (which had U1 would covering 1B & 2B when U2 went out with RISP).

 

Diagram from the same manual:

[Jimurray]

11 minutes ago, stevis said:

Diagram from the same manual:

IF U2 reads this as a base hit, which it was, he wouldn't expect U3 to go out. Does LL use the arm up mechanic to signal you are going out?

[JonnyCat]

46 minutes ago, Velho said:

This is what is in manual we refer to (it's from 2021). It is different than we practiced locally as recently as 2022 though (which had U1 would covering 1B & 2B when U2 went out with RISP).

Okay, that looks like the updated mechanics. I haven't seen that manual yet.

I started using the new rotations last year when I was working with my friend Dave Miller, helping him prepare for the WS. He was the first one to tell us about the new mechanics that WP wanted.

Up until that point, we all had been using the the rotation that U1 would come in and split, with U3 being locked with RISP.

Having U3 come in and split does have it's merits on the small diamond. But still, it's just a crap show sometimes with U2 always starting on the outside. The game has really outgrown the 60' bases at the Regional and WS levels. The ball often gets back into the infield so quickly from the outfield, that if U2 doesn't get a good jump or is slow, they never can get inside. In fact, at WR, they discourage U2 coming inside. They prefer taking plays from the outside on balls hit to the outfield. Not sure I agree with that, but it's often been a SH*#show that they had to make some changes. 

I prefer to get inside as much as possible, but at that level, it's often hard to do.

[JonnyCat]

37 minutes ago, Jimurray said:

Does LL use the arm up mechanic to signal you are going out?

Yes, that is what they teach, at least here in the West. And if your back is turned, you went out.

[Jimurray]

33 minutes ago, JonnyCat said:

Yes, that is what they teach, at least here in the West. And if your back is turned, you went out.

I guess U3 overthought "when you go out you stay out".

[Velho]

18 hours ago, Jimurray said:

guess U3 overthought "when you go out you stay out".

They do drill exactly that into us so it's likely.

As @JonnyCat talked about, with the better teams it goes fast. We had a few similar plays this postseason and that's when I started to see this can happen given the small field with high skill level kids.

This particular play was one where you have to be ready to have have both the OF and your base (similar to a RF hotshot coming to the line that turns into a 9-3 attempt).  U3 could have taken a look, seen no one calling it, and given the "I've got it" sign and make a call. Easy for me to say of course. I think this was the first game so big stage and new crew.

[Jimurray]

1 hour ago, Velho said:

They do drill exactly that into us so it's likely.

As @JonnyCat talked about, with the better teams it goes fast. We had a few similar plays this postseason and that's when I started to see this can happen given the small field with high skill level kids.

This particular play was one where you have to be ready to have have both the OF and your base (similar to a RF hotshot coming to the line that turns into a 9-3 attempt).  U3 could have taken a look, seen no one calling it, and given the "I've got it" sign and make a call. Easy for me to say of course. I think this was the first game so big stage and new crew.

You can't explain signaling fair on a no sht ball and not turning with the throw to watch action on the field.

[Velho]

33 minutes ago, Jimurray said:

You can't explain signaling fair on a no sht ball and not turning with the throw to watch action on the field.

Not sure if that's said with fire or flat (you seem pretty fired up though?)

By the book, it's explicitly not that umpire's responsibility. "Do as your assigners say" is often quoted on U-E. Have you been through LL training? And specifically LL San Bernadino training? 

We want to debate the manual, fine. Want to debate if volunteers should be there, fine. Or if they should only use the exact same 8-16 umpires each region every single year, fine. We can even debate the philosophy around "replay can fix everything except balls & strikes" (don't forget - this play got called correctly in the end).

Should we be ripping the kids and coaches for stupid base running? No, of course not - because they are amateurs. They are not professionals. Well, same with the umpires.

I promise you that play was extensively covered postgame (and it'll probably cost someone assignments later in the Region). What more do you want?

[Jimurray]

13 minutes ago, Velho said:

(and it'll probably cost someone assignments later in the Region). What more do you want?

Just change "probably" to "should and did" 

[JonnyCat]

21 hours ago, Jimurray said:

I guess U3 overthought "when you go out you stay out".

I forgot to mention, yes they do teach that, as well.

In some instances, it can be a good practice, but on the small diamond, that is a mentality that does not need to be adhered to in most instances.

LL teaches to go out on every fly ball. No need on line drives, but most fly balls, they want a rotation. It doesn't need to happen on every fly ball, but that is what is taught. More on that later.

On deep fly balls to the gaps, which are mostly uncaught, a nice rotation makes sense. The calling umpire goes out, usually farther than on other fly balls, and all the other umpires have time to move into position. Since the calling umpire is usually a bit farther out, the practice of "if you're out, you stay out" works fine.

The problem arises on the short fly balls to the outfield. Most of them are hit not very deep. The calling umpire that goes out, may only get one or two steps to wards the play. Often, some umpires merely just turn around. (hence the notion of if I see your back, you are out). Those play happen so fast, the other umpires only get about 2-3 steps themselves, and are in no position, no matter how great the jump, or how fast they are, to complete the rotation and get into proper position for their next area of responsibility.

Most often, the calling umpire that went out, remains the closest one to the base they vacated. In the OP's play, that is exactly what happened.

On these can of corn plays that anyone in the stands could call, there is no need for the "if you're out, stay out" mentality. Especially when U2 goes out, he can easily grab the catch/no catch, and any subsequent play into 2B. The only thing that would be hard is grabbing the tag up, but the plate umpire has that responsibility, so leave it to him, and no need for silly rotations where many of these umpires can't get into position. PU back-fills any tag up responsibilities at all vacated bases in a rotation anyway.

And with closed bases, the calling umpire on a routine fly-ball can easily make the catch/no catch, or out signal, and be in position to make any other advance play into there bag. He's just not moving that far in either direction anyway!

In my games with seasoned partners, we'll pre-game this. If I'm a base umpire, with a routine fly ball, I'll often put up a stop sign to my crew-mates, indicating I've got the ball, but there is no need to rotate. I see pro umpires do that in games, and I have adopted that practice when I can.

LL methodology doesn't make sense to me with this, but they similarly follow FEDS practice of dumbing down things. I get it, in Regionals and WS, you're usually working with guys that you've never worked with before, and most of those are just not proficient on the bases. LL does this in order to avoid a SH*#show on TV. 

[Velho]

51 minutes ago, Jimurray said:

Just change "probably" to "should and did" 

I'm not there so I can't say.

 

22 minutes ago, JonnyCat said:

LL methodology doesn't make sense to me with this, but they similarly follow FEDS practice of dumbing down things. I get it, in Regionals and WS, you're usually working with guys that you've never worked with before, and most of those are just not proficient on the bases. LL does this in order to avoid a SH*#show on TV. 

Don't get me wrong. Even though this play got right in the end, it looked bad. U3 should have "broken protocol" and called it since no one else was. Absolutely a pre-game topic.

I don't know where BU is from* but these games are fast. I've been blessed (cursed? LOL) to have had games operate at a high speed in my District and Section. Have had my crew learn this lesson the hard way first hand.

* Some States don't even have Section tournaments. In the Southeast only Florida have Section tournaments (heck, Alabama only has 3 districts total).

[Vegas_Ump]

When I was in Virginia, in a four man crew, if U3 goes out, PU comes up to cover 3B.  U1 gets the touch at 1B then comes home to cover the plate.  U2 is the backup pair of eyes for touches at 2B or a throwback to 1B (not likely).

We ran this rotation many times, and the State UIC was always giving us a thumbs up.

Similarly, if U2 goes out, U3 slides in and cover touches and plays at 2B, PU comes up to 3B, and U1 covers home.

Point is, it's NOT a continuous rotation.  Each umpire who moves must first take care of business at his base first (touches, primarily, but look for OBS.)

On a 60' field, most umps can see OBS, INT, and touches most of the time.

But I have seen this kind of rotation in the pros before with U1 banging out a runner at the plate.  It can be done.

Mike

Las Vegas

[JonnyCat]

11 minutes ago, Vegas_Ump said:

When I was in Virginia, in a four man crew, if U3 goes out, PU comes up to cover 3B.  U1 gets the touch at 1B then comes home to cover the plate.  U2 is the backup pair of eyes for touches at 2B or a throwback to 1B (not likely).

We ran this rotation many times, and the State UIC was always giving us a thumbs up.

Similarly, if U2 goes out, U3 slides in and cover touches and plays at 2B, PU comes up to 3B, and U1 covers home.

Point is, it's NOT a continuous rotation.  Each umpire who moves must first take care of business at his base first (touches, primarily, but look for OBS.)

On a 60' field, most umps can see OBS, INT, and touches most of the time.

But I have seen this kind of rotation in the pros before with U1 banging out a runner at the plate.  It can be done.

Mike

Las Vegas

The rotations you describe are for runners not in scoring position. In the video, there is R1 and R2. So the PU is locked and is not rotating.

In this play, R3 went out, so U2 now covers both plays at 2nd and 3rd. But on that little uncaught flare to left, there's no way U2 is going to be able to get to 3rd for a play, especially when he's starting from B.

All that play needs is for U3 to turn around, see that the ball is not caught, and then slide back towards 3rd base to take any possible play. There's no need for a rotation, and frankly, as evidenced by the video, U2, nor even the plate umpire, could ever hope to be in proper position to cover any play at 3rd. Even if you were Usain Bolt!  

[Umpy]

48 minutes ago, Velho said:

1 hour ago, JonnyCat said:

LL methodology doesn't make sense to me with this, but they similarly follow FEDS practice of dumbing down things. I get it, in Regionals and WS, you're usually working with guys that you've never worked with before, and most of those are just not proficient on the bases. LL does this in order to avoid a SH*#show on TV. 

Don't get me wrong. Even though this play got right in the end, it looked bad. U3 should have "broken protocol" and called it since no one else was. Absolutely a pre-game topic.

Its worth considering that U2 very well may have made a call and just been off camera and in a terrible position to get the call right due to trying to follow the Little League prescribed rotation.  Everyone on the field may have done exactly as instructed and this just exposes a weakness of the manual more than an issue with any umpire.  There's no way anyone was looking out toward 2nd base to see if an umpire was signaling safe or out.

[JonnyCat]

1 hour ago, Umpy said:

Its worth considering that U2 very well may have made a call and just been off camera and in a terrible position to get the call right due to trying to follow the Little League prescribed rotation.  Everyone on the field may have done exactly as instructed and this just exposes a weakness of the manual more than an issue with any umpire.  There's no way anyone was looking out toward 2nd base to see if an umpire was signaling safe or out.

Yes, he was in a terrible position due to the prescribed mechanics. There is no way U2, starting from the B position on the outside, will ever get into the proper position for a play at 3rd. You'll always be looking up the ass-end of that play.

Yet, instead of relying on umpires making a better read, and U3 takes that call, LL chooses to dumb down the mechanics, (by their own admission BTW), mostly because of the deficiencies of LL umpires working the bases.

See my first post where I explain why LL umpires are often deficient on the bases.

After 23 years of working, training, and instructing in the West Region, I've found that most of the LL umpires during the regular season generally work solo. And it's not just here out in the West, it's all over the country. They just don't get enough base work, and rarely ever work 4 man games. So they are just not proficient in working 4 man. Not a criticism, just the way it is.

Now, with that being said, out in So Cal, many LL umpires do train in mutli-umpire mechanics. If you want to see some good rotations, check out the games from the West, Northwest, and Mountain Regionals. This year, with the changes LL is making with tournament assignments, those crews over there are quite good. I've worked/trained/instructed with many of them, and they are some very experienced umpires working those games. One guy is the former WR UIC, some are WR instructors, and I believe all of the crew has either prior Regional, and some have WS experience. 2 of the guys were on my 2022 WR crew in San Bernardino. That is a very stacked crew. But even so, with LL's prescribed mechanics, you'll see some holes even with those levels of experience.

[Velho]

40 minutes ago, JonnyCat said:

After 23 years of working, training, and instructing in the West Region, I've found that most of the LL umpires during the regular season generally work solo.

To add on, even if not solo (which fortunately I rarely see in the 2 Districts I work regularly in Silicon Valley), you're often working with dads/coaches who are less experienced (or only doing it because they have to) so you're often plate even in 2 man.

40 minutes ago, JonnyCat said:

They just don't get enough base work, and rarely ever work 4 man games. So they are just not proficient in working 4 man. Not a criticism, just the way it is.

It takes a lot of work to get good at it. Again, being in a population dense area we can get a lot of 4 man games once playoffs start (even if it means sleeping on the couch) so that helps but to really get good at it you need multiple games with all 4 umpires proficient to really grok it.

I had 7 4-man, 5 3-man, and 31 2-man small field games this year.

[BigBlue4u]

3 hours ago, Vegas_Ump said:

But I have seen this kind of rotation in the pros before with U1 banging out a runner at the plate.  It can be done.

True.  But, only under circumstances provided in the MLBUM:  "The plate umpire will stay home whenever a runner is in scoring position.  Under this system, the only time the plate umpire covers 1st or 3rd base is with a runner on 1st base only or with no runners on base."  There are different situations and methods covering umpire rotation.  The point is that all umpires are using the same system.

[Vegas_Ump]

On 8/4/2024 at 11:49 AM, JonnyCat said:

All that play needs is for U3 to turn around, see that the ball is not caught, and then slide back towards 3rd base to take any possible play. There's no need for a rotation, and frankly, as evidenced by the video, U2, nor even the plate umpire, could ever hope to be in proper position to cover any play at 3rd.

Absolutely!  Especially on the small field.  Remember that any rotation is not one continuous motion.  Rather, an umpire has duty at his base (touches, for example) then he goes.

But I agree on the play in question, the ball was clearly fair and on the ground (with no threat of going out of play).  Good point Johnny!

Mike

[Mudisfun]

We can't see it in this video, but one thing I have noticed when working 4 man on a 60' is that often U2 is starting WAY too far outside. With no one on base, U2 can be fairly deep; I actually like that and enjoy working the outside of the base depending on where the throw is coming from. But once there are runners on and U2 is 'inside' (although they are still outside), I find too many are way too deep to effectively get in quickly. I try and start as shallow as I can so that I am cheating those extra few steps. I have responsibility for leaving early, so as long as I have that and potential INT or OBS, when the ball is play, I'll take the extra distance being shallow offers.

With this play developing so quickly, I'm not sure now much extra starting shallow could get, but R2 had the time to get 60'... U2 starting shallow maybe had time to cover 20-25 feet and gain an angle.

 

[MidAmUmp]

Watching the LL games this time of year, every year, it’s clearly evident that head on a swivel, chest to ball, glance at runners is not being taught (or taught very well). 

U3 standing with his back to the infield with the ball on its way back to the infield is a bad look.

U2 did not umpire his partner (if not you, then who?). 

Rotations and standard mechanics are missed at every level. These guys aren’t perfect and neither are D1 college umpire or MLB umpires. We’re going to miss a rotation every once in a while. But someone has to fill the hole.
 

U3 should have turned with the ball, could have seen U2 on a coffee break, took a step, see the play, take a couple more and fudge it. 

PU had the entire field in front of him. He could have worked that way. 
 

At the end of the day, as an evaluator, you could criticize someone for “that’s not your call” or you could complement that guy for filling the hole and working as a team, then drink the round of beers the 2nd base umpire just bought.