What is a fielder’s choice in baseball?
In: Other
It’s when a batter-runner reaches a base because the defense either tried to get another runner out or didn’t really care about the runner advancing.
A fielder’s choice, generally, is a play where the defense chooses to put another runner out instead of the batter-runner. Usually a fielder’s choice is a play where, at the end of the play, the batter is on base and another runner is out.
If the fielders attempt a double play and get one of the runners but not the batter (he beats the throw), that counts as a fielder’s choice.
Statistically, a fielder’s choice counts as an at-bat for the batter, but not a hit, so his batting average, OBP, etc. go down.
Say a batter comes up with 0 outs and a man on first base. He hits a ground ball to the 3rd baseman, who throws to second base getting the lead runner out, but the original batter is now safe at first. Well that would be silly to give him credit for a single, because he didn’t actually achieve anything. He come up to bat with 0 outs and a man on first, and now there’s 1 out and he’s on first. So it gets treated as a normal groundout in his stats, but it’s called a fielders choice as a way to clarify that he’s now on first. So if he comes around to score and someone is reading the box score they won’t be like “how did he score a run if he grounded out. Oh it was a *fielders choice*.”
You put the ball in play and ended up safely on base, but you don’t get credit for a “Hit” because the fielder chose to get a different runner out.
The fielder has a choice of which person to get out after the batter hits the ball. They can choose to throw to first and get the batter out, or they could choose to throw to a different base to get a different runner out. Since the result of the at-bat was an out, regardless of who actually gets put out, the batter doesn’t get credit for a “hit” even though he made contact.
Also. Just for fun. If the batter hits into a double play where the fielders get two outs on the same pitch, and a runner scores, the batter does not get credit for an rbi.
A fielder’s choice is when there are 1 or more base runners when the batter puts the ball in play and the player who fields the ball has more than 1 choice available to record an out.
Example A: There is a runner on 1st and 3rd base with no outs. The batter hits the ball to the shortstop. The shortstop (fielder) had multiple choices on that play.
– He could have immediately flipped the ball to 2nd to initiate a double play attempt from 2nd to 1st, but that would have likely allowed the runner ar 3rd to score. The result of this play would be 2 outs, 1 run scored, no runners on base.
– He could hold the ball fot a second to prevent the runner at 3rd from scoring, and then throw to 1st base to throw out the batter. The result would be 1 out, runner on 2nd and 3rd base.
– He holds the ball for a second to prevent the runner at 3rd from running home. He then flips the ball over to the 2nd baseman to record the out on the player running from 1st to 2nd base. But because of the delay from holding the runner at 3rd, there is no option for a double play, so the only out recorded is at 2nd base. The result here would be 1 out, runners at 1st and 3rd base.
Example B: A runner on 1st base with 1 out and the batter hits the ball to shortstop. The shortstop throws to 2nd base, the second baseman steps on 2nd base to record an out, then throws to 1st base, but he runner beats the throw and is safe. This is also a fielder’s choice because the fielder who initiated the play (shortstop) had his choice of options. Throw to 2nd to start a double play, or throw directly to first base to get the batter out.
There are several other scenarios that will result in a play being scored as a FC, but you should have the gist if it.
This happens when there’s a guy already on base (like first base), and then they guy at bat hits the ball and the guys on the field will choose which guy they want to get out. Maybe they’re not doing a double play because it wasn’t hit very hard, and they’ve got the guy on first running to second as well as the guy that just hit running to first.
So the guy that did not get out, is on base by fielder’s choice, since the fielder could have chosen to throw him out, but didn’t. Something like that.
It’s when you get on base but one of your teammates gets out on the same play. The fielder chose to get the other guy out instead of you, but since you did get on base it needs a different name than just “out.”
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