September 06, 2008
Eye Line
A new study reveals why line drives hit right at an outfielder are so difficult to catch:
Then they presented their subjects with two targets moving at the same speed -- one laterally and one in depth -- and asked them to decide which was faster. On average, they said the lateral motion was 1.3 to 2.7 times faster than an object at the identical speed but moving straight at them.
Finally, they asked their subjects to estimate the angle at which an object was approaching them. The trajectory of an object moving close to the midline of vision was consistently harder to predict than objects moving at greater angles to the observer.
In other words, when the object was moving directly toward them, people were terrible at estimating distance, bad at guessing speed and highly inaccurate at predicting trajectory -- a combination all but guaranteed to increase the opposition's batting average.
Very cool. So next time an outfielder misses a hard shot right at him, cut the player some slack.
Posted by David Pinto at
03:57 PM
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Dave, this is one of those "eating more leads to weight gain" articles, spending time and money to prove what is obvious to anyone who has ever tried to play the outfield! Science marches on....
How people perceive an objects speed and trajectory whilst they have time to think about it has nothing to do with how they play that ball on the field - that is all about trained reactions. When players make a simple catch from a pop-up, they aren't thinking about what the ball is doing, and what they are doing with their glove, it is simply a natural reaction to catch it.
Hazey, if you perceive the speed and trajectory wrong, you can't catch the ball. Sure, you don't sit there and say "Oh, that's moving about 76 mph at a 44 degree angle, I need to take two steps right," but your brain naturally processes the information it receives from your eyes and makes the "natural reaction" necessary to catch the ball. If your brain, as a human, is inherently bad at processing the information correctly, it is very difficult to catch the ball. These reactions can be trained, but that doesn't mean making the read is any easier. Rather, it just means you have more experience.
I wonder to what extent this is because people don't have practice doing this. I think a much better study would be to compare the results for baseball players at various levels of competition, to see whether major league baseball players are better than the average person, and whether ability seems to improve with experience.
I would think that ML outfielders in general would also be much better at judging fly balls than the average person. In my little league days, I didn't find that easy, but a lot of MLB players do it with ease.