Talk:Sacrifice fly

Wording

This page previously read "advances on the play" rather than "scores on the play." In contrast to a sacrifice bunt, a sacrifice fly requires a runner to score, not merely advance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.242.146.240 (talk)

Actually, at some point in baseball history, a sac fly was awarded for a non-scoring advance. Someone should research the dates. Maybe I'll do it. WHPratt (talk) 16:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This article says, "However, a sacrifice fly still doesn't affect a player's on base percentage." Am I confused, or should that say "However, a sacrifice fly does (negatively) affect a player's on base percentage"? Archetypo (talk) 23:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Back in the deadball era, most players had a better chance of getting hits on ground balls, and so a player who tried to hit a fly ball to bring a runner home might truly be performing a sacrificial act, and the scoring rules chose to reward this by not counting the at-bat. However, with the livelier ball, more players were swinging for the fences and picking up sac flies as consolation prizes. This may explain why the rules have changed back and forth as to counting the RBI fly ball as a sacrifice or as just another out. Both arguments have their points. The developers of the newer “On Base Percentage” statistic chose the more conservative philosophy, where a sac fly counts as an out. So did the committee who defined “Hitting Streaks.” WHPratt (talk) 15:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

References

When 67.100.124.35 edited to divide into sections, it made it less clear that the source for the information on the application and scoring of the sacrifice fly is in the OBR. I think the unreferenced section tag is unnecessary if the sections are recombined. That is what I will be doing shortly.Justus R (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Three in one inning?

How is this even possible? If a sacrifice must result in an out, and doesn't count if there are already 2 outs, how can 3 possibly occur in the same inning for the same team? I'm sure there's some technicality I'm missing, but it would be nice to see that explained in the section where it says that this has indeed occurred 4 times in MLB. Only thing I can think of is if the catch errored, so the out wasn't counted, but it was still considered a sacrifice for some reason, but I thought the out was a required part of the definition of a sacrifice. Lurlock (talk) 07:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wait, I think I get it now - It's possible to get multiple sacrifice flies from a single batted ball? I.e. With bases loaded, the batter could hit a ball and be caught out, but two or even all three of the on-base runners could score and have it count for a sacrifice fly? If that's true, I guess the theoretical maximum would be six, though I'd imagine this would be incredibly unlikely. (Or else if it did occur, it would probably depend on errors by the fielders, and thus be recorded differently.) It's not at all clear that this is the case from the article. I'd change it to indicate that this is a possibility, but I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly. Can someone who knows better confirm or deny this? Lurlock (talk) 04:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I see where you're heading. There have been rare cases where two runners (say from third and second) both scored on a sacrifice fly, due to an unusually long drive or some misadventure like the fielder falling down after the catch. But that's still one sac fly for the batter, though two runs batted in.

The answer to three or more in an inning is simple: most, but not all sac flies are outs. If the fielder drops what should be a sac fly and the batter reaches base safely, the batter can still be credited with an SF and an RBI. (This helps his batting average beyond the usual safe-on-error.) When you have one such error, there are still three other outs in the inning, two of which could be standard sac flies. WHPratt (talk) 17:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Added: I think that in cases where a record seems to defy common sense (at least to someone less familiar with the game), a comment wouldn't be out of place, something like "(obviously, in these cases, at least one of the flies did not result in an out due to an error)". The same would apply to four strikeouts (already well explained), four assists in an inning by a fielder, three sacrifice hits by a team in an inning, two "caught stealing" in an inning on one player, very long saves, and so on. They're all cases where the scdoring rules try to protect individual credit and blame, where the playing rules are absolute. WHPratt (talk) 14:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

My point is demonstrated: somebody deleted the reference to three in an inning as "impossible"! I don't have a source, but I suspect the deleted statement was legitimate. If it's restored, I suggest that the explanitory phrase above be added. WHPratt (talk) 19:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I added back the 3-SF innings with some amplified explanation. I discovered that in the 1962 game, outfielder Gene Green of Cleveland dropped two fifth-inning fly balls that were nevertheless scored as sac flies. Later he managed to catch a third one that also scorted a run for Chicago, who won the game 7-6. All this means that a fourth SF remained a possibility for that inning, though it didn't happen! WHPratt (talk) 02:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Sac Fly Motivation

The article says: " The reason for this is that the sacrifice fly, unlike the sacrifice bunt, is not considered a tactical maneuver (players presumably don't try to hit a fly ball to advance a runner)." There are many occasions on which hitting a sacrifice fly is the desired outcome of a plate appearance, especially if a double play is possible in the event of a ground ball or line drive. Indeed, expert commentary will applaud a batter who successfully hits a sacrifice fly, particular if the run scored is a tying or winning run in late innings.

The likely reason that a sacrifice fly terminates a hitting streak is that there are many sacrifice flies aren't the main intent of a plate appearance and could be considered a consolation prize for the plate appearance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.131.62.115 (talk) 02:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

More often than not, isn't the batter trying to hit one over the fence for a home run. Then if that ball just doesn't travel far enough and is caught, while allowing a runner to score, they can call it a sac fly, and presume it was intentional as stated. "batter presumably intends to cause a teammate to score a run, while sacrificing his own ability to do so." Odd. Flight Risk (talk) 05:08, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

2008?

Why does this article say "here are the leaders as of 2008". What an arbitrary cutoff.

Wikipedia shouldn't keep lists like this. Just link to an official baseball website please — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.204.228.159 (talk) 03:09, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

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