Reds July 2023 thread

[CJD]

(07-04-2023, 01:47 PM)Earendil Wrote: What is DLC wearing on his left hand? I can't help but think he might have been safe on that SB attempt if he had been able to get a grip on the base. Probably not, but it may have had an impact.

It's a mitt that a lot of players now use to protect their fingers from being inadvertently stepped on by the fielders during a SB attempt. It also protects against jammed fingers if you slide into the bag too hard. It's all in the interest of keeping them off the IL.

http://dearsportsfan.com/2018/10/16/why-do-base-runners-in-baseball-wear-an-oven-mitt/

Quote:Baseball is, on the whole, a very safe sport. The story from the late 1800s when both sports began in earnest in America is that baseball was played by the working class, who couldn’t afford to injure themselves, while football was played by the upper class whose lifestyle could sustain frequent broken bones. Perhaps the most common danger in baseball is sliding into a base. The speed with which players slide, combined with the great need to touch the base and keep touching it before the fielder gets the ball and steps on the base or tags them, leads to jammed or broken fingers and wrists and even torn wrist cartilage. More rare but still possible is a fielding player coming down on a runner’s hand with their baseball cleats. Ouch!

Baseball players have long had strategies to deal with these risks. Before the sliding mitt, players were taught to hold their batting gloves in their hands or even a fistful of dirt as a reminder to keep their hands in the air for as much of the sliding process as possible. For players who favor protective equipment, a slider’s wrist guard is and has been readily available for years. Like something you would have worn in the late 1990s when you learned how to roller blade, the wrist guard keeps the arm from bending back when it hits the base. The other element that the sliding mitt incorporates is rigid, often fiberglass, protection for the fingers. This evolved from a cast that Kansas City Royals player Scott Podsednik started wearing in 2008.

A decent side effect is it artifically increases the length of your hand by an inch or maybe two and those inches matter a lot when it comes to stolen bases, since they're so often bang bang plays.

It may cost them some grip on stolen bases, but I think the trade off is worth it, since a finger injury could keep a player out for weeks since hands are so important in baseball ( as opposed to football, where you can play with various hand injuries at nearly every position except maybe QB. Even Tyler Boyd was able to just tape his bad finger and continue playing as a WR).