Got into a “philosophical” debate with a long time D1 coach the other day. A RHB hit a pitch right on the nose. The ball was a low liner, and hit right at the F4 who was playing at “normal” depth and toward 2nd with no one on and no outs. He made the mistake of not moving forward, and the ball ate him up. He got a glove on it, but all he could do was slow it down a bit and of course the batter-runner reached 1st safely.
I didn’t even blink and marked it E4. The old coach said it should have been a hit because it was too hot to handle with ordinary effort. I didn’t change it, but I did give him the courtesy of thinking about it.
Now a shot back to the pitcher is one thing because he’s only about 50’ from the ball when it gets hit. Assuming the hitter is a good HS hitter and the pitcher a decent pitcher who throws 80+, chances are the ball’s gonna get hit about 90MPH at most. At that speed, the ball will be traveling about 130 FPS, which means the pitcher’s got about 4 tenths of a second to react. If it happens to an F5 or F3 playing even with the bag, they’ve got about 7 tenths of a second to react. But an F6 or F4 has about a full second to react if they’re playing at normal depth and toward the bag.
A ball hit solidly and right at the pitcher that he doesn’t make a play on will seldom if ever be an error in my book, and unless the ball is on the glove side and pretty much at the same height as the glove, its not likely it would be an error on the corner infielders either. But its an entirely different matter for the middle infielders. A second is a lot of time in baseball, so barring something like a bad hop, even an average F4 or F6 should be able to field a ball hit not only to their glove side, but at the same height as the glove as well.
My logic seems solid to me, but after all it is my logic. 
I was just wondering if others have given the ol’ “too hot to handle” play much thought.
