Well, there seems to be a preponderance of baseball threads around here right now, so I thought I’d throw another one out there.
I’ve read from a few places that Greg Maddux has more putouts than any other pitcher. Now, the definition of putout that I have reads:
What does this mean in relation to a pitcher? Does that mean that he has made more outs (e.g. caught comebackers, or fielded bunts) than any other pitcher? If so, what else can a pitcher do that counts as a putout? And if not, where did my understanding go horribly awry?
A pitcher records a putout in almost one of the two ways:
He covers first base on a ground ball to the first or second baseman. Maddux induces a lot of ground balls and is very good at getting over to cover first.
He catches a line drive right back to him. Usually this is a matter of self-preservation. Maddux doesn’t give up a lot of liners back up through the middle because he’s so good.
Pitchers will also have a handful of putouts coming on catching pop flies on the infield (usually the pitcher is supposed to direct the traffic and tell who should catch it) and tagging out runners during rundowns or other weird stuff like that.