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2 things:
I'm watching the Cubs game and I'll give you the situation. Runners on 1st and 2nd and 0 outs. Astros player hits a fly ball to CF and the runner on 2nd advances to 3rd but runner on 1st stays.
The announcer said it doesn't count as a sacrifice. Is he wrong and if not, then why isn't it a sacrifice?
Also, if a player reaches base on an error, I'm assuming that his OBP goes up, right?
A fly ball only counts as a sacrifice if a runner scores on the play, not sure why but I think it has something to do with a sacrifice fly scoring a run is a positive event (hence getting credited with the RBI) but is not necessarily an intentional sacrifice. Where as sacrifice bunting the runners over is intentionally done and I believe that is why a fly ball that moves the runners over is not counted as a sacrifice.
Sorry if that isn't clear, I tried to make an attempt to explain it.
I also do not believe reaching on an error raises one's obp because without the error the player would not have reached base, I think OBP is scored similarly to BA when it comes to errors.
That's what I was thinking, but I was wanting clarification.
Plus, it's good for some people to expand their useless baseball knowledge.
In baseball, a batted ball is considered a sacrifice fly if the following four criteria are met:
* There are fewer than two outs when the ball is hit.
* The ball is hit to the outfield.
* The batter is out because an outfielder or an infielder running in the outfield catches the ball (or would have been out if not for an error).
* A runner who is already on base scores on the play.
As addressed within Rule 10.09(e) of the Official Baseball Rules[1], a sacrifice fly is not counted as a turn at bat for the batter, though the batter is credited with a run batted in.
The purpose of not counting a sacrifice fly as an at bat is to avoid penalizing hitters for a successful tactical maneuver. The sacrifice fly is one of two instances in baseball where a batter is not charged with a time at bat after putting a ball in play; the other is the sacrifice hit. However, a sacrifice fly still reduces a player's on base percentage, and a player on a hitting streak will have the hit streak end if he has no official at-bats but he has a sacrifice fly.
The sacrifice fly is credited even if another runner is put out on appeal for failing to tag up, so long as a run scores prior to the third out. In the case of a fly ball dropped for an error, the sacrifice fly is only credited if the official scorer believes the run would have scored had the ball been caught.
In baseball statistics, on-base percentage (OBP) (sometimes referred to as on-base average [OBA], as the statistic is rarely presented as a true percentage) is a measure of how often a batter reaches base for any reason other than a fielding error, fielder's choice, dropped/uncaught third strike, fielder's obstruction, or catcher's interference (the latter two are ignored as either times-on-base (TOB) or plate appearances in calculating OBP). OBP is added to slugging average to determine on-base plus slugging (OPS). It first became an official MLB statistic in 1984.
Gil Renard: What we need now is a sacrifice. A winning team has to know how to manufacture runs. Coop taught me that. He used to say the most beautiful play in the game is a sacrifice fly, and you know why?
Richie Renard: 'Cause you give yourself up for the team?
Gil Renard: And it doesn't even count against your average. That's why baseball's better than life - it's fair.
Last line is classic.
^ Good line, terrible flick.