Shared Errors

On April 5th, 2015 the St. Louis Cardinals batter Jason Heyward popped up to shallow left field. Cubs third basement Sarlin Castro ran out the outfield. Left fielder Chris Coghlan looked at him not once, not twice, but thrice and at the very last minute dived for the ball and couldn't make the catch. The play was scored a double for Heyward, but if either of Castro or Coghlan had been more decisive or if they communicated better, this would have been an out. Baseball needs to borrow a concept from American football, which, if more than one player tackles a quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, each defensive player gets credit for a half-sack. Even if more than two players tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, each defender gets a half-sack. In baseball, If, in the opinion of the official scorer, a catchable fly ball drops in between two or more players due to a miscommunication, then each player should get a half-error. In the stats for the team, since it was only one play, it counts as just one error no matter how many defenders were involved.