Quote:
Originally Posted by Questdog
Generally, not automatically.....just like men are stronger than women, but not all men are stronger than all women. My point is that each player should be judged on his own merits and not disqualified base on a rigid set of preconceived notions. Yes, taller players generally have an advantage of reach, but even that is not always the case. A 5-4 player with 9-ft arms will have a good reach.....
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Most 7' professional basketball players don't have a wingspan exceeding 96", or 8 feet. Having a guy who is 5'4" with a 108" wingspan is nearly impossible. His wingspan would almost be 2 times his hight, its unheard of and an extreme hyperbole.
While I agree on the whole "Judged by merits not preconcieved notions" it is mostly a plain fact that the taller a person (who scientifically will have a larger wingspan than a person nearly a half foot shorter than he) will be better than a shorter person.
The main reason why a first baseman who is 6'5' would be better qualified than a 5'10' guy is he can cover more surface area.
When throwing to a first base you can throw to the 4 quadrants. Which are all limited to his combined reach. Think of a coordinate plane where the edges are the extent of each first baseman's reach. A throw from shortstop you can throw in each of the quadrants, 1 (top right) 2 (top left) 3 (bottom left) and 4 (bottom right) With the orgin being a straight line shot to the chest. How the edges of the "square" are the extent that each man can reach.
This example exemplifies the fact that the taller person (with the larger wingspan) will be able to cover more area in the plane over the guy who is shorter and has less of a wingspan. Now under your non-preconceived notion, a taller person should have an advantage to both the left/right sides, and above. Now say that he is not as agile with a ball thrown in the area where quadrant 3 and 4 meet. So by this logic the smaller person would be able to control the area where 3 and 4 meet better than the taller man due to a decreased wingspan. So over all the taller person has control of 3 of the 4 axis spots, (left, right, and above) since he has a taller wingspan he can cover more ground than the smaller guy, there for he controls quadrants 1, 2 and most of 3 and 4. His only true weakness is the bottom part of the entire coordinate plane, lets say he is worse at quarter of 3 and 4 that is closest to the y axis due to his extended reach (which is a stupid assumption, he can simply bend his arm, having a shorter reach gives a player zero advantage at first base.)
What I'm getting at here is that overall the taller man (who is 6'5") controls around a 3.5 portion of the entire plane, compared to the smaller man (who is again 5'10") who only controls .5 portion of the plane. I as a coach would want a man who can "potentially" 7 times more than a man who is 5'10"
Now you might say that the origin (the straight shot) anyone can make which hell fine, that's why I said potentially, but overall the taller guy has an advantage in more than an overall 3 quarters.
That took forever to type too.