Additionally... and I don't know if this means anything...
But if Tork has gotten used to Baez's throws... at his feet, in the dirt, with whatever spin there is on them... and Baez by all accounts has given him PLENTY of reasons to get used to his particular throwing styles...
Then MAYBE... if Short is also hitting the dirt in front of Tork but with different angles/ or spin/ or bounces/ etc... Then Tork is getting handcuffed by the variations.
I don't want to make excuses for him.
But the duress on all these throws, and there's a ****load of them if he has by far the most "in-the-dirt" chances of any 1st baseman in MLB this year.... is all on his shoulders.
I'm not going to bash him for fielding. Not even for not picking up a few of these throws.
Instead: I'm going to ask for better fielders and more consistent fielders (not 6 different 3rd baseman and 6 different 2nd baseman... all with different spins/ accuracy/ angles/ etc...) next year in the hops that a ****load of BETTER throws will make him look a whole lot better than he does this year.
And if he's picked up 99% of these ****ty throws this year and missed 1%... by shear volume that says he's "missed" a crapload of these throws. Which, based on what I am stating above, and on what others have stated... does NOT make him a bad-fielding 1st baseman.
I think, instead, that he may LOOK bad... because of what others are doing with their volume of crappy throws to 1st base.
IMO.