Free baseball play designer

A whole diamond, not half a field

Baseball is the one sport here drawn as a complete field rather than an attacking half, because a baseball fielding play uses all of it. Home plate sits inside the frame with the bases 90 ft apart on the diagonal, the mound at 60 ft 6 in, the foul lines opening at 45° either side, a 330 ft fence with the warning track in front of it, and the batter's, catcher's and on-deck boxes drawn in.

Real distances are the point of a defensive diagram. "Middle infielders at double-play depth" means about 140 ft rather than the 150 they normally play, and the whole trade — a step less to the bag, a step less range in the hole — is a distance argument. Drawn to scale, the trade is visible. Drawn freehand, it is a sentence.

What you can draw

• An alignment. Place the nine, or start from a template: standard, double-play depth, infield in, no-doubles, corners in for the bunt, holding the runner, a legal shade.
• Movement. Drag a fielder and the path becomes their timed route — the second baseman breaking to cover first on a bunt, the shortstop drifting to the bag, an outfielder going to back up the throw.
• Throws. Tap the receiver and the ball travels to where that fielder is standing at that moment, which is exactly how a cutoff or a relay should be drawn: the throw goes to where the cutoff man will be, not where he started.
• The play at the plate. Mark the last throw and the ball animates home.
• Runners. A second team, drawn as squares, so a runner on first and the batter are on the same picture as the defence that is reacting to them.

Coverage, which is what actually gets missed

Nobody misplays a ground ball because they did not know where the ball was going. Baseball games are lost because the bag was uncovered, the cutoff man was in the wrong lane, or two outfielders went for the same ball and nobody backed up the throw.

That is a coverage diagram, and it is a diagram of movement — which is what animation is for. Draw the bunt defence: corners charging, pitcher breaking to the plate side, second baseman to first, shortstop to second, outfield in behind it because nobody is left to back the infield up. Press play and the hole that opens up while everyone is moving is on the screen. Then print it for the dugout.

Seven alignments to start from

Every defensive template ships as a change from the standard alignment, which is how coaches actually teach it: this is where we stand, and here is what moves when there is a runner on third in a one-run game. Infield in, no-doubles late with a lead, holding the runner at first, double-play depth, and a shade to the pull side that keeps two infielders on each side of second base as the rules have required since 2023.

Load one, move the two players your team does differently, name it, and it is yours.