Oh, come now Wooden.  I know that you know there are plenty of plays in which the defense makes a mistake - a bad path to the ball, an ill-timed or unnecesary dive, etc. - that isn’t called an error. I’m sure these non-error miscues are what both Craig and Mark were referring to in the discussion of triples vs. ItPHRs.  And just because I disagree with your interpretation does not mean that I don’t know what an inference is.

Mark’s statement: “Granted an ItPHR usually occurs because of some miscue in the outfield. But given how relatively small the dimensions are in most new ballparks, you could easily say the same about triples too.” 

He is replying to Craig’s earlier statement: “Because so often an inside the park home run requires some dunderheaded defensive play that, in a fair world, would be called an error but isn’t.  Guys falling down, bad hops, etc.” 

In the context of the conversation, the only way you can infer that Mark means that the total number of triples should be bigger because the ballparks are smaller is through a wild stretch of the imagination.

No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.  I also don’t think that he’s saying that the number of triples will increase with smaller parks.  I think what he is saying that given smaller parks in general, it seems unlikely that triples are occurring strictly due to the amazing speed of the runner. Outfielder misplays are a factor. The overall number of triples is a factor that *you* brought to the exchange. It is a tangent that really doesn’t have any bearing on the spirit of the discussion.  Frankly, I am a little embarrassed that I bothered to engage with you about this, but your interpretation was just so amazingly skewed, I couldn’t resist.

Anyway, your reasoning and rhetoric is out there, as is mine.  Let the populus judge us on our merits, if anyone else is still interested in this folly.