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Tag Archives: Umpires

It’s True: Umpires ARE Blind

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

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Angel Hernandez, Blind Umpires, BU study of Umpiring, John Libka, Mark T. Williams, Mark Wegner, oe West, Umpires

How many times have you yelled, “You’re Blind, Ump”?

There is now proof that at least 20% of the calls by the umpires behind the plate over the last 11 years are wrong. That’s one in every five calls.

Recent data of over four million pitches between 2008 and 2018, with the use of sophisticated, triangulated tracking cameras, say this is so.

Further, there is a two strike bias, where umpires make more mistakes on these counts, calling a pitch a strike when in fact it is a ball. As umpires were twice as likely to call a true ball a strike on a two strike count, batters called out in these situations had reason to be angry with the ump (see photo of Mookie Betts above).

Specifically, 55 games ended with incorrect calls.

In 2018, there were 34,294 incorrect calls, an average of 14 per game, or 1.6 per inning.

And it is the older, more experienced umpires who made the most mistakes as the less experienced and younger ones were more likely to get the calls correct. Long time umpire Joe West had 21 errors per game, and Angel Hernandez had 19, for example, while John Libka, 32 and with only 1.5 years of experience, had got many more calls correct (as did Mark Wegner, 47).

Also, umpires selected for the World Series were not the best performing umps.

You can see these details, and many others, along with charts and names in this article by Boston University’s Mark T. Williams, who, assisted by a group of graduate students at BU’s Questrom School of Business, dove deeply into the data, analytics, and statistics to come up with these results.

Although MLB has had a system of rating their umpires, no one has done the kind of analysis that the new technology of triangulated cameras has made possible.

What will it mean for the future?

Williams believes that it doesn’t mean robots should replace umpires, but he believes there are some solutions that could make the situation significantly better. (See the end of the linked article above.)

In the meantime, it may be an overstatement to say the umpires ARE blind (in fact, they do seem to be getting the calls a bit better, tho they are still missing enough to change outcomes of games).

But if they’re still missing an average of 14 calls a game, then there is something seriously wrong. To what seems an unacceptable degree pitchers are benefiting, batters are losing out, and the outcomes of some of the games are questionable.

If your team has ever been the victim of bad ball/strike umpiring, you were not crazy to say “We waz robbed.”

(Hat Tip to Robyn G. for putting me on to Williams’ work: Analysis of Umpires’ Calls/Missed Calls

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The Bucky Dent Story: Did Palermo Make the Right Call ?

15 Monday May 2017

Posted by Richard in Articles of Interest, Go Sox

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Tags

baseball, Bucky Dent, James Tuite, Joe Posnanski, NY "Times", Steve Palermo, Umpires

 

Bucky Dent connecting for a three-run, seventh-inning home run off the Red Sox’ Mike Torrez that all but clinched a division title for the Yankees in a one-game regular-season playoff at Fenway Park. Dent had only four other homers all year. (AP Photo)

Generally we don’t know the names of most baseball umpires, which is as it should be. I think the best baseball umpires are the ones that fade into the background and let the game be the centerpiece.

Steve Palermo, from Worcester, MA, was one of the good ones and was popular with almost everyone.

But he may have made one really bad call.

Check out Joe Posnanski’s column, written yesterday when it was announced that Palermo died at the age of 67.

Let me know if you think Palermo made the right or the wrong call.

See: Steve Palermo’s Love of Baseball, by Joe Posnanski

Also, in case you don’t know much about it, or need a refresher, check out the NYTimes article about the game and the disaster that struck the Red Sox that day: Bucky Dent’s Improbable Clout by James Tuite, Oct.2, 1978

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Sluggers’ Slump: What’s Going on Here?

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

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"The Atlantic", baseball, Brian Mills, Doc Ellis, Hitting, MLB, No-Hitter, Pirates, Pitch f/x, Pitching, Strike Zone, Umpires

3f24349040f81c86a3e4a00db7d23aff_crop_north

(Jacob deGrom Ties MLB Record, Strikes Out 8 Straight. Pix-USA Today)

Have you noticed how it seems hitting has been trumped by pitching in baseball, not only this year but for a number of years now?

With Red Sox in last place, 26 games behind the AL East winner Orioles, I have had a good deal of time to think about more than just my beloved team and their miseries. While I have enjoyed the Nats’ good season, it’s not the same as rooting for Boston.

Looking at some box scores a few weeks ago, I was struck by what seemed to me to be low batting averages, even of the best players for the best teams in baseball. In fact, when I looked at the six leading teams in all the MLB Divisions, only two clubs had anyone hitting over .300 (one of those two teams just had one player hitting .301, and he is now below .300).

I began looking at other statistics, going back as far as 2000. Here are just some of the things I found when I looked at every year from 2000-2014 (being retired and having a losing baseball team allows for spending time on such matters):

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