balls and strikes umpiring

[harkness99]

just wanted to comment that 3 of the last 4 games is been hot garbage.

 

I don't remember it being this bad before.

[Ducksnort]

The entire season has been.

[wegner]

I think these guys are deliberately calling bad games hoping that someone calls them out in a slanderous manner....I call it the Country Joe West effect.

[oldsox]

It's where the ball is when it crosses the plate and the plane of the hitter, not where it ends up in the catcher's glove.

[harkness99]

1 hour ago, oldsox said:

It's where the ball is when it crosses the plate and the plane of the hitter, not where it ends up in the catcher's glove.

not sure what you are trying to say? I think all the bad calls i saw today - the pitches were outside and were outside the entire time.

[joejoesox]

1 hour ago, oldsox said:

It's where the ball is when it crosses the plate and the plane of the hitter, not where it ends up in the catcher's glove.

agreed. the umpires aren't accurately calling the former. there's a twitter account that releases umpire scorecards with highly analytical data, you should check it out

 

[harkness99]

https://twitter.com/UmpScorecards/status/1386338298944053250/photo/1

 

White sox umpire today had one of the worse accuracy ratings of the day for our team.

 

That was yesterdays i guess.. but goes along with what i was sayin anyway.. today was worse.

Edited April 26, 2021 by harkness99

[tray]

It is pretty clear that umpires have difficulty determining if a sinking pitch is still in the strike zone when it crosses the plate. That's not a slam against umpires, it is just a limitation on human depth perception from their vantage point behind the plate.  Imagine an ump trying to determine whether a pitch is inside or outside if their  vantage point was from the side of the plate. 

Maybe there can  be some kind of compromise with a partially automated system, i.e. a way to outline the strike zone for umpires in order to aid their depth perception.

Fans see an outline of a strike zone on their TV screens but umpires lack the same advantage. 

Another idea would be to allow for an appeal of ball/strike calls based on  video replay....perhaps for one pitch per inning. That one doesn't sound too good, does it?

If the analytical scorecard of umpires mentioned above is based on a system that is presumably 100%  accurate, why not switch to it ?

Try a few automated strike zones in the minors for a year or two and see how they work.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by tray

[poppysox]

I am in favor of the automated strike zone.  Getting the call right is the primary objective.

[oldsox]

Does the umpire union have a say on this ?

[Kyyle23]

13 hours ago, harkness99 said:

just wanted to comment that 3 of the last 4 games is been hot garbage.

 

I don't remember it being this bad before.

If you follow umps scorecard on Twitter you would see it's been almost every game.  I haven't looked too close but it would be interesting to see if they have an overall scorecard of all umps 

[Kyyle23]

1 minute ago, oldsox said:

Does the umpire union have a say on this ?

I believe they say "fuck off, we will do what we want"

[NWINFan]

I understand the frustration with umpires, but I try not to think about it much. There are too many calls to analyze and if you dwell on them, it will drive you nuts. Safe to say, some calls will have an impact on the game. But that is the way it has been and will remain until something is else is done. Pitchers hang breaking pitches, fielders make errors, umps make bad balls. All are human.

[Ducksnort]

25 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

I understand the frustration with umpires, but I try not to think about it much. There are too many calls to analyze and if you dwell on them, it will drive you nuts. Safe to say, some calls will have an impact on the game. But that is the way it has been and will remain until something is else is done. Pitchers hang breaking pitches, fielders make errors, umps make bad balls. All are human.

I think the players work way too hard to have the outcome of a play, and sometimes even the game, be left in the hands of someone/something they have absolutely zero control over. It It doesn't just happen once a week, this is happening multiple times a game.

I understand it when people say "that's the nature of the game; that's life; etc." But life also changes. We adjust things to make life better. We have the capabilities with technology to get the balls and strikes call right 100% of the time, and there is no reason it shouldn't be.

If they still want a person behind the plate for more dramatic effect with the calls behind the plate, maybe equip the hp umpire with something that looks like VR goggles, which shows him the strikezone virtually (much like we have on our tv screens, but probably a lot more advanced), and they can make the call based on the result on the goggles. Something like that...

Edited April 26, 2021 by ScooterMcGee

[tray]

I wonder if the two dimensional rectangle we see over the plate is accurate, whether it is the same height and width as the strike zone the umpire perceives, whether the zone gets adjusted for a player's height, and whether it is really positioned at the front of the plate.

Bill Veeck  famously mocked the strike zone with Eddie Gaedel.

 

Players don't seem to take advantage by moving up and back in the box, which they can do from pitch to pitch. If a pitcher has a good sinking pitch, why not move to the front of the batter's box to get it before it sinks into the lowest part of the zone?

Another issue is catcher "framing" or in Grandal's case, catching the ball almost off the hitter's bat in an effort to  alter an umpire's perspective and grab a strike call.

IMO, that part of the game has gotten ridiculous. Framing pitches is not something that was always this prevalent in the game, at least as far as I recall.

Edited April 26, 2021 by tray

[Green Line]

Every single year people say that its never been this bad before.  There is always going to be a human element to the game when you have umpires calling balls/strikes with their eyes.  Its not a bad thing.  Automated strike zone will destroy the game.

[Bob Sacamano]

The umps are bad and will miss balls and strikes but it is that way for every team.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

Kyle Gibson must 've got 7-8 balls called strikes that were outside against RHB and early in the game he also got one outside against a LHB.

This is for the game yesterday. That's pretty bad in TX favor .

Edited April 26, 2021 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[Dominikk85]

In two years there will be robo ump anyway. They tested it in Atlantic league last year and this year they do it in low minors. 

Next year they probably do it in AAA and then 2023 in mlb. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

In the Gibson game they said the umps were  88 per cent correct when normal is 94 % and it also favored TX by .34 runs. One time I'm going to have to keep my own Umps scorecard based on what I see on TV  and match it up against the ones on Twitter.

[chw42]

7 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

In the Gibson game they said the umps were  88 per cent correct when normal is 94 % and it also favored TX by .34 runs. One time I'm going to have to keep my own Umps scorecard based on what I see on TV  and match it up against the ones on Twitter.

The TV ones aren't the most accurate either. The most accurate one is actually on MLB Gameday according to Ump Scorecards.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

11 minutes ago, chw42 said:

The TV ones aren't the most accurate either. The most accurate one is actually on MLB Gameday according to Ump Scorecards.

That's the problem.In the Gibson game the strike zone as established by the ump that game ,it looked like the normal strike zone which is a vertical rectangle, was flipped on its side and became a horizontal rectangle according to what I saw in the umpires scorecard on Twitter. It was bad.

[harkness99]

3 hours ago, NWINFan said:

I understand the frustration with umpires, but I try not to think about it much. There are too many calls to analyze and if you dwell on them, it will drive you nuts. Safe to say, some calls will have an impact on the game. But that is the way it has been and will remain until something is else is done. Pitchers hang breaking pitches, fielders make errors, umps make bad balls. All are human.

The problem I have is its worse than ever before.. the strike zone graphic has been around for a long ass time.

 

I'm noticing the horrible calls and strikes overwhelmingly this year... it seems to be getting worse.

[harkness99]

36 minutes ago, chw42 said:

The TV ones aren't the most accurate either. The most accurate one is actually on MLB Gameday according to Ump Scorecards.

what's accurate to me however is the reaction of the batter... it usually coincides with the graphic.

 

Once in awhile the player will be wrong... but man the graphic and the player reaction sure match up 99% of the time.

[MiddleCoastBias]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Kyle Gibson must 've got 7-8 balls called strikes that were outside against RHB and early in the game he also got one outside against a LHB.

This is for the game yesterday. That's pretty bad in TX favor .

I've seen a few games where we've been given a run disadvantage (the Gio game in Boston gave them a 1.5 run advantage, though it didn't matter after the early hole we were in).

I'll be curious if whoever runs the account will compile each umpire's overall score/rating, and if they'll track total run advantage for each team. I'd imagine the run advantage +/- should even out to zero in a full season but curious to see if that's actually the case.

Edited April 26, 2021 by MiddleCoastBias