Ridiculous calls from yesterday's game:
It all evens out, you say? Well, using the THT Win Probability tool, we end up with the following changes in win expectancy due to bad calls from the umpires (Angels win ex is positive):
All in all, the umpires skewed game four of the ALCS in favour of the Angels by a non-insignificant amount - in fact, 5% WPA is almost as much as Albert Pujols contributed per game for the Cardinals (this is a silly comparison but it illustrates the point quite well).
The playoffs deserve better than this.
0 recs | 77 comments
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This was the worst umpiring performance at an Angels game since Leslie Nielsen in “The Naked Gun.”
and
People are human," Jeter said. “They’re going to make mistakes sometimes. Umpires are trying their best. Sometimes you get calls and sometimes you don’t. I don’t think it had any effect on this game.”
msb - October 21, 2009
KLAW on Cowherd this morning.
He was ranting on the umps. It’s become a joke, really…
I also liked his in-game Twit: "Tonight’s Umpires … how fitting that they all look like mugshots. "
PositivePaul - October 21, 2009
I'm going to defend the 3rd base umpire on the two he made
He was blocked off from seeing Cano off the bag on that ‘double play.’ It was clear as day from the angle we had on tv, but I thought the umpire had one, if not two, people between he and Cano. He assumed Cano was on the base and couldn’t see otherwise.
On Swisher incorrectly being called out for leaving early, it’s really hard to see someone catch a ball 250 feet away and watch the guys foot on the bag at the same time. If you watch the play, the umpire is looking out towards CF. The only thing he can do is watch Swisher’s movement in his periphery. In watching that play, Swisher’s entire upper body was moving right before Hunter caught the ball (beginning his running motion). His foot remained on the bag, but I can see how it appeared that he left early.
Yes, the umpiring has been poor overall, but I’d rather argue about the strikes/balls and that pick off at 2nd, than these two calls I just defended.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
So now it's ok for umpires to just guess?
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
He was out of position...that's bad. But if he didn't see Cano not on the base do you want him to 'guess' that he wasn't due to the Angels telling him so?
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
The problem isn't in the fact that he guessed wrong, it was that he had to guess at all
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
It seems like a lot of officiating these days in sports is guessing. They get out of position every once and a while Is he supposed to not make a call if he's out of position?
What are you supposed to do on that tag up from third play with Swisher? Those plays are almost always subjective because a person with two eyes can’t watch both the ball being caught and the foot on the bag.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
How does that make it right, though?
Just because it’s happening doesn’t mean it should be happening. There’s a few easy ways to solve this. First, don’t be out of position. Second, either put more eyes on the field or put better technology in the hands of the eyes already on the field, so to speak.
pdb - October 21, 2009
Well..the subject line is a little messed up in that post.
What I was asking is: If they occasionally (maybe too occasionally) get out of position, are they supposed to abstain from making a ruling?
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
No, they should make a call
But it becomes their responsibility if they’re wrong. This is why I think umpires should want better tools to be more accurate – they can’t enjoy being the guys who clearly screwed up on a big play.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
So do we open up replay for things like that 'double-play' at third base?
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
I like Caple's suggestion at the end of the piece msb linked above
Another official watching the game on tv that can quickly override decisions on plays like that.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Yes! I didn't read the article msb linked. But I like it.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
Did Caple or Dave come up with that first?
Jeff Sullivan - October 21, 2009
Beats me
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Yeah me too
Poochie - October 21, 2009
This would be an excellent idea
Like a booth review type situation.
OlSalty - October 21, 2009
Why wouldn't we?
Make it like football – let the managers have a certain number of challenges per game, and if they challenge and lose, the next batter starts off at 0-1.
pdb - October 21, 2009
I haaaaate the idea of challenges
There have got to be ways of fixing this problem without slowing down the game.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
I'm not thrilled with them either
but I’d live with them if it means that calls are made right. And you could pair the challenges with some rule changes (once in the batter’s box no leaving, etc) that would hopefully negate any time added by challenges.
pdb - October 21, 2009
I'd prefer doing something to increase accuracy with no challenges at all
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Me too
but I’m thinking that’d be a tough sell to the union. Which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pursued, just that it would probably be easier to go the challenge route than to do nothing.
pdb - October 21, 2009
If it creates one more umpire job they might listen
Poochie - October 21, 2009
*per game
Poochie - October 21, 2009
This is true
pdb - October 21, 2009
Football does too many unnecessary review, baseball does too few
If the managers get any number of challenges they only get one
Poochie - October 21, 2009
Having the next batter start off 0-1 could hurt my fantasy baseball team!
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
Considering the rarity of being called out for leaving the bag to early it appears that the precedent is to give the benefit of the doubt to the runner
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
I would absolutely agree with this.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
So what does an umpire do if he has no idea what call to make?
.Taylor - October 21, 2009
Or we could just avoid this in the first place by having better umpires.
.Taylor - October 21, 2009
He asks for help.
From the rest of his crew who was presumably paying more attention. It would be nice if there were the outside reviews mentioned here available to him but at the very least he needs to ask for help from the crew.
pdb - October 21, 2009
An important part of an umpire's job is to physically move to get into a position where he's not blocked by one if not two people.
He absolutely assumed that Cano was on the base, and couldn’t see otherwise. And that’s a damning indictment of his umpiring.
marc w - October 21, 2009
Agreed, watching that play he just practically stood there and didn't move to see Cano.
I don’t want him changing his call (as bad as it was) because Angels players were jumping around complaining.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
It's got nothing to do with the Angels, or their reaction
I mean, he fucked up once in this game alone because he watched Torii Hunter’s reaction to Nick Swisher leaving 3rd. In that case too, Timmy didn’t move to get into a better position.
He’s just actually got to work a little bit and give himself a chance to do something other than guess/assume. A part of me is happy that this is happening because I think it highlights just how often people do this. And that makes it incrementally more likely that we get robot overlords soon.
marc w - October 21, 2009
I think that's a lot of the problem I have with umpiring
so much of it is based on assumption – sometimes by necessity as in the example above, sometimes by tradition as in the “neighborhood play”. It’s completely inane that in this day and age that is allowed to be a thing – umpires should be able to KNOW, not have to assume. Technology can help that.
pdb - October 21, 2009
McClelland does not say his view was blocked, though
“On the play with Cano and Posada, I thought Cano was on the base. I was waiting for two players to be on the base, and when there was never the situation where both of them were on the base at the same time. When he tagged Cano, I thought Cano was on the base, and when Jorge touched the base and continued and tagged Posada out, I thought Posada was out …
(The replay) showed that Cano was off the bag when he was tagged. I did not see that for whatever reason … I’m just out there trying to do my job and do it the best I can.”
msb - October 21, 2009
I love how he basically admits that he's assuming an outcome
pdb - October 21, 2009
He should have just said "I blew it, I'm sorry" and left it at that.
EnglishMariner - October 21, 2009
Exactly. He said far too many words.
It’s like a recent story I read about a couple that was found dead in their hot tub. Some investigators think faulty wiring may have electrocuted them.
So they interviewed a neighbor on the sadness/tradgedy of it all and he was like, “Yeah, I helped them install the hot tub.” Probably not something you want to admit at this point in public.
kentroyals5 - October 21, 2009
Videos?
Anyone have a link to these calls? I’d love to seem them. Thanks
A Steamy Day in Cleveland - October 21, 2009
Here you go, to the Cano/Posada mess at 3B anyway.
Link.
Kermit. - October 21, 2009
Don't forget the strike zone!
Who knows what impact this had.
Jeff Sullivan - October 21, 2009
I need WPA for ball and strike calling
I bet for the WS combined with bad calls on other plays we could get the absolute value of umpire’s interference over one win.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Honest question for anyone:
When looking at the strike zone, it seems as if there were seven “strikes” called balls on pitches the Yankees threw, and eight “strikes” called balls on pitches the Angels threw. Anaheim got three “balls” called strikes, though, to the Yankees one.
Obviously these ball/strike errors aren’t linked to LI so there’s no way of quantifying possible change WE. But, in instances like this, where the zone appeared to be relatively equally bad, what’s the argument (if there is one) that holds water that the strike zone had a negative impact on the Angels WE Tuesday?
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
Timing
The timing of calls can be really important. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the zone to notice the blown calls there, but if the Angels were getting breaks when the game was close and the Yankees got them later, that’s clearly favouring the Angels. And if it were the other way around, it favours the Yankees
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
No, I get that.
Then in that case, why not just pull up the Pitch F/X results from each high leverage ab last night and see if there were calls that benefited one team or another in those situations?
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
Uh because I don't really have the time to right now and that wasn't really the premise of my post?
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
I wasn't asking you to do this, moreso I was just asking if this is a conceivable option?
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
Yeah, it would be
I’d prefer a method that integrated pitch count into WPA though
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
I could definitely get behind this.
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
The argument is that bad or inconsistent strike zones have some effect
I don’t know what that effect is. Nobody does. But you have to believe that, if a pitcher gets a call, or doesn’t get a call, or a batter isn’t given a clear idea of the boundaries, the game is going to be different. It’s hard enough to train a person to recognize pitches in and out of the strike zone. Strike zones that change by day or even by inning only serve to complicate.
Jeff Sullivan - October 21, 2009
Actually, we could
Say we know the average change in at-bat outcome with different counts. We could then figure out expected WPA changes with blown ball and strike calls.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
We could investigate the effect of specific calls
but it’s impossible to know how they change the rest of the game from that point on.
Jeff Sullivan - October 21, 2009
WPA tells you how much on average they would impact a specific game.
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
You're probably right and WPA would get us close enough
Jeff Sullivan - October 21, 2009
The world's biggest markov chain since Asimov!
Matthew - October 21, 2009
On an unrelated note
what’s the acceptable rate of error (if there is any) on balls and strikes.
284 pitches thrown, 19 seemingly missed. 6.7% seems high, but is it way out of whack?
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
They number I hear quoted a lot for the average is 95%
Matthew - October 21, 2009
So Lane missed five pitches more than the acceptable norm?
Whoopty-doo.
On the one hand, we have the ability / technology to reduce that acceptable / actual rate of error significantly, why not do it.
But, on the other hand, the missed b/s calls seemed to even out at least in this particular game to 10 for one team 9 for the other. Additionally, a “poorly” called game still only featured 5 missed b/s calls over the average rate. I don’t know. Fuck you Angels fans.
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
Turns out all games are poorly called!
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Viva consistency!
pdb - October 21, 2009
Yea.
Maybe if my team was involved I’d feel more jilted, or even maybe care.
Now though, I just can’t be bothered to really give a crap other than to say good lord there have been some really blatant and inexcusable non-b/s screw ups,
andrewgolfsalot - October 21, 2009
That's fewer missed than usual I think
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
Er more
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
How about something wild and crazy like the other umps calling for a biref confab
that 6th man who’s just hanging out along the 3rd base line might have noticed both players were tagged out.
msb - October 21, 2009
Sort of like the 3b ump should've seen that Mauer 'foul' ball was about a foot and a half fair.
I think an umpire who didn’t see a play is more than happy to call in his colleagues, but I don’t know that I’ve seen another umpire run over to one who was in a ‘better’ position and question his call. You’re right, I think they should if they see something obvious, but they’re quite loathe to do so. I understand why and all, but that just makes me want robots more.
marc w - October 21, 2009
As I just posted over at Fangraphs...
We really should have TV Umpires, just like in cricket, who can review a replay and radio to the Umpire what the correct call should be. No need to walk off the field – just a simple 30 second review of the replay, and you have your result.
Cricket should never, ever be ahead of baseball in utilising technology.
EnglishMariner - October 21, 2009
Do you even need 30 seconds?
The Cano non-DP call should have been overruled in about three
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
I bet they'd be obliged to look at one replay or to hit rewind on their tivo
Poochie - October 21, 2009
True!
EnglishMariner - October 21, 2009
It's just East coast bias payback for HH insinuating that Mariano Rivera was cheating
seattlebruin - October 21, 2009
Did you not see where the umpiring turns out to have massively favoured the Angels?
Graham MacAree - October 21, 2009
As if I read the posts before I comment
seattlebruin - October 21, 2009
My only hope from this postseason is that so much umpire outrage is drummed up that changes are actually made to make it better.
OlSalty - October 21, 2009
That would be a good outcome, but my goal is even bigger: these playoffs have been so singularly ugly
that it might help stop people from romanticizing a short odd tournament at the end of baseball season. The playoffs can be tremendously exciting, and can showcase baseball at its best. They can also feature mind-numbingly stupid umpire decisions, games won on bases loaded walks, walk-off throwing errors and blowouts.
These games can stand or fall on their merits, and I don’t want to hear about how amazing playoff baseball is because it’s PLAYOFF Baseball!!!!!™ A year like this should make people appreciate the regular season a bit more; baseball (and sportswriters) sometimes seem to express relief that the damn season’s over so the important games can start. And I hate that.
marc w - October 21, 2009
from this summer....
“Now called the World Umpires Association and headed by Joe West, the men in blue will be negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the league when this season ends.”
msb - October 21, 2009
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