Anatomy of an Ejection
Let’s go ahead and get this out of our systems: Wednesday night, some Cardinals got ejected for complaining in a game the team won. Some people might call that the very most Cardinals thing. Those same people are just people who don’t like the Cardinals, but, whatever, everyone’s entitled to his or her own feelings, and we should get this out of the way before proceeding. All right, it’s out of the way! So let’s unpack a picture:
What you see is a play in progress. It’s a bases-clearing double, that put the Cubs ahead. As the Cubs were in the process of rounding the bases, and as the Cardinals were in the process of retrieving the baseball from the outfield, Yadier Molina argued with home-plate umpire Pat Hoberg. We see Molina with his back turned to the plate, even though there might soon be a play right there. (There wasn’t.) Arguments are common; arguments during plays are less common. Molina was shortly ejected. The same went for his manager. The game had been leading up to this moment.
It’s time to hit the rewind button. A picture from moments earlier, in the same at-bat:
That’s Molina, in Hoberg’s face. Molina didn’t like a call in a 2-and-2 count. The call, and the pitch:
Not a lot wrong, there, from the Cardinals’ perspective — Molina set a target, and Michael Wacha hit it. The target was just barely off the plate, almost imperceptibly. It seemed like the pitch was perfectly located in the low-away corner, and with a called strike, that would’ve meant the end of the inning, with the lead preserved. Because of the ball, the count ran full, which meant all the runners would be going, which meant the Cubs benefited greatly. Two pitches later, there was the double. Here’s a screenshot of the pitch right around when it was crossing the plate:
I don’t know how much that helps, especially with the off-center angle, but it’s good to have it frozen. Obviously, the pitch was around Miguel Montero’s knee level. Obviously, the pitch was around the outer edge of the plate. Obviously, the pitch could’ve been called a strike. Obviously, a strike call wasn’t going to be automatic.
It wasn’t all about one pitch or one at-bat, though. From Jenifer Langosch:
Both Molina and starting pitcher Michael Wacha said it only took three pitches to realize they might be dealing with a tight strike zone from Hoberg, a Triple-A umpire who began working occasional games in the Majors last season.
Some ball calls from the Cubs’ first plate appearance:
And then there’s carryover frustration from the previous night — on a critical play, Pat Hoberg ruled this ball was fair. The Cardinals disagreed, but the play was unreviewable. So Hoberg was already a target, before he started calling balls and strikes Wednesday. There was, as one might say, a preexisting beef.
For an idea of what the Cardinals were dealing with, we can make use of Brooks Baseball. There we can find strike-zone plots, and here’s Hoberg’s zone for right-handed hitters:
Perhaps more importantly, here’s Hoberg’s zone for left-handed hitters:
The darker rectangle approximates the rule-book strike zone. The bigger rectangle approximates the strike zone as it’s actually called, on average. With lefties, you see a tight zone, with a number of pitches within one rectangle but not the other. All those pitches were called balls. As Molina picked up on, Hoberg was calling a particularly tight game. Too tight, in Molina’s mind, and he eventually expressed his frustration. From post-game:
“Michael was pitching well. That’s the sad part,” said Molina. “[The strike zone] was like that all night. He’s a young umpire, and he needs to figure out a better strike zone. That’s it.”
About that: Baseball Savant offers some limited evidence. Here are umpire plots for 2015, with a red arrow designating Hoberg’s place within the population. Rate of strikes on pitches out of the zone:
Meanwhile, rate of balls on pitches in the zone:
Nothing too bad. Hoberg, to this point, hasn’t been extremely hitter-friendly or extremely pitcher-friendly. He’s been fine, in his games, but then the whole record of Hoberg’s games is less important today than just Hoberg’s Wednesday game, the game with which Molina took issue. It doesn’t matter what he’s done overall; it just matters what he did with Molina and Wacha. And you have to consider the game Molina caught the night before. The Angel Hernandez strike-zone plot for righties:
And the Hernandez strike-zone plot for lefties:
Hernandez, Tuesday, called a fairly big zone. Molina caught that zone, and it was a more familiar sort of zone than Hoberg’s. It would’ve been only natural to assume the same calls would happen on Wednesday as on Tuesday, but then Molina found out early that wouldn’t be the case. He said he talked to Hoberg over the course of things, to try to get a bigger zone. Look at the way Molina set up with Dexter Fowler in the first:
And now look at how Molina set up with Montero in the sixth:
In the first, Molina was more square to the pitcher. In the sixth, he was at more of an angle, perhaps to try to give Hoberg a better look. That could, alternatively, just be because there were runners on base in the sixth, but it could still have been a strategy to try to get more favorable calls. Of note, the above shot is from the controversial 2-and-2 pitch. Here’s a shot from the next pitch:
Molina set up the same. He didn’t do anything meaningfully different. He must’ve known, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the zone was small. He still called and looked for that pitch in the corner. On the one hand, you don’t want to change your strategy because of the umpire. On the other, it’s not like Molina didn’t know what was going on. He kept trying to get that edge.
And it’s an edge he usually gets. This is important. Those pitches just off the plate, to lefties: they’re usually strikes. Overall, they’re strikes more than three-quarters of the time. That applies overall, that applies to when Molina is catching, and in a small sample, that’s applied to when Hoberg has been the umpire. Hoberg hasn’t always shut that edge down. Some of the close calls took place in two-strike counts, and Molina probably understands that with two strikes, the zone gets a little smaller. But even there, maybe they’re coin flips. Hoberg just kept calling ball, over and over.
When you lay it all out, each side is entirely understandable. No, let me walk that back — it’s never understandable to have a player arguing in the middle of a play. But you get Hoberg’s position, and you get Molina’s. For Molina, he knew that was a smaller zone than usual. He knew he’d just had a bigger zone the night before. He knew there wasn’t anything wrong with his catching, or with Wacha’s pitching. Pitches that would often be strikes were getting called balls. For Hoberg, his defense is the rule book. The pitches being complained about were almost exclusively off the plate. Pitches off the plate aren’t supposed to be strikes. Pitches off the plate commonly are strikes, but a revolution starts with one man. Hoberg, technically, wasn’t in the wrong. Why should Molina feel so entitled to a more favorable zone, when he knows he’s trying to stretch off the plate? Why should that be the norm?
I don’t know what was said that provoked the ejection. I don’t know if Molina crossed the line, or if Hoberg over-stepped. Players frequently go too far, but the same goes for umpires, especially umpires low on self-confidence. But this is more about what led to the confrontation, not the confrontation’s result. What we had was an umpire calling a strike zone that looked more or less like something out of the rule book. But because the rule-book strike zone isn’t the zone that gets called, in reality, the Cardinals were pissed. It made sense for the Cardinals to be upset; it made sense for Hoberg to defend himself. No one is all the way right, and no one is all the way wrong. It’s a situation all about gray areas. The game, probably, would be better with a smaller strike zone. But as long as such zones are selectively or randomly enforced, there’s going to be conflict. Catchers and pitchers have grown increasingly comfortable, and they’re not going to want to give up what they’ve gained.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Nicely done, Jeff.
I just put this on Twitter as well, but I looked up the called strike % of all pitches to that exact location (square inch) in 2015 to left-handed hitters. It’s been called a strike 69% of the time overall (in 75 pitches), but only 43% of the time on 2-2 counts (in just 7 pitches!).
Zones in 2-2 counts are typically smaller than the average, which is why I looked that up separately.
Arguing with umps in that way is never right. Just like hacking into someone else’s computer database is never right. Go Cards!!
Wow, zones are typically smaller in 2-2 counts? Is that a widely-recognized thing? I’ve heard of zones generally expanding with two strikes, but not shrinking on 2-2. Interesting.
I think you’re hearing the same phenomenon, but from different sides. Umpires will generally enforce a smaller zone on two strikes because they (probably subconsciously)want to avoid punching out a batter on an off-the-plate pitch. Conversely, batters will expand what they expect the strike zone to be and swing at close pitches they might otherwise take, because they (very consciously) don’t want to watch the third strike sail by with the bat on their shoulders.
Because then Mets fans will blame every bad thing that ever happens on them, in perpetuity *cough Carlos Beltran cough*
As long as he was calling it consistently to both teams, I think the ump was more or less ok.
Good point Ian…he was completely consistent…until after all things…the ejection. It was as if he felt bead about and expanded his strike zone at that point. Would love to see the chart by inning…I bet his “bad” calls were after the ejection. Until then, I thought he was the best umpire I’d seen in a long time.
So the solution is robot umps. Got it.
He gets feedback between innings. He sees complaints throughout the game. He’s also a professional, this isn’t his first game. He knows he’s calling it tight and has a choice to change if he wants to.
But back to robots: As soon as it’s possible and reliable, absolutely let’s do this. Keeping bad calls for “tradition” is bullshit. Umps back in the day tried to call the game as accurately as they could. Let’s stick with that and call the game as accurately as possible, which means replay and automation. Umpires aren’t on either roster and should never decide a game. Let’s let the team that deserves to win the game win the game every time.
Adjusting the zone during the game would be a bad thing to do.
Start tight you have to keep it tight. It is the players job to adjust.
Disagree. I already hate replay. Safe calls for 100 years are up for debate to see if a player’s pop up slide required him to be off the bag for 1/10th of a second. We have cameras capturing 100ths of a second now. I hate this.
Obvious bad calls should be overturned. Obviously.
Everything else, play stands as called.
I hate challenges of obvious safe calls, with the chance that the player was tagged while transferring from one foot to the other. Accurate or not, it’s not what I want.
Give me what the eye can see. Sometimes, it’s strike 3. Sometimes, it’s not. I’m okay with it either way.
I agree with this. The other manager should be able to call “bull shit ” on the replay call and the umpires should call you and I for a bullshit ruling
Great article. The MLB needs more umpires that call the actual strike zone. You want the game to appeal to kids again? Stop calling pitches low and 6 inches off the plate strikes. 1-0 games are not fun.
yeah this would fix a lot, though it would meet a lot of this sort of confrontation at first
Exactly. My reaction while reading this crystalized when jeff wrote “A revolution begins with one man.” Maybe we need more rookie umpires up from AAA. Hoberg is calling a zone much closer to what I think should be called; more to the point (because who cares what I think), he’s calling a zone closer to what the rule book says should be called. And, not incidentally, the rule book strike zone would help reverse the trend toward low-scoring, high-strikeout games. I enjoy great pitching as much as the next guy (maybe even more than average, considering all the games I’ve gone to and paid extra to sit behind the plate only because of the pitching matchup), but the current game has gotten a little too K-happy. A tighter strike zone makes the truly great pitchers all the more precious, after all, and puts more balls in play as a bonus. To quote Crash Davis: “Strikeouts are fascist!”
Good call Joser!!! Let’s stop the intimidation by so-called all star catchers and by managers. The Cards ERA would probably be similar to the rest of the league.
I will say I think the focus on the rulebook is a little misguided. It’s not the Ten Commandments, passed down from above by Kennesaw Mountain Landis; we can and should change it to make baseball look like we want it to. We should pick an optimal strike zone, and make the rulebook reflect that (and enforce it, obviously). I agree, though, that the rulebook strike zone is much closer to ideal than the current one in practice.
Absolutely. And I get the Cards being upset that Hoberg’s zone didn’t match what they usually see, but it appears as though he was actually calling the rule book strike zone. Good for him! It’s the others that need fixing.
From a Cards’ fan’s point of view, the bigger issue is that Matheny stupidly, once again, left his starter in the game too long. Wacha was clearly gassed, and was facing the Cubs’ order for the 3rd time. Montero destroys lefties and lefty-killer Randy Choate was warm in the pen. It is inexcusable that Matheny allowed Wacha to make that pitch.
Molina should have screamed at Matheny instead.
Boy, if I can throw 97, 97, 97, 97, 97, and 97 when I’m “clearly gassed,” imagine what I’ll do during my next start in a couple of weeks!
Also, I imagine that the Cubs would’ve brought in (your random right-handed batter here) to face Choate if the need arose.
Would’ve been Denorfia, and he’s been incredible off the bench this year.
Very good: this piece.
Very bad: That camera angle. It’s like Shortstop POV Cam.
Situation matters too. It seemed like Hoberg was using a different zone for Strike 3. http://twitter.com/CardinalsUmp says that all 4 of Hoberg’s calls against Wacha were on a potential strike 3
All umpires tend to have tighter zones with 2 strikes, just like they tend to have larger zones with 3 balls. So the situation does matter, but in this case the situation only serves to make the calls more expected/defensible.
But the calls are also simultaneously *less* defensible, provided the pitcher hits *exactly* where the catcher’s target is presented. The customary and reasonable practice of all MLB umps is to give perhaps a half inch to a full inch, if the pitcher truly hits his spot — which happened repeatedly.
Lame.
Hoberg was calling balls balls and strikes strikes.
If a catcher sets the target off the plate, and the pitcher hits it, then the ball has landed off the plate.
1) It’s technically a ball.
2) More importantly, it’s been called a ball all game long.
It seems like Molina refused to adjust to the umpire… which is quite baffling considering how long he’s been in the league. No two umpires are ever the same, teams have to adjust night in and night out to the ump’s zone tendencies. Why couldn’t Molina adjust?
I doubted this so I looked it up, and I’ll be damned, you’re right. The rule book actually designates the strike zone as “Yadier Molina’s left palm”
Big Cards fan, but honestly I’m on board with calling the strike zone as the rule book states. It would lead to more offense, which the game needs.
That said, the argument seems to be fluid. I’ve read, “call it the same way all game” and “umpires tend to have tighter zones with two strikes.”
The individuals on the other side of the fence are arguing that the zone that is typical in the major leagues gives this as a strike. Individuals seem to dislike this due to the rule book.
That is arguing out of both sides of the mouth. To counter the argument that is not the typical zone, it is stated, “most umpires change their zone with two strikes.” Yes, and most umpires call those pitches strikes as well.
To counter the argument that the zone can evolve throughout the game after the umpire settles in, it is stated, “call the game the same way all game” while the above argument regarding umpires changing their zone with two strikes is cited. Again, this is a double argument.
I do think Molina is wrong. The pitch was never a strike all game, so don’t be surprised when it’s not a strike then either. I also don’t see anything wrong with Molina trying to get the calls for his pitchers. Molina was justifiably ejected from the game.
Vision, well stated…he was 100% consistent with the best strike zone I’ve seen in ages…until after the ejection…then he wavered.
That’s just coincidence, that pitch was never called a strike regardless of count…there was just never a pitch taken in those locations with less than 2 strikes.
Aside from a couple extra low pitches (and even those are hard to fault due to batter height differences), Hoberg’s zone looks damn close to rulebook.
Meanwhile, Angel Hernandez call strikes as long as the pitch is in the same ZIP code. Who is the rookie umpire here?
well, Angel Hernandez always sucks, he and Cowboy Joe are the Patron bad umpires of the MLB and good lord have they been doing it poorly for a long time
I only know one umpire’s name, Joe West. To me, that makes him far and away the worst ump in the game.
To be fair, Jim Joyce is an example of a famous umpire who is generally good and well-respected. Though his most famous moment was a terrible call, he did own up to it and even apologized, so that probably helped.
Most of the time, the worst umpires are the best known, but it’s not always true. That’s all I’m saying.
I see your Joe West, and Angel Hernandez, and raise you C.B. Bucknor.
Yeah but Bucknor makes a hell of a call. At least he’s a showman about it.
Worse than that, Hernandez’s zone is clearly less consistent than Hoberg’s.
It seems pretty obvious that Molina crossed the line here. It doesn’t mean that he is an awful person or anything, but I frankly don’t see how getting in the umpire’s face while the ball is in play for a normal strike zone wouldn’t be considered crossing the line.
“Our IT guys were looking through your texts with Angel, and you told him you were going to start calling a zone like his!’ -Yadier Molina, probably
And never mind that Molina isn’t doing his job while there’s a play going on — that’s between him and the Cardinals — he’s interfering with Hoberg doing his job! The home plate umpire isn’t just there to call balls and strikes, and he isn’t just there to adjudicate plays at the plate: the’s also there to back up the other umpires. That may matter a little less with instant replay, but it still matters. What’s the usual punishment for interfering with an umpire, I ask rhetorically — and I’m not talking about ejection (which rightfully already happened), I’m talking about what MLB usually does after the fact.
Sorry about the missing closing bold tag. That was only supposed to be one sentence.
did Molina actually impede the umpire’s path to getting a view of what he needed to see? I think the simple solution is that any unseen call as a result of player interference with the umpire is just made against that team. Therefore if Molina blocked the umpire from seeing if Rizzo touched homeplate, and if Rizzo missed it, the Cardinals have to use a challenge (and have convincing evidence)
Man I haven’t seen the actual rule or researched the precedent, but I feel like if I’m the home plate ump and the catcher gets in my face during a live play, he’s gone before the play ends. Just, immediate Joe West karate-chop ejection action. That’s ridiculous.
Usual hoped for punishment of any Cardinal transgression is loss of next years draft class
Hoberg’s lefty strike zone looks the way they all should look.
So does his righty zone. Sure he missed a few pitches, but no one is 100% If that was a fair representation of his normal zone I want him calling every game.
I was impressed that his misses were consistent across handedness. He was more generous inside than outside to both handed batters. That’s uncommon, I think. The “as called” zones seem to indicate the same.
Seems like a solid strike zone. I’d be frustrated as a pitcher, sure, but ultimately we really do want a by-the-book zone for the quality and consistency of the game.
I really hope they figure out a way to make this electronic some day.
The only useful purpose to which google glass could be put. No need for fallible robots, just give umpires a HUD.
That will be the day I stop watching baseball.
By no means am I a “traditionalist” or anything (would I be reading fangraphs if i was?) but the idea of a purely electronic strikezone just feels wrong. Its like playing ball in a laboratory.
How do you know how it would feel?… as its never been done.
Technology bad! Stick, Stones Good!
For certain pitchers with a different arsenal this wouldnt have been an issue, however with an all-star guy that paints the corners with the pitches Wacha has, he was inconsistent.
Helluva a game though.
Typical Cardinals.
That’s all. Move on.
Do you mean typical of the best receiver in the game? Like some AAA ump has anywhere near as good an idea of the strike zone as Yadi. I’m so tired of this anti-STL BS; they were just (rightfully) voted the best FO in baseball on this very site, they play the game the right way, and they won’t sit around while some rook blows a game they played to win because he can’t call the zone correctly.
The problem you’re running into is that the zone was called correctly. Molina just had a hissy fit because it wasn’t what he wanted. You know who else argues like that? My 4 year old.
Not to mention that a Venn Diagram between “hacking into another team’s database and leaking their information” and “playing the game the right way” probably wouldn’t overlap
I must have missed where the players were doing the so-called “hacking,” and not some intern.
Intern = Scouting Director, btw
“Like some AAA ump has anywhere near as good an idea of the strike zone as Yadi.”
The AAA ump at least has objectivity, which Molina does not.
This comment thread has “Typical Cardinals,” “typical crybaby Yadier,” and “the cardinals are crybabies” and somehow I’m the one getting downvoted? Sparkles Peterson says it below: the Cardinals had 5 strikes called for balls against the Cubs’ 1, this call among them. Hoberg was clearly squeezing Wacha and it would have cost us the game if our offense wasn’t as good as it is. Yadi had every right to be upset and express that frustration.
Yes, because those things are subjective nonsense that people ignore, whereas you referred to Molina as “the best receiver in the game”, which is objectively false.
And then tried to use that as an appeal to authority by saying “Like some AAA ump has anywhere near as good an idea of the strike zone as Yadi”, when the evidence presented shows that the AAA ump called a well above average game last night.
It is a special fantasy world most Cardinal fans live in. Their crash and burn will be enjoyable for most of America this year.
Typical crybaby Cardinals fan.
There is nothing so unbecoming as a Fangraph’s commenter crying about being downvoted.
Did you read the article?
He pretty clearly called the zone the way it is supposed to. Just because Molina is an above average framer (not the best, as you claim) and typically has balls called strikes DOES NOT mean that those balls should always be called strikes.
Your scouting director is an intern?
Its pretty funny to read the exchange you started.
Did you even read the article, Richard? Sounds like you don’t want anyone confusing you with the facts..you already “knew” what happened.
Hey Richard
“they were just (rightfully) voted the best FO in baseball on this very site, they play the game the right way”
You were the one who (wrongly as you say to Michael) already associated the FO with the players playing the game the right way probably as some extension of the “Cardinal’s Way.” So I ask you, a member of the “Best Fans in Baseball” (LOL): why can’t everyone else do the same to mock you?
Brett, I said the players play the right way, and that the FO was best in the league (backed up by statistical evidence). The intern “hacking” (if that’s what you call logging in with saved account info) has nothing to do with either of those, but nice try. Should I call you Brett Epstein?
hack
/hak/
1. cut with rough heavy blows
2. use a computer to gain unauthorized access into a data system
Basically using someone else’s password to get into the Astros’ data system is the literal definition of hacking.
@Richard 12:59 am
Did you seriously just try to downplay or brush off the systems hack? Do you not have a job, or an email account?
Richard haha all cardinal fans are the same. If it doesn’t go their way they argue. You have the best record and you’re still complaining. He called a very fair game and Yadi lost his cool, he overreacted. And no way is he the best catcher hahahaha come on dude.
Look up the actual pitch on brooksbaseball and that pitch does in fact contact the vertical and horizontal borders of the strike zone, which makes it a strike. As did by my count 6 other pitches called balls, 5 of them against the Cardinals.
I’m a Cardinals fan who looked it up on Brooks baseball. It is clearly, though barely, a ball if you call the rule book strike zone.
His zone was excellent. The problem is that Molina and we have both gotten accustomed to poorly called strike zones.
“If any part of the ball passes through any part of the strike zone.”
The square represents the edges of that strike zone, and the little square which touches the corner on that plot represents the ball (To the best of my knowledge, the square is smaller than the ball to accommodate for a ball’s spherical shape, making it possible for a pitch to actually show outside of that box and still be a strike). If the square representing the ball touches the strike zone, it’s a rule book strike.
So pull up the AB on BrooksBaseball and tell me the ball does not touch the strike zone.
Okay, pulled up the raw data and the pitch actually missed by a quarter of an inch. So, never mind.
This exchange about brooks baseball is further illustration of Molina’s overreaction and the excellence of the game calling. He was arguing (during the play) about a QUARTER INCH on pitches coming in pretty damn fast.
can we stop blowing this out of proportion? Some of the calls were either bad or against the customary strike zone. The Cardinals felt they bore the brunt of the bad calls and complained. Teams complain all the time. Yes, Molina did it during the play, and that is worthy of mentioning. But to paint any of this as the character of the Cardinals, Molina, Cardinals fan, or the umpire is just overreaction.
See Jeff’s post below. The pitch was a ball. Plus, I count 41 taken pitches in the zone, and a total of four that were definitively in the zone that were called balls. That’s 9.76% of strikes that were called balls.
The average umpire calls 9.6% of strikes as balls, and 14.3% of balls as strikes.
There were 120 pitches out of the zone in this game, and only seven of them were called strikes. That is a 5.8% error rate on pitches out of the zone, compared to the typical 14.3%.
This was a very well umpired game, as far as balls and strikes are concerned.
I have a hard time seeing Molina’s POV here. Yeah, it’s a tighter zone than he’d like. But it’s in line with the rule book, it’s consistent the entirety of the game, and the ball in question was being called a ball all night long.
Molina acknowledged he knew it would be a tight zone during the first at-bat of the game. So why is he setting up in the sixth inning as if he doesn’t know that?
The pitch, though clearly a ball by the rule book strike zone, is also in the area typically called a strike by MLB umps. It shouldn’t take too much of a stretch to see Molina’s point.
THANK YOU. Manfred would love nothing more than to see the Cards go down and the more novel (and therefore marketable) ‘rats/sCrubs win the Central, but even with the deck stacked against us we still find a way to win baby!
needlessly using his own made up, objectively terrible nicknames for the teams in the NL Central? Check
calling the team We and us, despite not actually being part of the team? Check
Ridiculous claims about the “Deck being stacked” against St Louis? Check
Yep, typical idiot Cardinals fan.
Because, when you get pissed off, you try to play normally, even if you know it’s going to fail. This way it gives you a “reason” to be pissed off.
i see nothing wrong whatsoever with the strike zone or the calls. seems like typical crybaby yadier.
Molina made an ass of himself. You didn’t need all these words, the Cardinals are crybabies would suffice. And they are folding up and they know it.
Congratulations to this young umpire, his strike zone was one of the best and most consistent I have seen all year. Cardinals don’t like and are not used to consistent. They bully most of the umps in baseball and usually get these close pitches. He made the pitchers throw the ball over the plate, makes for a much better ball game.
Bill Murray nailed it yesterday in his comments.
If the Brooks plot is to be trusted, it seems clear that that was a rulebook strike.
I don’t think it’s to be trusted to make distinctions of quarter-inches. Jeff screenshotted where the ball came in; all that’s clear is that it’s very close, the kind of pitch that could easily go either way, and not cause for any kind of outsized reaction.
Here’s what the article says:
Now you seem to be saying it could go either way. But that isn’t want Jeff said. The best evidence we have is that it was a strike. If you want to definitively reject that conclusion, you’re going to need some evidence, but none has been provided.
First of all, Jeff just gave you the “evidence” that you’re demanding (see below). The ball was 0.5″ off the outer edge, therefore the pitch was not a strike.
Second of all, in practice, that pitch has about a 50% chance of being called a strike (maybe less, in that count). In essence, you are defending Molina flying off the handle because the coin came up heads when he called tails.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
If you want to be *super* picky, then by PITCHf/x, the center of the baseball was two inches wide of the plate at the front of the zone. Meanwhile, the radius of a baseball is about 1.5 inches.
Wow, you’re right about that. What’s interesting is that the Brooks “strike zone” box itself is actually larger than the rule-book strike zone by a good bit. The rule-book zone would end at 0.7 ft (8.5 in) off of center but the zone depicted on Brooks is more than 0.8 ft off of center. Presumably, Brooks is trying to depict the “center of the baseball” zone, but I’m not sure that’s how the data is typically presented.
Here’s the most relevant part of Molina’s quote:
“[The strike zone] was like that all night.”
You knew he was calling that pitch a ball. Why are you then angry?
If he’s wrong 30 times, he’s wrong. You can’t say that the 30 mistakes makes the 31st mistake correct.
The pitch was a ball, but this “at least the umpire was consistent” stuff is hogwash. Consistently bad is still bad.
…except that he was calling a consistently *good* zone all night.
Consistent is still better than inconsistent, because it produces a level playing field team-to-team and AB-to-AB.
In this case, Molina knew that the probability of a strike call in that location in this case was quite low … and still called for it. That sure seems like a failure to adjust to the umpire.
And as a player it’s got to be pretty tough to argue with the consistent enforcement of the rulebook strike zone: “B-b-but but Mr Ump, your peers are less competent than you” isn’t going to persuade anyone.
Bill Murray summed it up best yesterday, “the Cardinals are Satan’s Messengers from Hell.”
He obviously never met you.
Chewing out an ump during gameplay is just ugly and stupid, no matter what.
I get the impression that Yadi has drunk a bit too much of his own koolaid and has developed the expectation that every time he tries to frame a ball as a strike he should get the called strike, because he’s Yadi.
Beyond that, in case anyone outside of St Louis hadn’t noticed yet, he pretty cleanly painted himself as a self-absorbed ass. No justification for turning your back on a live play like that.
What would be helpful when you post these plots is to explain what the green and red squares and triangles mean. I know the plots are from some other site but if you are going to use them please explain what they mean otherwise they are useless to the reader who is not versed in them.
Green are balls, red are strikes. The squares and triangles are for the different teams. The legend is on both images.
For clarity, the squares and triangles show the pitching teams rather than the batting teams.
Was Rocky 4 the one with the Russian, or the one with Mr. T?
The Russian.
I was in Rocky III
I don’t disagree, as I too looked for an explanation but: all the reds are clustered in the middle, and all the greens are outside. It was a pretty good giveaway.
I disagree with the assertion in this piece that Wacha ‘hit’ the target.
Molina is fooling you with framing. He stabs out, grabs the ball and pulls it back in further than where he set up, all in the blink of an eye. Great skill, but not working tonight to get the low and away strike.
Make a slo-mo gif and revel in the pitch framing glory.
I see this as an evolutionary response to the rise in framing skills. The umpires are adjusting back.
Great article.
Watched the game live. Felt the ump had a solid zone. Tight but super consistent. Really felt there should have been a play at the plate had yadi not turned his back. I mean balls in play how about wait 10 seconds to throw a fit.
God bless that umpire from Iowa. Presuming to speak for all Americans, I say categorically that the Cardinals suck, they’ve always sucked, they are spectacularly unsuccessful, and I look forward to the coming string of Cubs world championships that will go next to all the other flags flying at Wrigley as proof of our effortless superiority. Cardinals collapse is obvious because we split a series with their injury-riddled B team when we had home and ump advantage! We’re practically standing over their carcass, blowing smoke from our gun barrels! Upvote the hell out of this post if you agree, people!
Face it, your boys have done nothing but choke since they cast away Pujols like yesterdays garbage.
In a few more years of choke city, they will start calling it the Curse of Albert.
do the Angels also suffer from this Curse of Albert? Having had Trout, a higher payroll, and a better regular season record one year? Also, didn’t the Cardinals suffer from the Curse of Albert every year besides 2006 and 2011?
Catchers can talk all they want with their back to the ump, just as hitters can yak while looking at the dirt or the pitcher. Face the ump and complain and you get thrown out. Do it while a play is going on and people wonder about numbers of concussions, that doesn’t happen in Little League.
In a recent Nats game the Reds manager came out of the dugout to argue balls and strikes for a good 90 seconds and didn’t get tossed. I’ve never even heard of that. Maybe they were told to keep their cool better after Harper got tossed for not being in the box.
How well can Molina, or any player, know what the strike zone is like when their team is batting? Do they have access to pitch f/x data during games? It seems exceptionally hard to know if both teams are getting a fair shake except during your own at bat.
dugout chatter, the replay guy, etc. Obviously not as authoritative as combing through it after the game, but this isn’t new to the game of baseball.
He squats a little closer to the plate? That’s about the only advantage he might have over the umpire.
At the same time, he’s often in motion and trying to coordinate his limbs to receive or block the ball, is wearing a mask, and has a guy’s hand on his back, so realistically it is highly improbable he could discern balls/strikes better than the ump.
In his interview, Molina should have manned up about his line-crossing as opposed to disrespecting the ump for a second time.
IIRC if you criticize the umpiring to the media, you may face a suspension, fines, or both.
All this does bring up something interesting, that the home plate umpire does have a lot to do with a game. Brooks used to have umps’ zone charts, so at least with an experienced ump a catcher shouldn’t be too surprised. With a new ump an experienced catcher should be able to adjust, especially if the broadcasters can spot a tight zone from the press box within a couple of innings. I get the impression that Molina’s beef was less about the zone than “Don’t you know who I am?”
He acknowledged himself that he spotted the tight zone himself after a couple of ABs.
a lot of people’s first reaction to a mediocre pitcher having a no-hitter( not talking about this game) is, oh, wide strike zone.
Should have more umps like Hoberg IMO. Strike zone is way too large now, call it by the rules.
Rules are clear you can’t argue balls and strikes. If you do it in an umps face like Molina did you get bounced. No problem with that.
It strikes me as pretty unbecoming of the readership of a stats-oriented site that the commentary be so incredibly polemic as is evidenced in this thread. I’m sure I’ll get 59 downvotes, like the last guy who bothered to point this out, but the quality of the blogging here (high) and the readership/comments (low) is uncommonly large. Usually you have high/high or low/low; here, not quite.
I blame lack of registration. It’s way to easy to troll or lose one’s mind in some dumb fan argument. I’m actually surprised the comments haven’t decended into yahoo/youtube territory yet. Being stats-oriented (and some commenters seem to perversely dislike stats) doesn’t prevent one from being a jerk online.
I saw someone wearing a Cuck the Fardinals shirt the other day. Yes, that’s a thing that exists. And you can be just like that guy, too, if you have $25 and that’s a thing you want to be. I know what you’re thinking: The American dream is, indeed, alive and well. The Greek dream, however, appears to be aging poorly.
A t-shirt like that exists for almost every team that’s been a powerhouse. It’s overdone.
Powerhouse? They won nothing since they dumped Albert.
U mad bro?
your words:
” It doesn’t matter what he’s done overall; it just matters what he did with Molina and Wacha.”
Why doesnt it matter? Players should have to understand that umpires arent the same people and call slightly dfferent zones. I know every Centimeter counts, but c’mon Molina was clearly out of line.
Can a player get ejected mid play? And what is going to happen in such case if the player gets involved in the play?
Lets assume in this play Molina pushes the ump while the ball is in the outfield and then later on applies a tag on a player coming home.
Reading an MLB.com article regarding this made my head hurt. The writer shows no remorse for presenting what happened during these games with an extreme bias towards the Cardinals. Apparently Russell’s ball was probably foul because it bounced in foul territory once, not mentioning that it then bounced on the line right before it “probably” bounced over the base.
The comments only made things worse for my state of mind. At this point every broadcast needs to have some form of K-Zone on for every pitch. You have Cardinal fans rationalizing their beliefs with statements like “The 3rd strike to Carpenter was the same pitch, but called a ball on Montero.” The data clearly shows this is not the case, but I have to wonder if they would say the same thing even if they saw the dot over the plate against Carpenter and then the dot slightly off the plate against Montero live.
I hope more umpires call games like Hoberg, baseball fans deserve better than umps like Hernandez.
Eh, Phil Rogers writes for them too, so it evens out.
MLB.com has the most awful writers, chief among them Richard justice.
1. Molina was way the fuck out of line.
2. That zone looked pretty good to me, even if a bit tighter than most MLB umps call.
3. It’s hilarious that Angel fucking Hernandez is the basis of comparison here.
4. As a Cardinals fan, I find the level of unmitigated vitriol in these comments quite life affirming.
As to #4, yeah, you should enjoy it. People really, really hating your team generally means you’re kicking ass. As a Patriots fan who’s probably in a similar situation, fan-wise, the hatred of other fans is to be welcomed.
My thoughts precisely. I love the Cardinals dearly, but Molina was wrong, and the pitch wasn’t a strike. I just wish fans of the other 29 teams could start responding to Cardinal-related news more objectively instead of, in many cases, revealing some pretty nasty, deep-seated hate that is never exclusively related to just the incident being discussed.
Umpires should be evaluated through out the season just like players. If an umpire is doing a horrible job (Angel Herandez) then he should be sent to the minors and someone else should be called up. Instead the MLB treats them like weathermen. They can be wrong all the time and there is seemingly no consequence. Baseball isnt the weather and these guys should be right a very high percentage of the time but some of them aren’t. Maybe Fangraphs can start a sabr library for each ump with stats by pitch type, location and splits vs. each team and player. Give mlb something to evaluate these guys with.
I remember when Bryce Harper got ejected twice in one week in late May.
The overwhelming majority criticized him for knowing the consequences of arguing balls and strikes, yet choosing to argue them (emphatically) anyway.
At least Harper didn’t argue them DURING THE PLAY
So if you didn’t like what Harper did, you can’t like what Molina did, plain and simple.
I will admit before starting this that I didn’t read through every one of the comments on this post. I did skim them, but if some of this has been said, well deal with it.
Clearly Yadi shouldn’t have argued during the middle of the play, but considering he really wasn’t involved in the play, I don’t know that it’s that egregious. The thing that bothers me about this was they admit that early on they knew it was going to be a tight zone. Well adjust your game to fit that strike zone. It’s a different league and all, but who hasn’t had to adjust the way they pitched because of the umpire in a high school or college game? That’s just part of it. I’m pretty sure that if he had a guy calling a wide zone, he would start setting up as far outside as possible to take advantage of the zone. That’s adjusting to the umpire just like he should have adjusted to the umpire in this situation. I really like to watch Yadi play, but there’s no excuse for him getting that frustrated about a pitch in the 6th inning of a game that had been called tight the whole game.
Furthermore, this game was in Chicago. You’re not getting that call on the road with the bases loaded of a close game. Home teams seem to get the benefit of the doubt of close calls way more frequently. In St. Louis, that’s probably a strike. In Chicago, it isn’t one. That’s just part of the game.
Also I would like to point out that based on the above graphs, Angel Hernandez calls everything a strike. 4th most non-strikes called strikes, and 8th least strikes called balls.
The title of this article is one typo away from being 5th grade Sex Ed all over again.
‘r’ and ‘j’ aren’t close to each other on the keyboard, autocorrect would have to have a Freudian slip
Matheny was in Hoberg’s ear from the jump; on the ESPN broadcast, Sutcliffe was saying in the bottom of the first how most managers will do everything they can do intimidate a young ump if they sense weakness. The fair-ball call out from the night before was clutch, and I bet even a bigger deal in this case.
Great article and analysis.
Interesting parallel with game 7 of the I-70 World Series. Denkinger at the plate having been involved in THAT play the previous night. Small strike zone results in Herzog being thrown out and Andujar having to be refrained from assaulting the umpire.