After examining the National League Championship Series umpires yesterday, I will look at the American League Championship Series umpires today. Even though the ALCS umpire crew is led by fan “favorite” Joe West, they are generally neutral in their strike calling.

For each umpire, I have include their 3-year average K%, BB% and Zone% for both left-handed and right-handed hitters. To get the Zone%, I looked at the number of called strikes and balls in the league average called strike zone. The strike zone used is the same one that is used for FanGraphs hitter and pitcher Pitchf/x Zone% values.

Also, I have created a 100 scale which shows how much more or less an umpire’s values are compared to the league average. A value over 100 is always pitcher friendly (a lower BB% means a higher value).

Additionally, I have included a heat map of the umpire’s called strike zone compared to the league average zone. It subtracts the percentage of called strikes divided by the total of the called balls and strikes of the umpire from the league average. For example, if the umpire called a pitch in the zone a strike 40% of the time and if the league average is 50%, the output would be -10% (40%-50%) or 0.10.

Read the rest of this entry »

The reality of Jose Lobaton’s walk-off home run is that we don’t know what it’s going to mean yet. This is going to depend in large part on series context, on how the rest of the series goes, and if the Rays still lose to the Red Sox, Lobaton won’t be remembered forever. He’ll forever be a part of Rays history, but the next couple games will determine whether or not he becomes a legend. Dave Roberts‘ steal wouldn’t be Dave Roberts’ steal if the Red Sox still lost to the Yankees. It would’ve been a neat stolen base within a disappointing series. Maybe it’s not fair to have the significance of moments hang on the significance of other, related moments, but that’s the way things are. And speaking of things that aren’t fair, there’s the pitch that Lobaton hit out. I’d say that wasn’t particularly fair to Koji Uehara.

Something we know about pitchers: none of them are perfect. We know this because pitchers are people, and no people are perfect, even within their fields of expertise. Randy Johnson gave up hits. Lots of ’em. Mariano Rivera gave up home runs. Lots of ’em, kind of. Generally, when a pitcher gets hit, the response and assumption is that he made some mistakes. Mistake pitches get hit more often and harder than non-mistake pitches. But it has to be noted that not all of Johnson’s pitches that turned into hits were mistakes. Not all of Rivera’s pitches that turned into home runs were mistakes. One of the realities of pitching is that good pitches can get crushed, even if you do everything you want to do. That’s either frustrating or the source of some important perspective, and against Jose Lobaton, Uehara didn’t screw up. Against Jose Lobaton, at least this once, it didn’t matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

The postseason is off to a great start, with both National League Division Series tied at one game apiece. Later today, the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics will attempt to even their respective series. Barroom trivia aficionados may be interested to learn that the postseason has never started with all four series split at one game apiece. There is a roughly 25 percent chance of that happening today and if it does, TBS will have another fun fact to share in the next pregame show.

Read the rest of this entry »

After examining the National League division round umpires yesterday, I will look at the American ones today. I will look to see if they have any unique strike calling patterns and post their 2013 K/9 and BB/9 scaled to the league average strikeout and walk rates. Again I have included images of their called strike zones compared to the league average called zone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Though it’s not yet set in stone, Clayton Kershaw is probably going to win the ERA title, and he’s probably going to win the National League Cy Young Award, because Cy Young Awards frequently go to the guys with the ERA titles. Yet Kershaw isn’t the only starter with an ERA under 2, after you lower the minimums a little bit. There are actually three of them, one of whom is Kershaw, who is demonstrably and understandably amazing. One of them is Jarred Cosart, whose ERA is a hell of a lot more promising than the rest of his numbers. And the third is Clay Buchholz. Kershaw stands out because his adjusted ERA is nearly half the league average. Buchholz stands out because his adjusted ERA is two-thirds Kershaw’s. And Buchholz, now, is back from injury.

Any ERA that low, for a starter, is unsustainable, especially for a starter in the American League and Fenway Park, but Buchholz’s xFIP- is way improved. His FIP- is way improved. Something that’s helped him prevent runs is that he hasn’t surrendered many dingers, as dingers count for runs automatically. But more interesting than that is Buchholz’s strikeout increase. Used to be that Buchholz’s strikeout rates didn’t quite match the quality of his stuff, or at least that was the perception. This year he’s taken a leap forward, striking out a quarter of the batters he’s faced. Changes in strikeout rate capture an analyst’s attention, and in Buchholz’s case, there’s something in particular that’s been driving this.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are at least three remarkable things about Carl Yastrzemski’s playing career. The first is that he played forever. Second, he hit for the American League triple crown in 1967. But third, and most importantly, nobody played the Green Monster like Yaz. I asked my father about it, as he became eligible to vote during Yaz’s rookie season, and he put it simply: “He had it all mapped out.” With the Red Sox belatedly deciding that it’s time to erect a statue in honor of Yaz (I mean, come on, Frank Thomas already has his statue at US Cellular Field) I thought we could take a look back at Yaz’s career.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unlike in 2011, the Red Sox have a pretty deep rotation. And if Clay Buchholz returns from his nearly yearly midseason injury siesta, the Olde Towne Team will have six pitchers for five rotation spots. That could make for some awkward moments in September, but if the Sox reach October with all six pitchers healthy and ready to go, it’s going to get really awkward. It’s likely that the Sox will only need four starters, and they might only need three.

Read the rest of this entry »

Right now, Jacoby Ellsbury is presumably focused on helping the Red Sox, but a few months from now, Ellsbury should become a free agent. He probably isn’t thinking too much about that right now, but you could forgive other people for giving it a lot of attention, fans of non-contending teams, and even high-ranking employees of them. Ellsbury looks like an impact player who’s going to hit the open market, like the kind of player who can turn a decent team to a good team, and those who feel like he had just one fluke season would be wise to consider what he’s done in 2013.

Any talk about Ellsbury as a free-agent acquisition has to begin with his statistics. It’s those statistics that explain what he is as a player, and it’s those statistics that give the best indication of what he might become as he ages. Ellsbury, this year, is the owner of a 112 wRC+, and for his career, he’s the owner of a 109 wRC+. He routinely posts positive base-running values, and he also routinely posts positive defensive values. Through Wednesday’s action, Ellsbury’s running a .358 2013 OBP. A lot of people are going to be looking at that OBP. But what would you say if I told you that’s not actually his 2013 OBP at all?

Read the rest of this entry »

In case you didn’t know, Jacoby Ellsbury will become a free agent after this season. It’s presumed that he will take his services to the open market, and the Red Sox may not have much of an inside track on his services. Whether they do or not, there will be no shortage of teams who want the Madras, Ore., native. Earlier this week, Ken Rosenthal suggested the Mariners may be in the market for him. This got me thinking just how deep the pool of suitors may be. So let’s take a trip through Major League Baseball and reason through it, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry »

In 2003, the city of Boston wasn’t exactly desperate for the winter, but they were longing for one. Yes, the Patriots had won at 2002’s outset, but Boston has never been a Patriots town, and when they followed that up with a 9-7 season that ended without a playoff appearance, they lost their grip on the public. The Celtics and Bruins had reliably made the playoffs, but even though the Celtics put up a good fight in 2002, neither won their respective conferences.

So the eyes of Boston turned back, as they tend to do, to the Red Sox. And they were hopeful. The team had won 93 games in 2002, but that still left them six games shy of the postseason. Even under today’s new Wild Card rules they would have missed out, as the Twins finished 1.5 games ahead of them (of course, who knows what would have happened had the rules actually been different, I’m just saying there were lots of good teams that year).

Read the rest of this entry »