How Do You Feel About This Ball Down the Middle?

I just polled you all about something last Thursday. I asked you how you feel about the diminishing role of the starting pitcher in the modern game. I don’t know what I expected, which meant I’d be surprised by *any* results, but here’s where things stand — 23% of you are neutral. Yet 57% of you have a negative opinion, while just 20% of you have a positive opinion. That’s almost a 3-to-1 ratio. We’ll see how things evolve over time, as we become increasingly accustomed to how pitching staffs are used, but there’s clearly a collective sense of loss. The audience likes to think of the starter as the protagonist. The protagonists shouldn’t be killed off in the fourth or fifth inning. Leaves too much of the story.

Now I’m going back to the well again. I have another question for you all. This isn’t about some sort of trend within the game. Rather, this is about one call. But really, it’s about how calls are made in general. It’s about how you prefer that judgment be rendered. We’re going back to Saturday’s Game 1 of the Red Sox/Astros ALCS. Let’s all watch Joe Kelly throw a curveball down the middle.

Kelly hit Alex Bregman to lead off the sixth. The next batter reached on an error. Up came Tyler White, and he took a first-pitch ball. Kelly came back with a snapper.

Ball two!

It’s somewhat important to say this ultimately didn’t matter much. A few pitches later, White popped out. Granted, maybe the Astros don’t score in the inning if that one call goes the other way, but we can’t say that. Maybe they score more. White benefited from a ball down the middle. Then he made a harmless out. Hardly the biggest deal in the game.

But still, it’s a notable call. It’s a conspicuous call. It’s the worst called ball of this year’s young playoffs, based on the distance from the center of the zone. What could umpire James Hoye have been thinking? Let’s give it the screenshot treatment. Here’s the pitch on the way:

Here’s the pitch crossing the plate:

And here’s the pitch being caught:

Kelly could see that he threw a strike. It probably felt like a good strike right out of his hand. You can always tell when you throw a good spinner. But look at Christian Vazquez back there. Vazquez set up low, then he came up out of his crouch, responding to the pitch being elevated. Except, the pitch wasn’t elevated, and Vazquez had to dart back down. That’s not the way anyone teaches it, and you can forgive Hoye for being distracted or deceived. He probably didn’t get a great look at the pitch anyway. Vazquez and Kelly were crossed up. Kelly threw a curveball. Based on how Vazquez responded, he thought he’d called for a fastball. It’s worth noting that Vazquez had just entered the game as a catcher in the same inning.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about a cross-up. They happen. Signs get complicated when there are runners on base. Fingers and hands move around quickly. It would be amazing if players never slipped up. Still, cross-ups aren’t *that* common, and it’s definitely weird to see a cross-up result in a called ball on a pitch down the gut. It’s one of the only ways you can even get a called ball on a pitch down the gut. And this brings me to the question, the question I’m asking of you. Do you think the Red Sox deserved a strike, or do you think the Red Sox deserved a ball?

It comes down to execution, and how much is good enough. Or, it comes down to when execution begins and ends. One side of the coin, here: Joe Kelly threw a really excellent pitch. Full stop! Joe Kelly threw a sharp curveball that was obviously within the strike zone. It was such a good curve, in fact, that you can see Tyler White buckle. I guess Kelly caught multiple people off guard. According to the rule book, a strike is a pitch that passes within the strike zone. So this should’ve been a strike. It doesn’t matter what happens before the ball is thrown, or after it crosses the plate.

The other side of the coin: The Red Sox screwed up. They screwed up, because their pitcher and catcher weren’t on the same page. As a consequence, it was more or less impossible for the catcher to catch the pitch cleanly, because he thought the ball was going to do something else. The mistake at the beginning led to ugliness at the end. While a good pitch was executed, it was kind of executed by accident. It wasn’t part of the plan. At least, it wasn’t part of the plan, as Christian Vazquez called it.

This is kind of a form of the automated-strike-zone question. Four and a half years ago, I asked the audience how it felt about pitch-framing. To my surprise, 61% of respondents said they like that framing is a skill that matters. I’d assumed back then that the FanGraphs readers would’ve been all aboard the automation train. This is like an updated version of the same poll, to see if opinions have shifted. But this is also narrowly about a specific kind of bad pitch-framing. It’s about bad pitch-framing that occurs as a consequence of mixed signals. In your ideal game of baseball, should the Red Sox be penalized for miscommunication, or is the miscommunication irrelevant given that the actual pitch thrown was a good breaking ball over the plate?

This is a very small matter. But it’s also, I suppose, part of a broader conversation. Thank you all, each and every one of you, for your votes.