Okay, Ted Barrett’s Zone Was Crazy Pants
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been pointing out that the strike zone graphic used by TBS is not representative of the actual strike zone used in MLB, and is giving fans the wrong impression of the quality of the home plate umpiring in the playoffs. After nearly every NL game, we’ve seen a cascade of calls roasting that night’s umpire for making a bunch of bad calls, but in most cases, PITCHF/x has confirmed that the umpires are calling the same pitches they always call.
Today, though, I’m not going to defend last night’s umpire. Ted Barrett worked the plate for the Cubs/Mets game, and his zone was atrocious.
Those two called strikes off the plate to left-handed batters — one against Lucas Duda, one against Curtis Granderson — are bananas. That down and away pitch that Pedro Strop threw to Kelly Johnson is almost never called a strike either.
But Mets pitchers got their own share of nutty calls as well, especially at the bottom of the zone. Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, and Chris Denorfia all had strikes called on them on pitches so far down that they shouldn’t have been reasonably expected to swing. And Kyle Hendricks took a pitch from deGrom at the very edge of even the shifted right-handed zone, because apparently a pitcher hitting against another team’s ace also needs a huge strike zone to contend with.
Barrett’s zone went both ways, and he wasn’t favoring one team or another, but last night’s strike zone was worth complaining about. This wasn’t just TBS misleading viewers with a poorly drawn graphic. Ted Barrett’s strike zone last night really was enormous.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Enormous on the X axis and shifted down on the Y axis. Notice that he didn’t give anything in the top quarter or so of the zone.
His zone definitely led to some interesting moments and I’d say as a Mets fan was a boon to deGrom. He managed a few questionable strikeouts to get out of trouble spots
To me, the key to this series has been the ability of the Mets pitchers to consistently throw pitches at the bottom of the zone (and below), both with offspeed stuff and hard stuff. They haven’t gotten every call, but they’ve gotten a lot of them. The Cubs led the NL in walks during the regular season and have 5 walks in three games. Credit the Mets pitchers for executing the game plan.
There doesn’t seem to be much asked in the top the quarter of the zone. Looks like the pitchers realized they could work low, so they worked low.
Inclined to agree this worked in Mets’ favor: going low quiets fly balls against a HR-happy team on a windy night; fringe calls force a team with contact issues to swing at harder-to-hit pitches; out-of-zone calls require young hitters with an eye for a reasonably-called strike zone to adjust on the fly.
Interesting that you continue to call something that adheres to the rulebook definition of a strike zone as a “poorly drawn graphic.” Maybe someday you can remake the world as you wish it were to be, Hitler.
The rulebook strike zone is as relevant to MLB in 2015 as those “you aren’t allowed to carry ice cream cones in your pocket” laws on the books in various states. MLB has intentionally changed the strike zone; the fact that they never wrote it down in the rulebook doesn’t change that fact.
Should they have an amorphous blob that is different for every batter-pitcher-umpire combination? Or should they stick with a boilerplate and have faith that the people watching the game realize there is lateral latitude in what is a strike and what is a ball? Better yet, shouldn’t batters be up there looking to hit pitches they can hit rather than grading whether said pitch is going to be called a ball or a strike? If more batters were swinging at something they can square up they would be less likely to take something they can’t handle. The Royals seem to be doing just fine.
You lost me at “faith that people watching the game.”
“People” bitched about balls and strikes long before Foxtrax and they’ll continue to do so long after robots “fix” the game. If deGrom is consistently throwing fastballs and change ups low and away then maybe a batter should think about stepping into one and dumping it into LF instead of bitching about what is fair and what is not. Saying that this call that occurs 69% of the time went the way of the 31% in this instance might be great solace to sleep at night, but that batter is still striding back to the bench. Nobody is throwing the thigh-high, inner-third meatball that a slugger is looking to drive out of the yard with any regularity this time of year (Dickey notwithstanding). The line between passivity and patience is precarious, but perhaps a batter should be swinging at a pretty good pitch to hit instead of waiting on the ideal and this whole mess could be avoided.
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying that you can’t improve upon TBS’s illustrated strike zone by instead showing one that reflects what is normally called a strike/ball for most hitters, because once you do, you’d somehow be forced to then illustrate one that shows each individual player’s K zone?
Those fallacious slippery slope arguments are truly the worst. “Gay people shouldn’t be allowed to married because, what’s next? People marrying their pretty pet monkeys?”
Central can Estate amorphous mass is different for each combination of flour per judge? Or with the model and have faith that people look at the game, you realize what the rest of latitude and how to attack the ball? Better yet, the test is not intended to hit the bad terrain, which must assess whether a proverb which they called ball or strike? If more than one test on a swing in something they can not afford even less something that can take some time. The royal family looks pretty good.
Please don’t insult the gays or the monkeys. I’m saying that if neither is a correct representation of reality then why demonize the one that doesn’t adhere to your particular band of rhetoric. The rule book strike zone is a plot that anywhere within has a 90-100% chance of being called a strike. Regardless of umpire. Regardless of batter. Regardless of pitcher. The commonly called zone features calls that are strikes some percentage of the time. For some umpires. Or some batters. Or some pitchers. Once again Cave Dumeron is taking a “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” approach to something that he thinks everyone else should think. Thankfully, he is only the master of his basement and the bleating sheeple that blindly back his rhetoric. Maybe someday they’ll the truth, but until then hammer that thumbs down button. None of this even mentions the fact that we’re talking about a three-dimensional zone, but pitch f/x is merely telling us what happened (plus-minus an inch or more!) at the front of the plate.
TH, gay or monkeys. If you have a correct view of reality, why not be satanizacije specific match rhetoric bands, he said. Tariff zone is a country that nowhere in the 90-100% of raids. Regardless of the judges. Although flour. Although the average. Function calls are often referred to an area hit by a certain percentage of the time. Some of the judges. Or trial. Or do some research. Again, the guide is Dumeron cave “you are with us or with access” terrorists something he thinks we all need to think. Thank God, he is the only master of the cellar and ground your Stupid F sheeple blindly behind his words. Maybe one day I will actually, but then knocks the arrow keys. This is not to mention the fact that we’re talking about three-dimensional, but/h tell us what happened to (more or less than one inch or more!) On the front of the table.
“If neither is a correct representation of reality then why demonize the one…”
Two things. One: The only person demonizing anyone/anything is you. Invoking Hitler’s name when disagreeing about something as ultimately meaningless as a strike zone makes it clear that your disagreements lie less with the argument and more with the person making the argument.
Two: Since when should improvements only be implemented when they perfect the problem at hand? I think a more accurate K zone would be one that illustrates what is typically called a strike for most hitters. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I think it would be better. You are now saying better doesn’t matter; if neither is perfect, neither is preferable. If that attitude prevailed across all fields, there would be next to no progress made in anything.
“but perhaps a batter should be swinging at a pretty good pitch to hit instead of waiting on the ideal and this whole mess could be avoided.”
This guy is going to be the next Mariners hitting coach
You tell’em Buttsy, if you can’t homer off a ball at your shoe strings just take 3 strikes and sit.
Calling someone Hitler always gets results. Good argument.
I don’t know, you gotta respect the opinion of someone named Buttsy Colons.
I don’t know. He seems like a real asshole to me.
I just got that.
Well played.
A two dimensional graphic CANNOT depict the strike zone.
Nor is there any objective proof the pitchf/x system accurately depicts anything.
I see the MLB Umpire union negotiator reads fangraphs, too!
You could address the actual point at some time.
Or just continue with the sophomoric ranting against the strike zone, all day every day.
Those pitches to Granderson and Duda were totally strikes.
Word.
It’s not just that the zone was enormous. It was hilariously inconsistent. You mention the bananas strike calls on pitches to Duda and Granderson, which were basically down the chalk of the opposing batter’s box. There were three called balls substantially further inside than those pitches (though still well off the plate). There’s also a little cluster of balls at about the same longitude but a little lower (though still clearly between belt and knees). Same thing against right-handed hitters: there are called balls distinctly further inside than the strike call against Hendricks. Indeed, the green triangle just slightly up and to the left of the strike to Hendricks was *also* to Hendricks, the first pitch of that same at-bat. It was really goofy seeing what was clearly a worse pitch than what had been called outside literally three pitches earlier be called a strike (and I was rooting for the Mets!). Whenever a pitcher threw the ball outside to a lefty, within a range of maybe half a foot or more, it just felt like you were flipping a coin.
In the previous at-bat, as well, against Montero, deGrom threw a pitch, which I think is one of the two red dots in the upper portion of the very extreme edge of the shaded lefty strike zone, that was a curveball that he got under and that just floated outside, never really breaking at all. I was stunned to see Barrett call it a strike (I think I laughed out loud); these wide strikes are typically well-executed fastballs straight to the catcher’s mitt, not breaking pitches that miss by a mile.
What Hurricanexyz says: the inconsistency is (even) more maddening than the size of the zone. I don’t like the “personal strike zones” the umps bring with them, but if they’re consistent at least the players can learn and adjust. If they’re as inconsistent as Barrett’s zone appears to have been, the players have no chance to swing (and pitch) responsibly.
I think the important takeaway is that, contrary to the howls coming out of Chicago’s north side, the game wasn’t called in favor of either team. Poorly called, and biased (even unintentionally) are not the same
I wouldn’t, at all, be surprised if the differences in catcher framing skills/ratings result primarily from the low strike.
You watch how catchers so effectively pull their mitt closer to their body (raising the level of the pitch slightly), and given that they may be blocking the umpire’s view slightly, and I can see how it could be extremely difficult to call low strikes/balls consistently.
What’s more interesting to me are the 12-13 pitches IN the zone that were called balls.
TBS did a replay of d’Arnaud bringing a low ball up just by how he flexed his wrist. His forearm didn’t really move up, but his wrist did. It was one of those beautiful illustrations of how pitch framing works.
That specific move is something that d’Arnaud has talked a lot about in the past, learning it and practicing it in the off-season. I don’t remember where he said he picked it up, I think from watching tape of some previous MLB catcher, but it’s a big part of his framing skills.
FWIW I mostly agree with this and also remarked on the terrible strike zone, but: you might want to consider addressing that (IMO) a bunch of the weirdest calls were pretty obvious make-up calls for previous misses. I think it looks weirder when you leave out the sequencing and see it as individual pitch calls, but Barrett came off at least a little “better” as far as in-game fairness because he was pretty often using one weird/bad call to even out another.
re — TBS’ strike-zone graphic
It’s supposed to represent the rulebook strike zone. If they modified it to reflect what YOU believe is the ACTUAL strike zone, viewers would be really confused!
There are two problems with the TBS graphic: 1) it represents a plane, presumably at the front of the plate; and 2)the balls represented are WAY TOO BIG, so you can’t really tell whether a close pitch was (or s/h/b) a strike or not. Home plate is 17 inches wide, and a baseball is 2.86″ wide, so the plate is almost six balls wide. If the graphic shows the “ball” at the edge of the strike zone, what does that mean?
ESPN, which unfortunately got to show only one playoff game, had a graphic super-imposed right on the action picture, and, IIRC, the “balls” were much smaller than those used by TBS. Also, they occasionally showed a graphic of the entire, three-dimensional strike zone and the path of the ball through (or past) it.
As to the unofficial/official strike zone as supposedly changed by MLB, I hate that. It is almost as bad as the bad old days when Eric Gregg, etc., were calling their own “personal strike zone”. I think the game would be best served if everybody (players and fans) knew what the strike zone was and the calls were made consistently, either by umpires ordered to call the rule zone or by one of these electronic systems. A consistent and correct strike zone would maximize the effect of skill on the part of batters and pitchers.
Cheers,
Al Shank
Al’s Baseball Tidbits
BTW, in your graphic showing Ted Barrett’s “strike zone”, the “balls” are way too small.
Cheers,
Al Shank
Al’s Baseball Tidbits
BTW, Harold Reynolds thinks the plate is 18 inches wide!
Cheers,
Al Shank
Al’s Baseball Tidbits