Defending John Hirschbeck, Somewhat
Last night, John Hirschbeck ejected Troy Tulowitzki from game three of the ALCS after Tulowitzki complained about Hirschbeck’s called strikes against him in his previous at-bat as he took the field for the top of the eighth inning.
It was a strange ejection, as you don’t usually see a guy on the field thrown out when he’s 50 feet away from the umpire who tosses him, and while we obviously don’t know what was said, there didn’t appear to be any kind of emotional reaction from the Blue Jays shortstop that necessitated an ejection. In his post-game comments, Tulowitzki asserted that the ejection was premature:
“I think it was obvious I didn’t agree with the called third strike,” Tulowitzki said. “And there were other pitches that were questionable. I’m walking out to the field, and he’s looking at me. And I told him that wasn’t a strike. And it was a quick trigger. Obviously he was either holding on to something or something was going on. But I didn’t think what I did was going to eject me from the game.
“Obviously, you don’t want to get ejected right there. Unfortunately, I was. But it will be interesting to see what he has to say.”
Clearly, the bar for what constitutes an ejection should be higher in the postseason; the stakes are so high, the last thing the league should want is a game being decided by backups forced into the game because an umpire had a short fuse. So it would be interesting to hear Hirschbeck’s side, and his rationale for why he had to eject Toronto’s shortstop from the game. Unless he provides a compelling alternate version of events, this event won’t help his reputation as an umpire with too quick of a hook.
But, without defending the ejection, it should be noted that Tulowitzki was wrong about the pitch that ultimately got him ejected. In fact, the Blue Jays complaints about the strike zone seem pretty weak when you actually look at the balls and strikes Hirschbeck called last night.
Here’s our strikezone plot from the game last night, with the called strike three to Tulowitzki circled.
And here is the strike zone map from Brooks Baseball.
According to the PITCHF/x data, the pitch was on the outside corner, and should have been called a strike, even before accounting for the fact that the called strike zone against right-handed batters often stretches a little bit off the plate. This pitch wasn’t even in that borderline area, so Tulo doesn’t seem to have much of a case here. That pitch was part of a cluster of outside corner calls down in the zone, and every pitch in that cluster was called a strike by Hirschbeck last night.
If anyone should have been complaining about Hirschbeck’s zone last night, it should have been the pitchers, because his zone was actually pretty tight for most of the evening. The first pitch Johnny Cueto threw last night was a changeup on the inside corner to Ben Revere, but Hirschbeck called it a ball. Marcus Stroman later threw Mike Moustakas a curveball in a very similar spot that also was called a ball, despite the fact that it was pretty clearly in the strike zone, and then Hirschbeck also missed a first-pitch two seamer from Stroman to Lorenzo Cain that should have been strike one.
But the most notable part of Hirschbeck’s zone last night was that he was not giving pitches off the plate against right-handed batters, no matter how often each team tried to get strikes there. You can see all those black dots right on the line and just off the edge map; these pitches are called strikes with a decent amount of regularity during the season, but last night, Hirschbeck was not giving those just-off-the-edge pitches.
In fact, Tulowitzki had already benefited from one of those close calls. In his first at-bat, Cueto threw him an 0-1 fastball right off the outer edge, and almost perfectly centered vertically, but Tulo took it for ball one, then singled on the next pitch of the at-bat. Despite his protestations, Tulo didn’t really have any calls go against him last night, and perhaps Hirschbeck was more defensive than usual because of the fact that he knew Tulo was simply wrong in his criticism.
That alone doesn’t excuse an ejection, of course, and players should be allowed leeway even if they perceive the call incorrectly. But given that Hirschbeck’s zone was pretty hitter-friendly last night, I can somewhat sympathize with not taking too much grief from a hitter about an accurate strike call. Depending on what Tulo said between innings, Hirschbeck perhaps should have just ignored the comment, let the situation die out, and finish out the rest of the game, enjoying the justification the evidence would bring postgame. Instead, he’ll now have to explain (to his bosses, at least, if not the public) why he ejected a player who was so far away from him and didn’t seem to be escalating the situation at that point.
But when it comes to the call that Tulowitzki was complaining about, it seems like Hirschbeck has some ground to stand on. It was a good pitch, and Hirschbeck got the call right.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Any time an umpire comes out like that to challenge a player, they are in the wrong. Doesn’t matter if he made the correct call on the pitch. It’s the friggin ALCS and he tosses a guy for responding to his own goading, after the inning had turned over and the players had gone to their positions. Unacceptable.
Agreed. The ejection is the issue, not the strike call. The question of whether the player’s gripe with the strike call was ‘legitimate’ or not is completely separate. You get ejected for arguing balls and strikes regardless of the merits of the those calls.
So the merits of the *ejection* are the issue. And from where I sit, there’s nothing to talk about. I can’t think of a single excuse for it, let alone a good argument.
Oh please. The challenge was at the plate, Tulo knows Hirschbeck. Knowing the rules, written and un-, Tulo screwed the pooch. Now STFU and play baseball.
I don’t like blanket statements.
Guess you shouldn’t have signed up for the 36-month payment plan when you bought all those blankets from us.
Not that is justifies any action one way or the other, but I think Toronto’s numerous, vocal and demonstrative complaints throughout the series impact the umpirse over time as well. A little bit of the straw-that-broke-the camel’s-back might be at play.
As a Toronto fan, I think this could be dead-on. The umpires have taken a lot of grief from the Jays’ hitters, and have shown good playoff patience. It may well have been that kind of moment.
The timing still seemed odd- should have ejected him when he’s at the plate, not in the field- but even at the time, I understood where Hirshbeck was coming from.
The ALDS Game 2 fiasco with Vic Crapazza (sp) is all on that umpire — it’s even been added to his Wikipedia profile, for Chrissakes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Carapazza — so if Hirschbeck wants to bring that as ammunition into the ALCS he’s even more of a dick than what he did last night.
Besides, the only Jay that vocally complains about his (admittedly almost every) at-bat is Jose. If you want to extrapolate that to indict the whole team that’s your prerogative, but it’s an incorrect one.
except that the rangers had more reason to complain than the jays that day. The blue jays have been ridiculously whiney/douchey in the post season. Not a more hateable team in baseball.
Of course those strike zone zones depict the “normally called zone” and in fact that entire cluster of strikes in the lower right corner was outside the actual zone. Correct?
Low scoring is better than slugfests but, the game seems to have tilted too far in favor of the pitchers.
No, the pitch was over the plate. The Brooks’ AB-by-AB maps (which is what the second image is showing) shows the rulebook zone, without the addition of the shaded area off the plate. The pitch was a strike, by any definition.
So what’s the explanation for the Fox overlay of the strike zone showing that pitch as being at least a couple of inches outside? Is the Fox box less accurate? How do we know that the PitchFX data is all that accurate? Don’t we know that pitches are routinely missed in terms of location in pitchFX? I feel like Sullivan does a few posts a year about the most egregious ball calls which are actually just reasonable ball calls that pitchFX blatantly missed.
I was at the game last night, sitting a few rows behind home plate, and it certainly seemed like the calls that Hirschbeck rang up Tulowitzki and Martin on were a couple of inches off the plate.
A Royal was rung up on a similar pitch in the following inning, and didn’t like it much either.
Dave’s analysis is based on the infallibility of Brooks Baseball/PitchFX and I’m not certain they were accurate in this case. Those pitches looked well off the plate…
Your opinion is based on your own perspective. Between you, FOX, Hirschbeck, and Brooks, you had the worst view.
The strike zone that TBS and Fox use is the rule book strike zone. I think brooks’ K zone is adjusted to represent the current state of the called zone. Dave actually wrote an article about it http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tbs-please-fix-your-strike-zone-graphic/
I wasn’t that surprised at the called strike to Tulo, but the 3rd strike to Martin, I thought, seemed like an F-U after Tulo spoke up. Turns out that too was a strike per brooks. There was another article someone wrote about how silly it is to call games from your couch…I think those two strikes really hammer the point home because the view from the CF camera made them look more outside than they were.
The Fox and TBS overlays aren’t computerized, attached to PitchFX or anything. They are put in there by me: a human being. I am known to be wrong.
It also looked pretty clear from watching the replay (from over top, not from the regular angle) that the ball juuuust missed the plate to the outside.
Cameron gives no thoughts of overhead views, just like baseruns where he pumped the Dodgers year round Brooks says it wasn’t a strike and therefor it wasn’t a strike. This is Fangraphs, if things aren’t complicated and involving metrics it’s wrong!
Actually, it juuuust caught the front corner of the plate. And also, Captain Obvious’ comment is a bunch of indecipherable crazy guy nonsense
Gotcha, I must have mistaken something I read on this subject after the wild card games. You’d think to avoid confusion and pissed off fans then that MLB would put forth more effort to ensure that broadcasts are showing the correct zone. I for one, went home after the CHC\PIT WC game and was livid at how terrible the ump was that night. Turned out he was fine and the “TBS” zone was way off.
They showed the overhead view of the pitch on reply during the game. It was not definitively on the plate as the brooks plot suggests.
Doe the dot in the plot represent the middle of the ball? If it does, then the plot is decidedly wrong based on the overhead view of the pitch last night.
I will say it was borderline and hard to tell because at that point of the game their was white chalk from the batter’s box all gathered at the edges of the plate and when they showed the overhead of the pitch, the inside edge of the blur might have maybe ticked the outside edge of the zone.
But the plot makes it seem like it was definitely on the plate, but it certainly wasn’t. It was borderline at best.
Ill also add that Hirschbeck had a mic on last night and every word that was said in the exchange at the plate was likely captured.
I doubt it would have caught what Tulo said from his SS position when the toss happened, but we would have sure found out what Hirschbeck had to say.
Too bad we’ll never hear it.
I thought the umps were supposed to clean off the plate. If it was cluttered with chalk at the edges, that’s their fault.
Cleaning the plate: another thing they can do instead of calling balls and strikes and tallying up personal vendettas in their heads.
“According to the PITCHF/x data, the pitch was on the outside corner, and should have been called a strike, even before accounting for the fact that the called strike zone against right-handed batters often stretches a little bit off the plate. This pitch wasn’t even in that borderline area, so Tulo doesn’t seem to have much of a case here.”
I hear you, but the score did end up being 11-8.
That called strike, however, was the widest called strike of the night (on that side of the plate) and several pitches that were right on the black at about the same width were called balls. So even though it’s a strike according to the Pitch f/x data, doesn’t Tulo have a beef since all the players knew that it was a tight zone that night and he chooses to widen his zone at the end of the game?
Ultimately you’re right though; the called strike wasn’t that egregious and Tulo should have just shut up about it. However, that ejection is pure BS in a game of that magnitude.
No-nothing closer in was called a ball. It was the furthest out strike, but the next furthest was also a called strike, and the next after that was as well, and the next, and the next.
This is also why arguing balls and strikes is explicitly forbidden: Tulo can’t know that there was no other pitch inside of that called a ball and that everything outside of that was called a strike. He doesn’t have computer calibration. Some griping is okay, but when the umpires are doing an excellent job, they can get touchy.
It was a borderline pitch, maybe Tulo shouldn’t have complained. But to throw him out from his shortstop position – that was crazy #umpshow. Tulo wasn’t making a scene – the announcers initially couldn’t figure out what had happened. Then, Hirschbeck followed it by doing his best to show up Martin, standing over him and jawing at him like he was puppy that had chewed his shoes. Hirschbeck was clearly trying to put on a show.
Keep in mind this was Tulo and Martin, two veteran stars who are pretty level headed.
Defend Hirschbeck’s call, sure, don’t defend the nonsense after.
Yeah, I think the discussion of where the pitch was located and what kind of zone Hirschbeck was calling is completely beside the point. The ejection didn’t directly have to do with that at all, it didn’t even occur then — it was all about him having rabbit ears for a seemingly pretty mild complaint from across the field later on.
Agree. If one can’t assume the ump thinks he’s fairly calling he pitches then there is a bigger problem, so apportioning reasonableness to an umpires subsequent actions based on 3rd party-review of strike/ball calls is pop psychology and an unworthy endeavor.
I don’t want to get caught up in specific pitches, but the zone is obviously too big these days. Aparently for political reasons.
#STRIKE ZONEGHAZI
“Clearly, the bar for what constitutes an ejection should be higher in the postseason”
No. Just like the strikezone, infield fly, and the rest of the rulebook, the game should be played the same as the regular season, which includes ejections. Your strawman about an ump with a short fuse is just a much of a problem in the regular season as it is in the postseason.
Right, because players shouldn’t be allowed to show ANY extra emotion in the post season. Toss them all.
I agree.
>And I told him that wasn’t a strike.
Can’t argue balls and strikes. It’s a not a difficult concept.
It wouldn’t be if in fact that were the rule in practice. It isn’t. Players argue balls and strikes all the time and umpires tolerate it. Except when they don’t.
By enforcing the rule only when they feel like it, they’ve made the whole thing arbitrary and inflammatory.
It’s sort of like the speed limit. Tons of people go 65 in a 55 (or 75 in a 65) right past cops without ever getting pulled over. So when you get pulled over going 57 in a 55, it feels especially egregious.
Be consistent. That’s all we ask.
But the ump *did* let it go. It was only when Tulo kept it up in the next half inning that he was ejected. That seems reasonable to me.
He didn’t “keep it up”. Talking about it isn’t against the rules. Arguing about it is.
He was in the field talking and the ump sought him out. Has nothing to do with arguing balls and strikes.
You are right. Players often argue whether or not a call (ball or strike) had been given all game or if their own pitcher was getting that same call. Sometimes they even just stay in the box and stare out into the sky for a few extra seconds in disgust. However, this soft arguing is not the same as calling out a particular pitch as being a ball or strike. I’m pretty sure this type of hard argument will get you ejected 100% of the time.
It’s not like he was ejected for “arguing balls and strikes” while at bat. He was ejected for grumbling, on the other side of the field from the ump, which is something basically everyone in baseball does and almost universally something umps will caution repeatedly about rather than issue, er, premature ejections.
I actually agree with this. Adding all sorts of nuance to the rule, which should be based on just having the game proceed in an orderly fashion, is silly and counterproductive. However, if you are going to look at nuance, perhaps Tulo got an early exit because he is bitching about balls and strikes late in a blow out that his team is winning. Perhaps that led Hirschbeck to basically be like “I don’t have time for this shit.” The fact that he can throw him out (arguing about balls and strikes, so automatically fits within rules), his prior transgressions, and the score situation made this happen and it isn’t really an awful outcome.
I also like the not-so-subtle infield fly reference. On second thought, I’m no longer on Hirschbeck’s side. Screw that guy.
Their tolerance for tossing people is as bad as their ability to call balls and strikes. If they were consistent with either, there would be no problem.
Sure, it’s a hard job. As would fair/foul calls be hard without lines on the field to help them make those calls. Now we have technology that acts like a foul line that umps can use to make strike calls – time for them to use it.
The strike call was fine but he still shouldn’t eject him over that. Ridiculous. He was at his position and he ejects him? Nonsense.
Unless we know exactly what Tulo said to Hirschbeck, we can’t know what exactly got him thrown out. That said, between pitch-framing, batters adjusting their stance and ball movement, it is impossible for an ump to have a 100% consistent strike zone. This is why there is a rule against arguing balls and strikes. So I have a hard time siding with Tulo on this one.
“So I have a hard time siding with Tulo on this one.”
Also because I have KC in my user name, and he cracked a 3-run HR earlier. So I may not be totally unbiased here.
Are we ever going to see a postseason game where the broadcaster bothers to calibrate the strike zone indicator? The terrible jobs TBS and Fox have been doing have consistently impacted the way fans are experiencing these games.
Right? It seems like the systems are set up to call the location of the ball where the catcher catches it rather than where it crosses the plate. I don’t get it.
Unlikely. The Terrible Officiating Narrative is pretty much ratings gold.
Perhaps, Tulo’s interpretation of the strike zone was influenced by the earlier called ball. Either way, as Toronto fan, it’s pretty annoying how much strike-zone related whining the Jays have been doing.
I too am a Toronto fan, and for the most part I don’t like my team whining about the strike zone, but if you check @BlueJaysUmp (and its counterpart, @RoyalsUmp), you’ll find that at least in Game 2 the calls favoured the Royals more than the Blue Jays:
Game 1: 2 calls help the Royals, 3 calls help the Blue Jays.
Game 2: 9 calls help the Royals, 2 calls help the Blue Jays.
Game 3: 2 calls help the Royals, 2 calls help the Blue Jays.
It’s natural that they’ll complain more. At least yesterday the strike zone was consistent for both teams.
I would be curious to know what the definition of “help” is in this case. If a pitch gets called a ball when it should be a strike but i still strike out one pitche later then the missed call is irrelevant. It didnt “help” anyone.
Besides you are talking about ~5 calls in a game with around 300 pitches in it. To say either team got an advantage from such a small amount is pretty silly.
I think “help” means improve your chances of winning. The help from one pitch is usually rather minor (a 3-2 pitch going the wrong way would definitely be a bigger deal than a 0-0 pitch). But to say that if you strike out on the next pitch means it didn’t help is wrong. Taken to its logical conclusion, that line of thinking would also say that hitting a grand slam when your team is down 5 runs doesn’t help if they don’t eventually score more and win the game. You lost either way.
As far as the strike goes, I’m thinking the complaint is constancy, every time I see a player talk about strike zones the narrative is always constancy, they don’t seem to care what a strike/ball is as long as it is always called the same so they can adjust. Hirschbeck’s zone was not constant.
The strike call aside, I think that this became the Hirschbeck show, to eject Tulo long after the argument had ended just indicates that he was looking to toss him and then to lord over Martin for a ridiculous amount of time was the icing on the cake. When will MLB do something about these umps? Until some kind of disciplinary action comes down and it’s made public I don’t see this stopping. Can someone please tell me how these umps managed to get carte blanche anyway?
I keep saying that I can’t wait until we can get fully automated strike zones. Hell, we can do the same with check swings. We really only need umps at the bases (and someday maybe not even then).
The inconsistency of the home plate umpires really does, honestly, diminish by enjoyment of the game. I don’t even have a team in the playoffs, so I’m not biased for or against any team. I just want the strike zone to be called 100% correctly. I also want them to stop calling runners out for lifting their foot off the base for a millisecond or because a fielder blocks them with their foot (which is against the rules).
I completely agree
The blame game isn’t necessarily binary. Hirschbeck had no business going out of his way, both physically and figuratively, to toss Tulo. But without in anyway absolving him, maybe, regardless of where the pitch actually was, it wasn’t a great idea for Tulo to disagree with the call in the visible manner he did as he left the plate, especially considering Hirschbeck’s reputation for having a short fuse.
Tulowitzki has argued almost every call he thought hasn’t gone his way this postseason, probably basing it on the premise that it’s the playoffs and umpires won’t eject as easily.
He needs to get over himself because he sucks in the playoffs in any high leverage situation.
Like the HR earlier that game, or the one that put a win away in Texas?
Yeah, but apart from the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?!
The original comment is dumb, and based on a very small sample size.
But Tulo is a postseason wRC+ 50ish hitter. So, it’s not like he’s torn it up in the postseason.
was also the 8th inning of a blowout game. gotta pick your battles.
Getting tossed over one pitch is counter productive to a players total contribution to any game. We don’t know what Tulo did or said but getting tossed is just dumb.
Did you not see my three run HR?
Probably not.
Robbie Alomar is VINDICATED!
Also Tulo has screamed at the home plate ump in like 50% of his at bats this postseason. I’ve got to believe Hirschbeck and others are aware of this and the fuse has gotten short.
Obviously one game isnt a sample size, but would be nice to see some zones called like that in the future. Maybe it is because I was a kid then, but I sure miss the scoring of the mid to late 90s.
Look at me! Look at ME! HEY! L-O-O-K A-T M-E! Yeah, that’s right. Who’s the star now?
John, could you at least put some damn pants on?
That’s it. You’re outta here, Jack.
Tulo and his teammates complain about unfair strike zones all the time. Last night, despite a high scoring game, his team leading, and him benefiting from calls earlier, Tulo just couldn’t let it go.
People seem to forget: the rulebook says you cannot argue balls and strikes. Period! I think Hirschbeck is an embarrassment and bad for baseball. But Tulo does this a lot, was wrong, and he’s not technically allowed to do it at all. I’m as sick of these umpire problems as much as everybody else, but we don’t focus enough on player responsibility.
The Blue Jays can’t figure out to let their play do the talking. They play well enough for it to be a loud message! And yet they just keep yapping, complaining, and disrespecting umpires and opponents. Such a good team and yet so damn unlikeable.
People also seem to not get the “argue balls and strikes” thing.
Rule 8.02(a) Comment. (Rule 9.02(a) Comment): Players
leav ing their position in the field or on base, or managers or
coaches leaving the bench or coaches box, to argue on BALLS
AND STRIKES will not be permitted. They should be warned
if they start for the plate to protest the call. If they continue,
they will be ejected from the game.
Seems like you can grumble all you want from you position at, say, SS.
Yeah, this thread if nothing else is really demonstrating how many people misapply or misunderstand that.
Like umpires, announcers and MLB personnel?
But there is still an “if you’re being a horse’s ass I can throw you out of the game” rule apart from this one. Since the rule went into place, hundreds of ejections have resulted from managers bickering about balls and strikes, from the dugout. It’s not like you get a free pass as long as you stay within this rule to do and say whatever you want.
Something’s wrong with your analysis. The ball was outside, and on the other side of the plate. You circled the wrong one, and the umpire got it wrong.
These are all from the batter’s perspective, not the pitchers.
You just channeled Tulo’s reaction in your comment. You were 100% wrong, we’re insistent that Dave was 100% wrong, and we’re condescending in your tone.
I love irony.
I felt like the story of the game was the super tight strikezone (evenly applied), and not just the outside edge against right handers. Cueto had several pitches that looked to be strikes by a good margin on the upper and inner half not called and that seemed to be in his head early. I imagine Tulo was annoyed that the call on the outer edge was inconsistent, but hitters were getting almost all the calls all night. That, more than anything, led to the score line.
Great article. Maybe the ejection was too quick, but I think the point of the players arguing over this stuff is to subtly bully the umps into making more favorable calls. So maybe Hirschbeck didn’t want to be subtly bullied last night.
Hirschbeck perhaps should have just ignored the comment, let the situation die out, and finish out the rest of the game, enjoying the justification the evidence would bring postgame.
Seems to me like Hirschbeck was pretty willing to do just that. He let Tulowitzki have his say at the plate/walking to the bench. He presumably also took some heat from the dugout as well. It was only much after the fact that he ejected Tulowitzki because he, by Tulowitzki’s own admission, he wouldnt shut up about it. I hate umps taking over games as much as anyone but I kinda see where Hirschbeck is coming from on this one. Seems like he gave Tulowitzki alot of leash and Tulo didnt know when to shut up.
Speaking from personal experience, i was NEVER surprised when I got thrown out for arguing a call (hockey or baseball). You always can sense when the ump/ref has had enough from there you can either shut up and play or keep pushing and get thrown out. So I dont buy Tulowitzki’s whole “what did I do?” explanation at all.
He was talking about at shortstop.
The only way to know that Tulo is still talking about it in that situation is to go look for the trouble.
It’s not as if you’re disallowed from complaining about bad calls. You’re disallowed from arguing, from making a scene at the plate. “Go sit down” is what you’ll be warned. The direction is not “shut up forever”; it’s “get your complaints out of my face”.
Shortstop isn’t in his face. He went looking for trouble, found it, and then went on a power trip.
By Tulo’s own words he said “it wasnt a strike” to Hirchbeck as he walked back on to the field.
I’m walking out to the field, and he’s looking at me. And I told him that wasn’t a strike.
So after complaining at the plate, and complaining while walking back to the dugout (and likely complaining from the dugout as well) he still had to say something as he walked back onto the field. Like I said before, seems like Hirschbeck gave him plenty of leeway. Tulo just needed to shut up and play.
I’m all for holding Ump’s accountable but seems like everyone these days just automaticly dismisses the players behaviour so they can scream “Ump Show!” on twitter.
If only Fox had, say, two on-field reporters and a mic on the umpire, perhaps it would have been able to do some, you know, reporting about what actually happened. Oh, wait…
…Alternately, perhaps Hirschbeck was simply as tired as everyone else is of hearing Fox talk about Tulowitzki’s old glove.
Your whole theory is that Hirshbeck knew which ones he missed, but if you asked him he will say, “I didn’t miss any!” The third strike to Tulo and the second to Martin right behind him looked out of zone for sure. I just think it’s an 11-4 game and John was ready to shower and go!
Tulo is a jerk, plain and simple. Someone above nailed it, this team is so good offensively, one of the best ever, if they would just let their play do the talking. Instead they constantly piss umpires and fans off by complaining about calls.
Since arguing constantly at umpires through a whole postseason ever got anyone some extra calls. The human element alone means that they will get less calls, if anything.
It seems to me too many of the Blue Jays players think they deserve this.
This is a little off topic, but how come no one ever talks about the fact that the top and bottom of the strikezone, by the rulebook, are different for every player?
Rule 2.00: The Strike Zone
The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.
It’s also three dimensional, but neither of those facts fit the “robot umpires!” Chorus, so they are ignored.
The reason these umps are so sensitive about balls and strikes is because they can’t call them accurately.
Look at all of the bad calls made in this article. Now imagine these were fair / foul calls, and if you argued them you were tossed.
It’s time to automate the balls and strikes and let umps work on pace of play and looking for that other time the neighborhood play was reviewable. That ought to keep them busy for a while.
To review, Tulowitzki repeatedly shows up an agent of The Game by visibly complaining about pitch calls, then he continues his abuse on the umpire upon taking the field, and the Guardians of Baseball Purity tell us that Tulowitzki should be excused because he was merely being competitive in the heat of the moment, and heightened emotions are to be expected and in fact are laudable.
By contrast, Bautista flips a bat in the heat of the moment after hitting a crucial HR at a key point in a game, and the Guardians of Baseball Purity fall all over themselves to declare that Bautista is an amateurish clown who is disrespectful to The Game because he doesn’t play it like, uh, “we” do, because, after all, there is no place in baseball for heightened emotions.
Hmmmmmm…