Searching for This Year’s Called Balls on Pitches Down the Middle

This is one of those posts I like to write over and over. We’re always getting new information, meaning we’re always getting new borderline calls, and when there’s room for error around the fringes, that means there’s a non-zero chance something could go more dreadfully wrong. Like, say, a pitch being taken down the middle, and getting called a ball. Humans are perfect at nothing, not even the things that we think we’re perfect at, and a baseball season has a whole lot of pitches in it. Lots of opportunities for funny, uncommon mistakes. When it occurs to me, I try to find them.

I don’t do it because I delight in pointing out when umpires mess up. I really don’t, because their job is harder than my job, and I don’t like to pile on. Everyone’s capable of stupid mistakes. I do it because, think about it. We’re used to seeing questionable calls around the edges. But, right down the middle? It’s the kind of mistake you want to investigate, because you feel like something must’ve happened. My goal when I do this is to try to understand why the call got made how it did. Find an explanation for the seemingly inexplicable. I don’t know why this interests me so much, but, here we are, and no one on staff has told me to stop.

We’ve had weeks of baseball in 2015. There’s nothing particularly significant about right now, but let’s reflect anyway on what’s taken place. Let’s search for those called balls on pitches taken down the middle.

As usual, the key resource is Baseball Savant. Baseball Savant to find the data, and MLB.tv to watch the pitches and recover images, once I know where to look. Savant allows you to select pitches by zones and results, so I searched for balls in the middle third of the strike zone, horizontally and vertically. I was left with a total of five candidate pitches — five pitches, in just a few weeks, thrown down the middle and called balls. Below, reviewing those pitches, in chronological order.

1

The brief list begins on April 8, with Brandon McCarthy pitching to Yangervis Solarte in the second inning. The home-plate umpire: Mike DiMuro. The target pitch was an 0-and-1 sinker. The location of the pitch:

Definitely no way around it — that pitch was right down the middle. You can easily see it’s over the middle of the plate, and you can just as easily see it’s at the level of the hitter’s mid-thigh. There were no complicating factors, like runners on base. This is a pitch where it would be totally inexcusable to call a ball. Strikes don’t get any more strike-y. Which is why, in reality, this pitch was called a strike.

PITCHf/x, see, went and got itself confused. It thought the above pitch was a ball, but this was the true 0-and-1 called ball:

Still questionable! You could maybe make an argument for a called strike. But it wouldn’t be a strong argument, and this most certainly wasn’t a called ball on a pitch down the middle. So, one pitch in, we have a data glitch to blame. Let’s move on to the other four.

2

We return to Dodger Stadium, a week later. It’s Danny Farquhar facing Adrian Gonzalez in the eighth inning on April 15. According to the spreadsheet, the mistake came on the first pitch. Here’s Farquhar’s first-pitch fastball, which Gonzalez took:

Problem. The pitch was over the plate, but it wasn’t over the middle of the plate. And more importantly, look at the height of that thing. The sheet says the pitch was two and a half feet off the ground, with the top of the strike zone three and a half feet off the ground, more or less. That pitch was at belt level, with Gonzalez standing almost straight up. That’s not a pitch down the gut. That’s a borderline high strike, but Marvin Hudson called a ball. We have another glitch, and actually, now that I think about it, the whole inning was kind of glitchy that day. We should keep going. No need to dwell on these errors.

3

Let’s stay in California! But head north, to San Francisco. On April 17, Yusmeiro Petit pitched to Chris Owings in the top of the eighth of a developing blowout. The home-plate umpire was Chris Segal. I’m told the first pitch was the poorly-called pitch. Checking it out:

OK, no. Got me again. Not only was this not a called ball down the middle — that very pitch got away from the catcher, and both runners moved up. I’m not sure what PITCHf/x thought it was seeing. No, let me take that back. I am very sure what PITCHf/x thought it was seeing. I just don’t know why it saw it. It’s not just humans who tune out of blowouts. To pitch candidate No. 4!

4

Apparently we can’t get out of California. Now it’s down to Anaheim, for a game on April 21. In another blowout, R.J. Alvarez faced Chris Iannetta in the seventh inning. It’s claimed Marty Foster made a bad call on a 1-and-2 slider. Maybe you can’t blame someone for briefly taking his eye off a nine-run contest. Let’s look at this pitch:

There’s that slider, where we expected. But there’s also that other thing, which was unexpected. Can’t call a ball on a swing. Can’t call a ball on a foul. Can call a foul on a foul. Foster nailed it. I guess “ball” and “foul” sound not completely different, and they both end with an L. But that’s not how PITCHf/x came up with this. There’s just one pitch candidate left.

5

And it takes us to Arizona, on April 28, shortly before Archie Bradley was knocked down by a cruel line drive. In the second inning, Bradley faced off against Nolan Arenado, with Mark Wegner calling balls and strikes. What the numbers say is that Wegner messed up a 1-and-2 fastball. Let’s see what we have:

I went through the whole at-bat and, once more, PITCHf/x got confused. The pitch it thought was a 1-and-2 ball down the middle was a 1-and-1 strike a little above the middle, complete with a swing attempt. So for the fifth time, the pitch I was looking for didn’t exist. I mean, some of the pitches existed, but those that did didn’t exist as they were said to, in terms of the result. I investigated five called balls down the middle. I observed and confirmed zero called balls down the middle.

Which means, in the end, this is a post about nothing! That which it advertises, it doesn’t contain. I have found evidence of no called balls on pitches down the middle so far in the 2015 season. Now, because of this same kind of glitchiness, it’s possible there were such pitches, that just aren’t showing up. You can never rule that out, unless you happen to watch literally every pitch. But maybe look for the bright side here — everyone hates when umpires mess up. The worse the error, the worse the response. This is a post that searched for embarrassing mistakes, and it found that none of them were real. Way to go, umpires! There have been these ball calls in the past. It’s a good thing to not see them yet.

And it’s also a good reminder that PITCHf/x is far from infallible. Every so often, PITCHf/x goes and just makes something up. Now, it seems like human umpires do the same thing, and they do it way more often. That’s valid. Just know that the alternative to human umpiring isn’t perfection. The alternative to human umpiring is a system that, every now and again, would really freak people out about a potential future of automatically-driven cars.