TBS, Please Fix Your Strike Zone Graphic
The playoffs have been a bit of a roller coaster so far. The postseason started off with dominating pitching performances from aces on the road, but then yesterday, the four games were mostly slugfests, with batters obliterating the “good pitching always beats good hitting” mantra. We’ve seen teams win with speed, power, pitching, defense, and sometimes just good luck; the games have been wildly different and wildly entertaining.
But if there’s been one consistent theme on a nightly basis, it’s been that fans of of the Cubs, Cardinals, Mets, and/or Dodgers have felt like they were getting absolutely screwed by the home plate umpires strike zone. During nearly every game of the two NLDS series, Twitter has lit up with complaints from fans who think the zone is far too wide to both sides of the plate. Now, you might say Twitter is a platform built on getting people to give knee-jerk reactions in real-time without considering the accuracy of their comments, and I’d agree with you, but the differences in number of complaints between the zones in the ALDS and NLDS have been very obvious.
And that’s because the ALDS games have been broadcast on Fox Sports 1 or MLB Network, while the NLDS games have been broadcast by TBS. And, for whatever reason, the visual box that TBS has chosen to represent the strike zone during their broadcasts is ridiculously small.
Let’s compare and contrast some pitches, showing where TBS put them in their strike zone box, versus where they are in strike zone boxes used here and on Brooks Baseball. Let’s start with Friday night’s Mets/Dodgers game, where the two starting pitchers combined for 24 strikeouts, and Alan Porter was accused of aiding and abetting a game where the two offenses had no chance. For instance, here’s Clayton Kershaw striking David Wright on an 0-2 slider in the third inning.
And here’s a freeze frame of the moment the ball is caught.
Look where TBS says that pitch is: way off the plate, no where close the zone. According to their pitch tracker, Porter screwed Wright and the Mets with a garbage strike three call.
Now, here’s where that pitch is on the Brooks Baseball plot, which overlays the PITCHF/x data onto the rule book strike zone, but also includes the shaded portion around the edges showing the areas where umpires generally call strikes during the season.
And here’s where that pitch was located on our strike zone map on the win probability page; instead of shading, our box includes the areas where umpires typically call strikes.
There’s no question that it’s a borderline pitch — you can see two other pitches in similar areas were called balls in the same game — and in an 0-2 count, when the strike zone shrinks in size the most dramatically, that pitch is called a ball more often than a strike. But it is within the range of where umpires generally call strikes. You can argue that it’s a toss-up call that went against the Mets, especially given the specific count, but TBS’ graphics package makes it look like an egregious miss by Alan Porter. It wasn’t; it was a pitch just off the outside that is called a strike in MLB with a decent amount of frequency.
And look at the rest of the pitches in those plots. This was not only not an extremely wide strike zone, as everyone on Twitter believed while watching the game with the influence of TBS’ strike zone box, it was actually a pretty narrow zone by MLB standards. Notice the black dots on the left-hand side of the map; those are called balls in the “lefty strike” area, as Porter did not really give pitchers too much off the plate against left-handed hitters.
Let’s take a look at another example, this one from the Cubs/Cardinals series. John Lackey dominated the Cubs, and they believed that Phil Cuzzi’s ridiculously wide strike zone was part of the reason. On ESPN, Jesse Rogers wrote about the team was hampered by a “wide strike zone” in the headline of his game recap, and Cubs fans on Twitter were livid with Cuzzi both that night and the next day. Here’s an example of one of the calls that they particularly didn’t like, with Chris Coghlan getting rung up on a fastball away.
Again, freeze-framed for when TBS’ graphic shows where they think the ball was.
And here’s where that pitch were on Brooks’ map.
And where that pitch is on our strike zone map.
Again, this pitch is at the very edge of the lefty strike range, and with two strikes, you’re not going to see that called that often. It’s a marginal strike call that went against the hitter, and the Cubs have some legitimate grips about that pitch being called strike three. But TBS’ graphic makes you think that the pitch was a foot outside, a ridiculous call that is completely unjustifiable.
When you look at the map of Cuzzi’s calls for the whole game, you see that a Cardinals batter did indeed take a pitch as far off the plate, and it was called a ball, so yes, the extreme lefty strike went against the Cubs once and didn’t go against the Cardinals, which is unfortunate and unfair. But Cuzzi’s strike zone wasn’t really abnormally wide, given what MLB umpires call strikes nowadays.
Jon Roegele just published a look at the 2015 called strike zone, showing that the zone grew slightly again this year, and the zone continues to be much wider than the rulebook zone. TBS, for some reason, has decided to build their strike zone graphic on the rulebook zone, which hasn’t been particularly close to the actual strike zone called by MLB umpires in probably close to a decade. ESPN, Fox, MLB Network — channels that broadcast baseball games with regularity, it should be noted — all have strike zone graphics that represent the modern-day reality of the fact that the zone is just larger than the rulebook states, and so, when you’re watching games on those channels, the overlay on TV matches up with what the umpire actually calls.
TBS is the outlier here; their box is tiny. Even on pitches basically down the middle, the very small size of their graphic makes it look like a hitter pulled a pitch on the outside corner. The box is simply deceiving, and does not reflect the reality of what either umpires or players should be expecting in terms of called balls and called strikes.
If we wanted to give them the utmost benefit of the doubt, maybe TBS is trying to draw attention to the fact that umpires don’t call the rulebook strike zone anymore. Maybe they’re trying to shame MLB into getting the strike zone back to a smaller size in order to get more offense in the game. Maybe the guys at TBS really like dingers, and this is their plan to bring back 10-8 slugfests.
More likely, they just drew the rulebook zone because, hey, it’s the rulebook. But in 2015, it just doesn’t make sense to have a broadcaster showing an outdated and unused strike zone graphic that convinces fans of both teams that they’re getting screwed by umpires who are just calling the same pitches they have been all year. Quoting the conclusion of that piece from FiveThirtyEight:
Because MLB bases its postseason crew assignments on merit, we might expect the playoff umpires to have a better accuracy rate than the overall regular-season average. But as my Grantland colleague Ben Lindbergh noted last year, since 2009 there’s been essentially no difference in strike-zone accuracy between regular-season and postseason games. So although it would be nice if the strike zone were being called more precisely in the playoffs, the umpires’ execution so far is almost exactly what we’d expect based on their performance during the regular season.
TBS, please do us all a favor and draw your strike zone graphic to represent the 2015 strike zone before the NLCS starts. I’d like to enjoy those games for the spectacle of watching some of baseball’s best clubs match up without having every game turn into a contest of fans angry that umpires aren’t calling a strike zone that hasn’t existed in years. It’s 2015; let’s show a graphic that represents the the 2015 strike zone.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
At least you aren’t forced to view the entire game with the strike zone outlined in front of the catcher. That, sir, is insufferable.
As for the TBS zone, their interns probably just need a bigger screen before clicking on where they think the pitch was.
I was expecting to see some egregiously wrong strike zone, one that simply did not comport to the dimensions of the plate or the batter. Instead what you showed is simply that TBS is showing the actual rule book strikezone instead of the hopelessly flawed one umpires actually call. TBS’s zone isn’t wrong. It’s just not communicating what you want it to.
If they’re going to go away from the rulebook strike zone and instead show the equivilent of a 50% probability border, they should probably customize the graphic for each umpire. The graphic should be wider on the outer edge of the plate for lefties. It be an oval instead of a rectangle. And so on. Are you arguing for that? Because you should — otherwise the casual fan is going to be quite confused when the “strike zone” is suddenly defined as “whatever this umpire likes to call as a strike, but squared off so it looks official”.
If you would prefer a graphic based on what typically gets called a strike instead of what should be called a strike, that’s fine. But simply say you want a graphic that does a different thing; don’t claim that TBS’s graphic is wrong or flawed.
The fact that TBS isn’t following the other networks’ lead isn’t really the problem here.
The deepest problem here is that MLB umpires call the strikezone wrong. Another problem is that most networks use on-screen graphics that are somewhere between the rectangular rulebook strikezone and the vague amoeba-shaped called strikezone. Another problem is that fans get confused by these strikezone graphics because the networks never indicate what these graphics represents.
I have to agree. For the vast majority of viewers, the strike zone IS what is defined by the rule book. If anything, watching the TBS graphics might help the average fan grasp that the strike zone being called is larger than the “pure” rule book dimensions.
Agree 100% with RMR….TBS isn’t doing anything “wrong”, they simply created a graphic that is based on the textbook definition of the strike zone – i.e. what should be called. If anything, they are doing a helluva job with making a point for automated balls & strikes…to suggest that they should change their graphic to fit the “called strike zone” is lazy…I understand the point you want to make, but that is akin to saying well everybody drives drunk, so let’s change the law – instead of enforcing it…automated ball/strike calls needs to happen and these playoff games are driving that point home…
Great analogy!
I can’t believe this article is an actual thing on FG…
I think jaywalking is a better analogy than drunk driving. Drunk driving laws have a moral component that is not in play here. It is hard to advocate that everyone drives drunk as most certainly everyone does not, while umpires actually do call a lot of strikes outside the rulebook zone.
Your type of analogy is common on the internet. It doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and is crass, extreme, and lazy at the expense of an argument that could be defended rationally and without reference to an emotional hot button issue like drunk driving.
Not that you asked for volunteers… but I’ll argue for a “strike zone” graphic that includes:
1) Rulebook strike zone – smallish rectangle, higher than what’s being called now
2) Co-centric ovals (or other less regular shape) indicating “typical” strike zone, but not as an absolute. This might get cluttered, but perhaps:
* a solid 95% oval (indicating pitches within are “always a strike”),
* a fuzzy 50% shape for “could go either way”, and
* a 5% shape for which pitches on this line are only strikes 1/20th of the time.
Hopefully the ovals would change for lefties & righties (& maybe even change by count). We have the data, they should use it.
Of course, this should NOT be placed on top of the catcher, but should be in the corner of the screen.
My suggesting would be the rulebook zone with the typical called zone as a fuzzy line around it. Basically what Brooks Baseball does. It’s pretty simple.
Thank you, could not agree more. Maybe the headline should read, “MLB please fix your strike zone”
“Major League Baseball’s Strike Zone, Very Funny”
The MLB ‘strike zone’ was 1972 through 1995
I agree. A lot of people have been asking for robot umpires. I assume the robot umpire would be calling the TBS strike zone. So isn’t that what people are hoping to see?
I’m all for robot umpires, as long as MLB programs in experience/age bias, situational awareness, fuzziness for unwritten rules, and voice recognition with japanese, korean, dutch, german (Kepler!#?), chinese, spanish, and english vocabularies. You can’t have a proper ump show if the robot doesn’t understand the concept of insults!
Very well said! I can’t believe we accept, let alone advocate using a completely arbitrary strike zone. For as much as our community tries to move away from observation and “baseball instinct” and move towards empirical data, one May think we would be leading the fight to correct the zone. Instead we’re trying to lambast the ONLY station doing it correct? We want a station to make up their own strike zone and further perpetuate the problem amongst millions and millions of viewers? What the heck is happening here? I feel like I’m on crazy pills…
Kudos TBS.
The TBS strikezone is still too small.
Look at the Kershaw example in the first frame; the TBS zone has him a full radian (half-plate) outside of the zone. Compare that to the rulebook zone in Brooks baseball. Still outside, but only by about a couple of inches. The ? between the two spots is probably in the range of 8 inches.
Why don’t the major broadcasters use the over the top camera view?
I know Busch Stadium has the direct over the top view, and its local affiliate (Fox Sports Midwest) uses it. This gives a far more accurate view (albeit farther away) of the pitch movement, strike / ball, and (best of all) the most accurate view for accurate arm-chair umpiring.
Reference: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ranking-baseballs-center-field-camera-shots-2015-update/
Yeah it was really annoying for the Cubs-Pirates game as it was way off center
Hear hear
Maybe they think viewers don’t notice or care about the difference?
The tracker also doesn’t seem to distinguish between pitches right off the plate and way out of the zone. You’ll have two different balls right next to each other on the graphic when they should be far apart. There are calibration issues in addition to the graphic’s zone size.
Rogers Sportsnet (Jays broadcaster) has a similarly terrible graphic in my experience. A pitch will be a couple inches off the plate and the RSN pitch tracker shows it almost in the other batters box.
Probably why Jays fans do nothing but complain about balls and strikes all game.
By similarly terrible, do you mean similarly correct and true to the intentions of the game? Nice Rogers!!
Very good article.
I was confused at first because the things being contrasted (the Brooks maps and the broadcast freeze-frames) have reversed perspectives, but I figured it out.
Isn’t showing where the catcher ultimately catches the ball as evidence of the inaccuracy of the TBS strike zone misleading? A strike is (ostensibly) based on where the pitch crosses the plate, not where it ends up in the catcher’s glove.
Having said that, the TBS strike zone has seemed abnormally small all post-season.
Disagree. The other stations are abnormally big. Just because others are doing it doesn’t make the observation correct. The rule book is the authority. Period. If we aren’t going to follow it, why have it?
For instance… If I join the Lakers, I am not abnormally short – the rest of the team is abnormally tall.
You are abnormally short in the context of the situation though (IE: the NBA)
Ahh. True. Not the best analogy. I’m kinda short anyways 🙂
The point remains – just because other are or are not something, or are or are not doing something, does not mean the outlier is incorrect. Especially if everyone else is wrong – a large mass of people doing wrong should not be confused with a new standard or with doing it correct!
Haha exactly this. In the context of “the strikezone everyone calls and MLB enforces”, the rulebook strikezone (and TBS’s strikezone) is wrong/misleading.
They can’t be abnormally big when 99% of them, which pretty much defines “normal,” are that size
I can’t even begin to imagine what the comments would be like if they had this for game 2 of the Jays-Rangers ALDS. I think we can all agree it is, without question, the worst umpired game of the playoffs so far.
yes. It didn’t necessarily favor one team over the other but it was horrible.
This was an issue in the Yankees/Astros game too. The article here wrote off all the strike zone complaints using charts like the ones shown here, but the strike zone shown on TV was certainly smaller than the charts here showed.
You didn’t even mention what seems to be the worst part of their zone graphic: they show pitches that are right at the bottom of the zone as being 6 inches below. This was incredibly consistent all night during the game I watched.
I followed yesterday’s Royals-Astros game on ESPN Gamecast and noticed some pretty big discrepancies on balls and strikes toward the end of the game. I felt like KC got some calls they shouldn’t have ball wise but they also kept giving the Astros gifts by swinging at pitches seemingly at everything they shouldn’t have. Does the data back that up?
Yeah, that was a questionably called game I thought. Both teams seemed to get some pretty generous calls. Mostly on the low strike it seemed. The one that struck out Escobar to end the rally in the 8th was almost at his shoulders though.
I havent looked at the data either so it could be my own bias.
Why can’t these strike zone plots actually show a graphic/outline of the actual size of a baseball, scaled to the actual size of the strike zone? All of a sudden, all of those pitches which, with those little squares and triangles appear to be definite balls become much more borderline. A baseball is almost 3 inches wide, not the 1/2 inch graphics in question.
Great question..
Thank you! This has been driving me nuts for years on the Brooks Baseball plots.
Sorry, Dave, but when the graphic shows that the umps are wrong, the only conclusion to draw is that the umps are wrong. You want them to replace the objective strike zone with the practiced strike zone, which any kind of real analysis would show varies with the umpire. Should the strike-zone box change daily?
Bad umpiring leads to bad baseball, and that’s what we’re watching because that’s how they call balls and strikes. When a pitch four inches outside is strike one, the entire at-bat is affected.
In this field, the replacement of humans by robots can’t come fast enough.
Exactly!
Yeah, exactly.
Still better than umpires.
The part of this that critiques TBS’s ill-considered graphic and points out how it’s led to many fan misperceptions seems entirely reasonable and useful to me, but the later part that goes on to present Brooks’s and FanGraphs’ rectangles as if they were the obvious only empirically correct strike zone graphics to display is utterly tendentious. Here are some counterarguments that this piece doesn’t address adequately at all:
1. The best available approximation of the rulebook strike zone is, on the face of it, a reasonable thing for a TV graphic to display. Indeed, in a way it’s far weirder and less accurate to take a pure-descriptivist strike zone and then munge it into a rectangle shape again, or to show fans an unjustifiably rectangle-shaped compromise between the rulebook and the average umpire.
2. None of these graphic rectangles is actually all that accurate — EITHER to the rulebook strike zone or to the actual strike zone likely to be called. The former is constantly changing from pitch to pitch and moment to moment at both the top and bottom (depending on the batter’s stance at the moment the pitch crosses the plate), which none of the graphics ever even tries to account for. The latter is dependent not on the average umpire but on the individual umpire, and probably also on the handedness of the pitcher and batter and the individual pitch type and movement, AND it’s not even remotely rectangular most of the time so it’s unreasonable to force it into a rectangle.
3. What the complaint is really about, then, is the mutually incompatible nature of the various compromise rectangles. The point here should be not some ideal of accuracy — all of these graphics are pretty bad at that, and your is too, FanGraphs, don’t let’s be too parochial to admit it — but rather that one TV network has adopted a very different standard from the emergent common usage.
I thought the MLB Network strikezone (that they only show during replays of close calls) was worse. That one distinctly gave me the impression that they had access to the umpire’s neural network and was showing where the umpire ‘thought’ the pitch was.
This is a wonderful article. Thanks for writing it.
My only point is that I like watching baseball without any box. Just plain is fine for me.
ESPN draws the box on the catcher, which is far more annoying. I prefer a wrong TBS box to the annoying ESPN box that I can’t even see the play regularly.
THIS! I don’t really care where the ball *really* was or what it *should have been called; doesn’t matter if it is dead-center over the heart of the plate and the ump inexplicably calls it a ball, or if it’s 4 feet wide and the ump calls it a ball. The end result – the count – is 1-0 regardless.
Tangential point about on-screen graphics: TBS has the best timing with how they update the little score rectangle in the top left corner of the screen.
I’ve been watching the Cubs all season long and CSN Chicago (I think) will change the mini-score to reflect what the situation will be after all the runners plus the batter come around to score as soon as the ball goes over the wall. Sometimes a batter will hit a home run with two men on and his team will get three runs, with the bases cleared, before he is even finished jogging to first base.
It feels like it’s being done that way with more and more stations. And if you’re just tuning in, and a home run has just happened, you find yourself seeing a surprising score and then as someone touches home plate, that score isn’t incremented, because it was done while that runner was perhaps 270 feet from home.
TBS, refreshingly, updates the score as the batter or runner touches the plate, which is the only sensible way to do it. I prefer their rulebook strike zone and I prefer their perfectly-timed scoreboard updates.
It has been a long time since I have watched baseball on US television — has this situation been discussed or debated before?
I don’t get the people trolling in the comments here. TBS’s graphic is at-best confusing, and the popular opinion is certainly that it’s wrong. Your graphic should correlate with what’s happening in the game. The broadcasters have also been confused by it on occasion, though I think they’re learning to just not mention it.
Re: Cuzzi, some if the high strikes were a bit egregious, and Lackey was the only one going up there it seemed.
Don’t be silly. No one is “trolling” here. People disagree with you, that’s all. (I mean, I am totally in agreement that TBS’s graphic is badly done and confuses fans unnecessarily, but there are obvious reasons why people here are going to argue in favor of a graphic that tries to stay true to the letter of the rulebook.)
Responding here, rather than to each individual:
The current called strike zone — the one that is much larger than the rulebook strike zone — is the one MLB has created and enforced. These calls are not the result of the umpires making mistakes; these calls are a response to the league’s instructions and feedback to these umpires. They’re not incompetent idiots who can’t see or have decided to become the center of attention; they are the best in the world at what they do, following instruction from the league on what the sport wants to be called balls and strikes.
They are graded and evaluated after every game, and receive feedback from the league on the accuracy of their calls. The strike zone that exists today is the direct result of MLB dictating these calls to the umpires. The rulebook strike zone is not the strike zone of record. It’s been replaced by MLB, and the umpires are calling the zone that the league wants enforced.
I’m completely on board with pushing the league to adjust the zone and shrink it back down, but the way to get there is not to pretend that the problem is the umpires themselves, and make them scapegoats for the league’s directions. It does no good to have a broadcast convince the average fan that the umpires are incompetent and need to be replaced by robots, when the umpires are actually quite good at their jobs, and are simply following orders.
The TBS strike zone is based on outdated dimensions that don’t reflect what the league, the umpires, or the players should expect called strikes to be. It’s misleading and useless. It might be the strike zone you want to exist, but it’s not the one that actually exists, and there’s no value to be had in using it to shame umpires who are actually doing a very good job.
I’m a little confused, and I may be comparing apples to oranges, so forgive me. Here, you’re saying that practice doesn’t conform with that of the rules, so TBS needs to adapt instead of adhering to what is outlined in the rulebook.
Yet the other day, in your piece on JABO regarding Utley’s slide, practice also does not conform to the rules (namely, a runner can’t deliberately take out a defender, yet baseball has allowed this to happen for years), so a rule change is needed.
The circumstances of both are different, absolutely (people can’t necessarily get hurt from a larger strike zone), but why should we defy the rulebook in one instance while enforcing it in another?
No, he’s actually trying to deflect blame away from where it should be. Umpires are extremely good and extremely consistent in how they call the width of the zone, and it’s the zone they’ve been trained to call. This graphic makes them LOOK incompetent when they are, in fact, HIGHLY competent.
Rather than the umpires being at fault here, it’s the league. Or else it’s the text of the rulebook, which could be updated to meet with practices that the league is enforcing.
It’s the same with the Chase Utley situation. The umpires are trained not to call that interference based on the situation. But the LEAGUE needs to take action to change that. Umpires did not act wrong there, the established practice of the league is wrong.
When MLB releases an official statement that they WANT pitches clearly not over the plate to be called strikes, and that they WANT that imbalance to be more pronounced off the plate outside to lefties, and that they WANT hugely different zones by count, then I’ll take your position seriously. Until then, the only conclusions are 1) umps are terrible at calling balls and strikes by location (which is obviously true regardless of what you draw as the zone) and really think those pitches are on the plate, 2) MLB is incompetent at incentivizing correct calls, 3) both.
The idea that MLB would let its umpires get lambasted repeatedly for correctly following orders is either 1) laughable apologist nonsense 2) conclusive evidence that Manfred has absolutely no balls.
I’m 100% for robot umps to get every call correct, but if you want to call all umps terrible for missing some calls you might as well call Mike Trout terrible for not batting 1.000.
To agree with Dave: TBS isn’t going to singlehandedly cause MLB to change how it wants the strike zone called, nor is viewer outrage at umpires from watching the TBS zone going to change it indirectly. Practically speaking, there are tools which provide TBS with an idea of how the strike zone looks in 2015, so it is not a fool’s errand to run something other than the rulebook zone.
Frankly, the TBS zone is just giving viewers an impression that the zone is both inconsistent (when it seems to show a great distance between two rather close pitches) and bad (when pitches that look way out of the zone are called strikes). No one is helped by this, and it only increases some sense of victimization on the part of viewers while also perpetuating/creating a lack of knowledge of how the zone works in 2015. Having a feeling that the game is not being called fairly — when it is, if it is being called differently from the rulebook — does not improve my engagement with baseball, nor can I imagine it does the same for others.
Dave, thanks for clarifying your stance. Basically, the dispute here is a lot like a debate about how a traffic reporter would state travel times with smooth-flowing traffic; your options are:
a) Estimate the time based upon the distance and the legal speed limit.
b) Estimate the time based upon the distance and the actual average speed of the cars (which is say 5-10 MPH over the posted speed limit).
Or, this is like the difference between the “book” value of an asset vs. its fair-market value. In any event, I’m agnostic to how it’s being shown, as long as whoever’s doing it is willing to make it clear what option they’re showing (by the book or real-life).
Another relevant point here is that critics of these umpires are using these calls as evidence of bias from the umpires. “Our team got screwed by the umpire and that’s why our team lost the game.” At most, it’s support for the opinion that the rulebook strike zone should be called. It’s not bias if he’s making calls that every umpire makes every day.
they are the best in the world at what they do
Yeah, it’s a really competitive industry when no one ever ever ever gets fired for incompetence
I don’t buy Dave’s reply at all.
First, if MLB actually wants the zone to be called the way umps are calling it in practice, they should say so explicitly. They would let teams know that they’ve instructed umpires to expand the zone on 3-0 counts and shrink it on 0-2 counts. They would let LHBs know that they have to deal with a wider outside corner. Etc. Of course MLB isn’t doing this and I have a hard time believing Dave actually thinks so. Do we really think umps call a wider outside corner against LHBs because MLB has incentivized them to and umps are cocapable and competent and amazing that they’re responding to that incentive? Or is it maybe because of the line of sight umps get when they set up behind the catcher? Come on.
Second, I thought the post was about how various networks show the zone. If that’s what we’re discussing, I don’t see why the approach of taking the “zone as it’s called in practice” and then butchering it by rectangularizing it anyways (not to mention not adjusting it for handedness/count/individual ump/etc.) is better than what TBS is doing.
I can see the argument of “the rule book zone isn’t relevant anymore because no one calls it that way,” even if I might counter “why even have it and not change/remove it then?”, but I don’t support the conclusion that the other networks are somehow superior to TBS because of their handling of the matter.
Not to mention that the zone has changed from year to year, as has been written about extensively, getting lower and larger. Do we really think MLB is explicitly instructing umpires to keep doing this? Even as Manfred claims to want to do something about the decline of offense? The trend continued this year, btw….
Thank you Dave! It needed to be said!
That the TBS strike zone is by the rules and thereby incorrect? The bigger issue here to me is consitency. His own plots show how inconsistent the umpires calls were on these borderline pitches. When TBS shows two balls, thrown in the same place, both out of the zone with one called a strike and the other a ball, I think there’s a big problem there. I think most baseball fans would agree that an umpire calling a strike slightly out of the zone is OK as long as it’s consistent.
The scale is way off on the TBS strike zone graphic, and this should be fixed.
The size of the ball is relatively giant when compared to that of the strike zone.
Ignoring one’s opinion on having a graphic shown on top of the catcher, I think the ESPN execution makes for a pretty natural viewing experience and seems more accurate than the TBS graphic. I think it is well done.
I’ll take TBS’ misleading graphic over the complete absence of any real time plot on Fox and MLBN (not to mention the rapidly aging YES Network, now owned by Fox).
For one, shouldn’t TBS be lauded for this, MLB wants to play the strum of offense being sapped due to steroids yet the k zone is an enormous part of the offensive dive. The MLB should strive to make their guys do their job correctly and the TBS zone being called would be best for the game
Secondly, this has nothing to do with zone discrepancy which should by definition be the rub, the NLDS game 3 zone HEAVILY favors the Cubs and I haven’t looked at the Game 1 charts from Brooks but I would think they HEAVILY favor the Cardinals. These things being true in a playoff game is insulting to the fans and troublesome to the merit of competition
they could shows us the overhead/side angle where the ball passes/crosses the plate. without that evidence, all the close calls or situational calls are suspect to gripe about. even theses boxes.
That Kershaw pitch might have caught a piece of the zone considering the trajectory and the (apparent) inward break.
If we’re going to insist on the “rulebook” zone that means insisting on a 3D zone, not a 2D projection. If we’re okay with a 2D projection then we can’t get picky about it being the “rulebook” 2D projection, because the “rulebook” 2D projection (a) doesn’t exist, and (b) is (by construction) going to be miss some pitches around the edges that cross the 3D rulebook zone but just not at the front of the plate.
To be perfectly frank, I think TBS is right on, and the other networks need to change their strike zones to reflect the rulebook. It’s a inconvenient truth that the umpires don’t call the strike zone according to the rules. It would be lovely if we could all ignore it and pretend that the zone the umpires call is the correct one, but that’s not reality. The fact that they call an incorrect zone should be getting more attention, not less, until this correctable problem has been fixed.
I understand the desire to see MLB called out for what they’ve done to the strike zone, but why is that the job of the networks broadcasting their games? This is the job of Fangraphs and other observers not the parties involved in delivering the games to the viewing audience. What if the umpires were calling the rulebook strike zone but these networks decided that more runs would increase viewership so, on their own, they shrunk the graphic in order to effect the same change you’re looking for here?
These networks’ job is to deliver the games to us so that we can enjoy them, not to try to change baseball’s rules by deceiving us.
Where the production team places the graphic has no bearing on fairness or accuracy in the game. The only thing that matters is the umpire having the same understanding of the strike zone as the batter and pitcher. Of more importance and unmentioned so far, is the umpire’s sightline and consistency of same. Notice where the umpire places his head in relation to the rulebook zone. What are the umpires taught in that regard?
The point is that the contrast between called strike zone and the broadcast strike zone graphic are not at all consistent and is leading to mass confusion and displeasure.
It goes without saying that the strike zone posted on TV does not affect the playing of the game on-field.
As many of the commenters on this post have said, I personally prefer the TBS Strike Zone. But as passionate about sports as I am (I’m a cubs fan incidentally), I feel I am very much an outlier in that I generally assume umpires/referees are impartial and it takes a lot in a game for me to part from that opinion. As a college student I’ve been watching these playoff games with several other people, and honestly at this point I wish TBS would heed this writer’s advice. So many fans see pitches outside of the zone called strikes when their team is batting, and totally forget the equal proportion of times those are called the other way. I don’t like having to hear opposing fans complain that the umps were biased against them, but it is absolutely grating to my mental state to have to hear fans of my Cubs bitch and moan all game long about how the umps are totally out to get us. Just my thought, but if fan victimhood didn’t exist, I’d be all in favor of the way TBS does things.
NO, NO and again NOOOOO!!!!. The strike zone should be what is the official strike zone and not what is generally called which includes the MISSES . The goal is the official strike zone, and that is what TBS should show and why nobody bothers to look at FG zone plot. At least Brooks Baseball shows both.
If MLB and their enablers what to increase the zone, let them do it officially and not be deceiving fans with a FALSE strike zone plot
That’s kinda what Dave’s arguing. The strike zone, as is, is called extremely consistently. Umpires are doing a good job. The league has essentially mandated, through training and umpire report cards, the current state of the strike zone. Putting up a plot that is different than what umpires are trained to call is making the umpires look bad.
Heck, let’s shift this paradigm.
Let’s just imagine that the umpires, without telling anyone, suddenly started calling the strike zone exactly as depicted on TBS. And we had the TBS plot up there to show it. They wouldn’t look wrong. The people who WOULD look wrong are the players.
That’s ridiculously unfair to the pitchers. Suddenly, a large percentage (maybe 20%?) of pitches that they throw in the currently-defined edges of the zone aren’t getting called strikes. It would essentially be making a rule change at the start of the game without informing the players. It would be like Eric Gregg in the 1997 NLCS all over again.
The graphic should be an accurate representation of the width of home plate. The vertical plane is obviously trick, but the horizontal is a no-brainer.
My issue with TBS has been too many very inaccurate pitch locates.
My issue with the umps is inconsistent strike calls, which is completely separate from the TBS issue.
Why is the TBS strike-zone graphic highlighted light at the top of the box, and dark at the bottom, with a curved separating line? Most confusing with nary an expanation! Thanks
I get where this coming from, but it seems misplaced.
If you’re saying TBS should use the zone that umpires actually call in gameplay, should they also then:
– Use a non-rectangular zone, since in practice umpires call a zone with rounded corners?
– Use different dimensions based on the handedness of the batter, since the outside corner gets called wider for lefties?
– Use different dimensions per umpire, since different umps have different zones?
– Use different dimensions based on the count, since the way the umps call the zone changes based on count?
– etc.
???
How about instead, we focus on *the rules* and whether or not they’re being enforced correctly?
Use a computer to call balls and strikes.
MLB, please fix/purge your incompetent strike zone apostates (aka umpires).
I don’t need to see that graphic on the screen continuously but I missed it on FOX even on close pitches. It is easy to get used to if it doesn’t get in the way but I’m kinda addicted to it. Inquiring eyes must know!
If this is what MLB wants, why are they not willing to say so? Having one strike zone in the rule book and a different one secret to the public is the very definition of a conspiracy (and I am not a big believer in conspiracies).
I see no reason for TBS or any other network to support MLB’s hidden agenda (whatever that might be). It’s one thing for Fangraphs to publish charts saying “This is the area called a strike in MLB”. That’s reporting the facts. It’s another thing for a network to put up a strike zone that is not defined by the rules or acknowledged by MLB.
You say is it useless to display the rule book strike zone, but if all the networks did it, there would be even more complaints about the calls and MLB might feel pressured to say something about it. If umpires are only calling the strike zone directed by MLB, it’s too bad if they get blamed, but they are cooperating in a covert effort to subvert the rules.
TBS’ strike zone differs from the one shown by mlb.tv’s PitchFX widget. Nor is the disagreement linear: it increases with the distance from the center of the zone. This suggests to me that the explanation is not TBS’ agenda to promote the ‘rulebook’ strike zone, but simple technical incompetence.
Another fix…At the bottom graphic showing the score there is “NYM Leads Serious 2-0 in capital letters that remains there the whole game. Give me a break…This is design 101. Replace it content that reflects the dynamics of the game. Perhaps move pitch count there.