The Advantages and Disadvantages of Talking to the Umpire
“I’ll tell you one thing I don’t like,” Sean Doolittle said as he grabbed his glove and jogged his way out of the clubhouse for stretch. “The hitters get to talk to the umpire and I don’t.”
You see it all the time, even if many hitters don’t want to talk about their conversations with the umpire. Muttering, head-shaking, even outright questions — “where was that?”. Occasionally you’ll even see demonstrative complaints that don’t result in the hitter being tossed, but do result in some aggressive stares and good old baseball posturing.
On the mound, it seems like the stakes are higher. Pitchers might be allowed a stare or aggressive body language, but if it escalates too quickly… Is Doolittle right? Do pitchers do get less leeway before they are warned or ejected? Or get to say less? They definitely don’t get to talk in close quarters with the person determining the balls and strikes, especially in the American League.
Brandon Phillips having a long conversation with home plate ump Laz Diaz.
— Zach Buchanan (@ZachENQ) June 4, 2016
You could see how a pitcher like Doolittle might get jealous of hitters having long conversations. Ask a hitter, and it’s more complicated.
“There’s a thing that sets baseball apart from other sports, and that’s the interaction you can have with an umpire,” Brian Dozier said before a game with the Athletics. He likes having that ability, simple enough.
Just last night, we saw Francisco Cervelli taking the right to converse with the umpire about as far as he could take it without being thrown from the game.
Another umpire might have ejected Cervelli there, actually. Which is relevant to our conversation. Should we find that position players are ejected less often than pitchers if they really have an advantage talking to the umpire at the plate?
| Type of Personnel | Ejections |
| Manager | 28 |
| Position Player | 27 |
| Pitcher | 11 |
| Coach | 7 |
You could read that both ways, without more information. We don’t know the reasons behind these ejections. Even if these were all ejections for arguing, we wouldn’t know how often both sides argued in total, or the ejection rate per conversation. In other words, maybe hitters get ejected more often because they think they can have longer more detailed conversations with the umpire about the strike zone, and that false sense of security gets them in trouble.
But it’s not true that pitchers get tossed more often for trying to manipulate the strike zone. Or tossed more often in general, at least.
Dozier wasn’t willing to concede that his ability to talk to the umpire as an advantage pitchers don’t have. “Don’t let Sean say that,” he laughed. “Because there are plenty of ways pitchers can interact with the umpire. Do it with looks, mannerisms, it definitely goes both ways.”
And there’s actually a third party to this situation, one that should have the pitcher’s back. John Baker, now with the Cubs, used to be a catcher in the big leagues.
“I tried to make the umpire my friend and help him keep a consistent strike zone,” Baker told me. “It is easier to get strikes called if you have someone that calls the same pitches consistently. The more rattled guys get the more inconsistent they become.”
The catcher should know the zone, really, and the pitcher could either ask him, have his catcher advocate for him, look for the strike zone on video in the clubhouse, or any combination of those things. If those things fail, he can still stare at the umpire.
After all, not all of the conversations at the plate are all that interesting, as Baker had it. Hitters should know why a pitch was a strike or a ball, what do they get from asking. “I always laughed when guys asked, ‘Where you got that?'” Baker said. “Um. They called it a strike so…. In the strike zone.”
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
If I were a manager, I’d never talk to the umpires (except for genuine rules interpretation questions) and fine/bench players for talking to the umpires. I’ve never seen any good come out of it.
I disagree. If an ump is calling an inconsistent zone, which is really all that matters, then I think it does need to be brought up to them.
@wildard09 I agree with you, there are times when the manager needs to talk (or more than talk) to the umpire. I think I agree with fredfotch, however, in that I would discourage my players from doing so. If my players feel like the zone is being called inconsistently, I want them to bring it to me in the dugout. I mean, how can a position player tell how the zone is being called between teams? They don’t have a consistent angle from which to judge it.
For the battery, I’d establish a signal for them to relay to me that they believe the zone is being called inconsistently, and I would establish two possible signals for me to give back: signal A, that I see what they’re seeing and will talk to the umpire about it, or signal B, that I’m not going to do anything about it at this time, either because I don’t see it, or I see it but I don’t think it’s egregious enough to have myself tossed. And, of course, I would take it upon myself to talk to the ump if it looks bad, even if the battery isn’t telling me otherwise.
At no point, however, would I think it’s appropriate for a player to talk to the umpire, because I don’t want to lose personnel or have the umps biased against my players for the remainder of the game. I am the liaison between the players and the umps, period. My players would have small fines for any words with an umpire, and huge fines for getting tossed.
Great piece again, Eno. I’d be curious to know what other players and umpires think of Miguel Cabrera’s demeanor and behavior at the plate. If he checks his swing, he ALWAYS points and asks for the 1st base umpire to rule (which would probably be interpreted as showing the umpire up if it was anyone but Miggy). I just wonder if other players feel he can get away with more or if his theatrics bother umpires at all.
Adrián Beltré has been pointing on check swings since at least his time with the Mariners. It’s never got him in trouble that I know of (other than the occasional time when a first base ump called a strike on him) and I don’t think anyone has ever accused him of “showing up the umpire” by doing it. I’ve seen other players do it too from time to time. I don’t think Cabrera is exceptional in this regard.
This behavior doesn’t seem to bother umpires on its own, though it appears that in 2015 at least, about 14% of ejections were (at least nominally) over checked swing calls (click on the “ejection reason” tab in the Tableau graphic to see this). Though as the author of that study notes, “it’s probably not the reason itself as much as the language the ejectee used to plead his case to the umpire.” While i can’t recall seeing a player ejected for pointing, I have seen them ejected for not pointing but arguing with the home plate ump over whether the 1st/3rd ump should have been the one to call a check swing, and that may be large part of those results.
Great info! Both Cabrera and Beltre are two of the most respected players in the game and surefire HoFers, so perhaps that allows them more leeway with umpires. If Manny Machado did this, I’m sure it would be more likely interpreted as “showing up the umpires”.
Maybe a silly question, but could the difference have to do with the ump’s proximity to the player in question? The pitcher being all the way on the mound might necessitate yelling or larger gestures, where the hitter can speak softly and more politely. If the umpire was positioned behind the mound, rather than behind the plate, would the pitchers be the ones with more leeway in talking to the umps?
I think the distance has something to do with it, but I also think that because hitters and catchers have to the ability to talk to the umpires with their backs turned, they are able to have discussions without necessarily showing the umpire up. This is impossible for pitchers, as everyone in the stadium can see it when they attempt to interact with an umpire.
Cervelli complains to the umpire more than any catcher I’ve ever seen, and just about always when he’s hitting. The umps don’t seem to hold it against him since his framing numbers are still great.
Don’t know much about Cervelli (I am a Mets fan).
I was watching this game from the image. Cervelli was not the only person to chirp at the ump. The Pirates felt like they were squeezed all game. There were at least 3 calls that I saw on the Mets hitters side that were bad enough to the naked eye that I looked at the MLB app for them.
Cervelli has a great eye and is usually right when complains to the ump. And yeah, that game had a bunch of bad calls.
Catchers are talking to umpires all day long one way or another. At some level they are doing the same job, which is why Cervelli got all that rope. Since catchers chat it up, hitters feel free to do it. Pitchers, on the other hand, are the aliens of baseball, and that’s just the right-handers. Additionally, pitchers are the most important people on the diamond by far, so umpires, who are worms anyway, don’t want to be challenged by one. Joe West is the worst.
I immediately saw this a different way. A batter only has a few minutes of interaction with the ump ever few innings. The pitcher is 10 to 15 minutes every inning. Given that – pitchers likely have a far higher likelihood of getting tossed I think.
Regardless, I hate in EVERY sport that ineptitude of referee’s is protected. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a deference, but I detest there isn’t more accountability both among individual players and performance. Where is the ability to toss a ref who continues to expand the zone 20% for one team but not the other?
Until we get robot umps on balls strikes (please God), MLB games could be much more entertaining if there a way to toss an ump mid-game. I suppose pistols are out though.
Not really. Maybe the STARTING pitcher, who throws 6 innings and therefore has a stake in an average of around 24 plate appearances, vs. any one individual hitter, who has maybe 4 or 5 plate appearances, that may be true. But overall, pitchers have a stake in the same number of plate appearances as all hitters, otherwise we’d have a hitter in the box and nobody to throw to him!
Also, maybe pitchers, being as far away as they are, are less likely to initiate any kind of confrontation to begin with, which lowers their likelihood of being ejected.
I think if you talk about ejecting umpires you’re talking about bringing the result of the game into question. MLB reviews umpire performance all the time. I’m fairly certain they are liable to be demoted to the minor leagues if their performance is deemed inadequate. Additionally, ejecting one umpire makes the job more difficult for the remaining three, and ejecting two umpires in a game isn’t really feasible.
First player I thought of was Daniel Murphy. He talks to the umps constantly. He asks about location on strikes AND balls.
I have never seen anyone do it as much as him, but I watched him on TV for several years.
Have you guys done an article that set out to prove whether or not MLB umpires are corrupt?
Wow, you guys are dickheads.
I know this isn’t completely what Dolittle was talking about, but after leaving in a recent start Aaron Blair went back out in-between half-innings to have a fairly lengthy conversation with the home plate ump-. Though they didn’t know for certain what was discussed, Don Sutton postulated (and he is usually pretty good at reading such situations in regards to pitchers) that he was likely asking what the ump needed to see different from Blair’s curve to call it a strike more often, as the game had seen quite a few close ones called for balls.
So the pitcher can still talk to the ump, but even then the hitter gets the advantage of doing so during the game rather than after being pulled from it (well, it’s an advantage if you believe those in-game conversations can have a positive effect on later parts of the game).
When I used to catch I talked to the umpires about the zone. I would ask if they’re up, down, etc. I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking about a guy’s zone. It’s never the same with each ump. Even though it should be.
I hate joe west