The Season’s Ball-iest Called Strikes, So Far
Just the other day, we went through the first half of the season’s strike-iest called balls, which were more or less called balls on pitches taken right down the middle. Those are always interesting to observe and analyze, but that idea also has a natural follow-up, which is what we’ll review here. Below, the first half of the season’s ball-iest called strikes, which are called strikes on pitches absolutely not taken right down the middle. Umpire mistakes are always frustrating for about half of the observers, and on the larger scale umpire mistakes are frustrating for everybody, but the purpose of these posts isn’t to lead you to your individual boiling points; rather, this is just about identifying and reflecting on curiosities. What you see below is weird! Never a bad time to look at weird.
I’m changing things up just a little bit. Instead of calculating distance from the center of the strike zone, I’ve calculated distance from the nearest point of the strike zone. I’ve also gone with Brooks Baseball’s corrected PITCHf/x pitch locations, instead of the raw PITCHf/x pitch locations, because I am taking this way too seriously. The top five? Four left-handed batters, as you’d expect. But one righty. One most unfortunate righty. Here now are the ball-iest called strikes of 2014.
5
Pitcher: Neal Cotts
Batter: Kyle Seager
Catcher: Chris Gimenez
Umpire: Jeff Kellogg
Date: May 21
Location: 9.1 inches to strike zone
It’s not surprising to see something like this on the first pitch to a left-handed batter. Gimenez isn’t well-known for his framing skills, mostly because he doesn’t possess consistently outstanding framing skills, but just as mediocre hitters can run into a dinger from time to time, mediocre receivers can run into an elite-level reception. Sometimes Jonathan Lucroy handcuffs himself, and sometimes Chris Gimenez squeezes and sells a slider a foot and a half from the heart of the plate. After the strike call, Seager stepped away and asked about the pitch, but he didn’t complain, despite the leverage of the circumstances. This is today’s reminder that Texas has an absolutely dreadful and unhelpful camera angle.
4
Pitcher: Jake Buchanan
Batter: James Loney
Catcher: Carlos Corporan
Umpire: Manny Gonzalez
Date: June 21
Location: 9.4 inches to strike zone
That’s one that you don’t see very often. This wasn’t so much a lefty strike as it was simply a low strike to a hitter with a taller zone. Loney understands his own zone pretty well, which is why he was so surprised to hear the call that he did. Someone in the last post remarked that his favorite thing about these sorts of calls is looking at the players’ responses, and you can see Loney pause in the batter’s box as soon as he hears that he’s behind in the count. It’s an un-aggressive protest on his part, and this makes me wonder if we can read into personality traits by observing how players respond to bad breaks. Loney doesn’t seem to have anger issues boiling right below the surface. A pitch later, in fact, he was joking around with Corporan, perhaps because Loney understand that his own team’s catchers do this to other teams’ batters a few times a game.
3
Pitcher: David Phelps
Batter: Mike Napoli
Catcher: Brian McCann
Umpire: Bob Davidson
Date: April 10
Location: 10.9 inches to strike zone
Napoli couldn’t believe it, mostly because Phelps’ slider crossed the front plane of home plate within his own batter’s box. I wouldn’t say the pitch was necessarily close to hitting Napoli, but I’m not sure it was any closer to the inner edge of the zone, so this is a hell of a way to be called out on strikes in the ninth inning of a rivalry game. McCann did a perfect job of catching the pitch, like usual. Phelps did a just about perfect job of hitting his spot. It was a good pitch executed properly, so you can understand why Bob Davidson was tempted to go in this direction, but we’re still talking about a pitch almost a foot inside. Calls like this are one of the reasons a lot of people can’t stand Davidson as an umpire. About that-
2
Pitcher: Jason Grilli
Batter: Emilio Bonifacio
Catcher: Russell Martin
Umpire: Bob Davidson
Date: April 2
Location: 11.4 inches to strike zone
There’s our man again. You could try to defend this by saying it’s a lefty strike, and lefty strikes aren’t unique to Bob Davidson, but this is an extreme lefty strike, and consider what’s going on. It’s a righty pitching to a lefty, and the pitch Grilli threw was a fastball, so it was even tailing away from Bonifacio as it approached the area of the plate. The pitch was caught on the border of the right-handed batter’s box, and not that this should necessarily matter, but the count when the call was made was 0-and-1, a count in which the average strike zone is somewhat smaller than usual. Yeah, Martin sold the pitch like he usually sells pitches, but it’s probably not a coincidence that we’ve seen Davidson here twice in a row. Bonifacio was visibly upset by being pushed a strike closer to the end of the game. Within moments, he’d single, and the next guy would single, and the game stretched to 16 innings before the Pirates walked off. In retrospect maybe Davidson was just trying to spare Bonifacio that misery. It was late on a cool Wednesday night. Who’d want to play six hours?
1
Pitcher: Lucas Harrell
Batter: Raul Ibanez
Catcher: Carlos Corporan
Umpire: Tom Hallion
Date: April 4
Location: 11.8 inches to strike zone
Seager stepped away and asked about the pitch. Loney froze in the batter’s box. Napoli turned around and argued. Bonifacio jerked his body around and stepped out in a huff. Ibanez did nothing. There was no sort of visible protest or disagreement, with Ibanez just taking the call and sweeping the line of the box with his foot. It’s cool, calm, professional behavior, like what’s always been expected out of Raul Ibanez, and there are reasons Ibanez is so widely, universally respected. Ibanez is always shown respect because Ibanez is always showing respect, even when circumstances aren’t breaking his way. This is an example of why Ibanez is considered such a positive role model, even though for all I know on the inside he was feeling kind of murder-y. That’s the thing about people — some people have better control of their emotions, and all we see is what happens on the outside. But I have to believe everyone’s some kind of crazy on the inside. Raul Ibanez is widely respected because he’s able to bottle up the crazy.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Incomplete.
What about Rodney’s ‘punching out’ of Nick Pinto to end the game between the A’s and M’s last weekend? A horrible called inside high ‘strike’, for which Pinto got ‘tossed’. Where was that pitch?
Not related, but it reminds me of one of the most ridiculous calls I’ve ever seen, partially due to circumstance.
I don’t remember the exact year, but it was 2008-2010, Dodgers vs. Angels. Matt Kemp is on second, Russell Martin batting with two outs, bottom of the ninth, Dodgers down by one. Martin gets a base hit, Matt Kemp is sure to score. Martin tries to advance to second on the throw to the plate, throw gets cut off and diverted to second, Martin is tagged and called out. It is ruled that Martin was tagged out before Kemp crossed the plate, meaning the bottom of the ninth ends with the Angels up by one and Matt Kemp frozen in time just feet from home. Martin is frustrated, throws his helmet, and the umpire tosses him from a game that just ended. I believe replay showed Martin wasn’t even out.
That Rodney pitch to Punto was actually a strike
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/numlocation.php?pitchSel=407845&game=gid_2014_07_11_oakmlb_seamlb_1/&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=4&league=mlb
Or at the very least, borderline enough that it could of gone either way, and Punto should have swung to protect…
It was a strike to someone, maybe, but not to a guy the size of Punto.
Where was that pitch? On the border, but in the zone.
That’s not Nick Punto’s strike zone. The pitch was two inches high, and probably a tiny bit inside, and that’s relative to the strike-zone rectangle, which doesn’t actually exist. The pitch was definitely close, but it was more of a ball than a strike, based on the rule book and based on how pitches are actually called in baseball.
Punto was bent over like he was Eddie Gaedel. It looked much worse than it was.
I would imagine the called third strike to Brad Miller would have a better chance of making this list then the Punto called third strike.
Are these really the ‘ball-iest called strikes’? Shouldn’t they really be the ‘balls-iest called strikes’?
*SPITS TOBACCO* Pitch framing is a under-valued catcher skill, dumbass! *SPITS TOBACCO*
Great article. Thanks a ton. I wish more (meaning all) broadcasts would show pitch trax. It helps me gauge whether I am right about whether or not there was a blown call. Also it seems that Davidson is known for making bad calls, is there any stats on Umpires? Balls and strikes and also plays that get overturned the most.
Ibanez was also standing on top of the plate. Relative to his body, it looks like it hit the corner, though it obviously didn’t.
Also, for all four left-handed batters, is the umpire not standing really far to his right from the plate? They are all standing at an angle that would make an outside pitch to a lefty look like a strike. Is this normal? Have I never noticed umpires doing this with left handed hitters at the plate before?
I’d love to know how much armside movement there was on that pitch to Ibanez. It looked like it broke really late, to the point where Corporan was barely able to get the heel of his glove on it, where it popped right into the pocket of the glove. So within a few hundredths of a second, the ball sailed from say 7 inches off the plate to about 11 inches off the plate to a spot in Corporan’s glove about 5 inches off the plate. Which still isn’t a strike, but now only looks half as wrong.
Maybe Hallion was trying to spare Ibanez some misery as well.
Raul Ibanez has been mistaken for a lot of things — a good defensive outfielder, in particular. But I don’t think he’s ever before this been mistaken for a Seager. There are even more brothers than we thought!
I don’t think you’re a good reader.
Since when is litercy importnt to bein the bet second basman in majr league histry?
Anyone else noticed the pitch track on napoli one (#3) that to me was the best part, seeing the pitch almost outside of the tracker and still a called strike.
In that still GIF, McCann looks exactly like I look sitting in a middle airplane seat between two other 230-pound men.
Except for the catcher’s gear.
Ballsy article Sullivan.
Is it just a coincidence that when I click on Bob Davidson’s name, it turns out he used to pitch for the Yankees?
Yes
Raul Ibanez is too old to get upset. All of his feelings of anger and hatred long ago waned. Now, only a deepseated despair and minor case of apathy are what remain in his world.
That’s not James Loney, thanks.
Man Bob Davidson taking it on the chin, ouch!
I guess we shouldn’t be trusting the UPMC Sports Medicine Strike Zone.
That was my main reaction to this article also. Good lord.
I did the same thing at first, but Jeff said that this pitch was with an 0-1 count. So that must’ve been the previous (first) pitch shown in the UPMC zone.
Honestly I’m a bit surprised that this was as bad as it got. From my perspective of the perspective of the videos the “strike” to Napoli was the most horrific.
That one is particularly dreadful because Davidson was lined up on the inside corner of the plate.
This article is mostly bogus for a very simple reason. The videos and screen grabs show the ball as it hits the catcher’s mitt, not as it passes the invisible plane of the strike zone.
Example 2 proves my point. Author claims the pitch was “Location: 11.4 inches to strike zone.” But look at the screen grab below the gif. Notice anything? To the right of where you see the ball in the catcher’s mitt, there’s a box showing the strike zone. Please note that the electronic system registered a strike on the outside half of the zone.
How is an electronically measured borderline strike 11.4 inches outside? Answer: it isn’t. Pitchers throw the ball at an angle to the plate, so the catcher often catches the ball outside the zone, even when it’s a strike.
I’m not saying umps don’t blow calls, but doing screen grabs of the ball in the catcher’s mitt doesn’t prove anything. Show us the Pitch FX or other electronic measurement. Epic fail on evidence.