The Season’s Five Worst Called Balls
Baseball Savant is a wonderful online resource, the sort of resource a part of me doesn’t want to talk about in fear of you guys finding out all my secrets. It’s a place where you can run your own PITCHf/x queries, and the site chooses to split its strike zone up into nine equivalent areas. That’s the approximate rulebook strike zone, and presented below — from the catcher’s perspective — please find the 2013 league called-strike rate by sub-zone. This is simply called strikes / (called strikes + called balls).
Strike rates are highest in the middle, and lowest in the corners. They’re higher on the left-hand side than on the right-hand side, possibly having something to do with the fact that catchers catch with their left hands. Pitches right down the middle were called strikes 100% of the time this season. That’s what ought to be the case — those pitches are inarguable. But in truth, pitches right down the middle were called strikes 99.7% of the time this season, and I rounded up so as not to mess with decimals. Toward the end of a blowout, a team’s win expectancy on FanGraphs will show 100%. It’s not a true 100% until the game is officially over. There’s always a chance of a comeback, and with the strike zone, there’s always a chance of a totally blown call on a pitch down the middle. In this post, we explore.
It’s understandable. Humans will forever be imperfect, so no matter the circumstances, a human will always have some chance of failure. There will always be a non-zero probability of a pitch down the middle getting called a ball instead of a strike. The probability in each case is microscopic, but over the course of 30 individual team seasons, sample sizes grow quickly, and mistakes are inevitable. The five biggest mistakes from 2013 are .giffed below. Along with the images, we’ll try to figure out why the call was made how it was. Don’t get me wrong, all the calls were mistakes. There’s no excuse for missing a pitch down the middle. But, there kind of is. Let’s watch and learn and seethe.
5
- Pitcher: Adam Ottavino
- Hitter: Ike Davis
- Catcher: Wilin Rosario
- Date: August 6
- Location: 2.4 inches from center of zone
The red dot indicates the catcher’s pre-pitch target. Here, Ottavino missed a bit, since he was aiming for the edge, but this one we can pin on Rosario. And the umpire, but all these umpires are wrong. That’s a given. This umpire messed up in part because of what Rosario did. If you’re trying to explain to somebody the concept of good and bad pitch-receiving, show this .gif. Ask people if they think this pitch was a ball or a strike. Rosario makes it look way more like a ball than it actually was, since it actually was a fastball down the gut. After setting a target, Rosario allows his glove to drift arm-side. He does that a bit early, then he responds very suddenly to the pitched ball’s actual flight path, reaching for it and dragging the ball inside. From appearances, Ottavino threw an inside fastball that was hard to catch. In truth, he missed in, but he missed over the middle, in, and Rosario just didn’t respond smoothly. Everybody gets some blame, but Rosario demonstrated poor technique.
4
- Pitcher: Derek Holland
- Hitter: Ryan Raburn
- Catcher: A.J. Pierzynski
- Date: June 11
- Location: 2.1 inches from center of zone
Can’t blame Holland too much — he threw the ball more or less right where he was supposed to. You can question the wisdom of a changeup right down the middle in an 0-and-1 count, but the target was the target. Which means we’re left with the given umpire mistake, and a mistake on Pierzynski’s part. This is how Pierzynski caught a pitch that was just about right on target. There’s a lot of activity there, just watching him, and then it’s almost like he picks the ball, with a subtle body lurch. Pierzynski’s entire arm changes position in the act of catching, and if you just watch the .gif it looks like the pitch might be down and in. Or it looks like the pitch might be anywhere because this is the worst camera angle in sports. You can’t learn anything from this camera angle. This is a misleading and stupid camera angle, and we shouldn’t have to tolerate it anymore. Cameras mounted to stationary miniature outfield helicopters. Make it happen, TV money.
3
- Pitcher: Jerome Williams
- Hitter: Adrian Beltre
- Catcher: Chris Iannetta
- Date: July 31
- Location: 1.6 inches from center of zone
Blame for all! Iannetta set up inside. Williams threw the ball more outside. It doesn’t seem like that should make a huge difference, but home plate isn’t actually all that wide, and pitched baseballs go fast. Even the slow ones. By missing location, Williams forced Iannetta to readjust. Iannetta stayed pretty physically quiet, all things considered, but he made it look like his left hand traveled a considerable distance, and then he didn’t stick the landing, dragging the glove and ball instead further away. The fact that Iannetta remained decently composed might’ve suggested to the umpire that Williams didn’t miss by all that much, but in this instance the ball was basically a penalty for missing a spot. Nevermind that the spot was missed in favor of a spot that should be an automatic strike.
2
- Pitcher: Kevin Gregg
- Hitter: Tony Sanchez
- Catcher: J.C. Boscan
- Date: September 25
- Location: 1.5 inches from center of zone
The better camera angle is a godsend, because you can really see how hilarious it is that this pitch was called a ball instead of a strike. But, again, it’s fairly easy to explain, if any balls on pitches down the middle can be easy to explain. First of all, Gregg missed up and arm-side. Boscan subsequently attempted to catch the ball improperly, and then the ball hit the heel of the glove and dropped to the dirt. I’ve seen enough of these to know that umpires don’t often give strikes on pitches catchers don’t catch. It’s rare enough that I notice when an umpire does grant such a strike, as happened somewhere later in the playoffs. In part, it’s probably because an uncaught pitch seems like it must’ve missed somewhere out of the zone, in order to be more difficult to receive. In part, it’s probably also because umpires feel teams shouldn’t be rewarded for mistakes, even if the mistakes happen after a pitch crosses through the zone. Never having umpired, I don’t know the mechanism for how these decisions are processed. But I know dropped pitches don’t get a lot of strikes. That’s the conclusion. You explain why.
1
- Pitcher: Edwin Jackson
- Hitter: Yadier Molina
- Catcher: Welington Castillo
- Date: June 19
- Location: 1.1 inches from center of zone
And here’s another one where everyone loses. The first pitch of the at-bat was a called strike on the inside edge. Castillo wanted to go back there again, but Jackson missed by several inches over the plate. Castillo had to respond to that, but he also had to respond to an aggressive runner on first, so as he reached over, he stood, and as he stood, he reached his glove all the way over to his bare hand so he could get the baseball out of it. Castillo was in the process of standing as he received this pitch, and there’s no way the umpire could’ve ignored that activity. That would’ve created unusual visual circumstances, making it more tricky to identify just where the ball crossed. Ultimately, as in all these cases, the blame goes to the umpire most, because you should never miss a fastball one inch from the very center of the strike zone, but just like with dropped pitches, I’ve seen enough evidence to know that umpires don’t handle attempted throws to bases well either. Catchers don’t do anything to pitches before they reach the plate, but they can do a lot just after, and it all happens so far it all factors in within the umpire’s brain. You can’t just block out that motion, and I’d love to see what the called strike zone looks like when catchers make or fake a throw somewhere. I suspect the zone is a lot smaller, and maybe this would be one way for a team to mess with the other when it gets a guy on. Have a guy on first take intentionally aggressive leads, so as to draw throws or bluffs. It might earn you some extra pitches, and they all count.
In fact, a few pitches later in this very at-bat:
On the one hand, that pitch was out of the zone when it was hit, and it came in a 1-and-2 count. On the other, a proper call earlier would’ve put Molina in an 0-and-2 hole, and then the rest of the at-bat changes, and maybe he doesn’t go deep. This happened in part because of the blown call, which goes to show the difference that pitch-receiving and strike calls can make. A blown call doesn’t cause or prevent a home run, but it can make a home run more or less likely. Pitchers: stop missing spots. Catchers: receive better. Umpires: be closer to perfect. Is that all so much to ask? Oh, I see, well all right. Guess we’ll be doing this post again next year too.
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.
What about the Max Scherzer pitches in game 5 on the ALCS? The balls called to Bogarts in the 7th inning before he got pulled for Smiley were ridiculous, esp ball 4 if memory serves. I could not believe it. He got squeezed all game long.
Compare that to the UeHara strike zone in the top of the 9th and you will see a huge difference.
I like your website, great stuff
That wasn’t a great call, but it wasn’t nearly bad enough to be one of these.
For instance, the Bogaerts at-bad that you are referring to:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/numlocation.php-pitchSel=453286&game=gid_2013_10_19_detmlb_bosmlb_1&batterX=57&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=3&league=mlb&cache=1.gif
Yes, that looks like a clear missed call, but it’s not particularly egregious, especially considering that it was a changeup falling out of the bottom of the zone.
Also, for reference this is Uehara’s strike zone plot vs. RHH that day:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=493157&game=gid_2013_10_19_detmlb_bosmlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=3&s_type=3&league=mlb&cache=1.gif
See? Huge difference! Why didn’t Bogaerts swing at pitches low and out of the zone? How rude.
Why only Uehara vs RHH? He faced the lefty Pena that game, I think.
Because Bogaerts is a RHH and RF was comparing the calls Scherzer got against him with the calls Uehara got against RHH because the original poster said that Uehara got favorable calls.
The original poster said that Uehara got favorable calls. If they came against a LHH it doesn’t make them any less favorable.
Who were the umpires?
My policy is not to name them because I think that just gets people angrier.
But shouldn’t the umps be judged on how well (or how not well) they do their jobs? If they aren’t judged, how will we know the good ones from the bad ones?
I understand what you mean and just choose not to include the names because I don’t think the names of the umpires are the most interesting or important part. Don’t want the focus to be on names — want the focus to be on the processes. Named umpires make for easy scapegoats.
If only there were some way for you to find out who umped these games for yourself.
In fact someone should do that and post all the names in the comments here to rain on Jeff’s parade.
The first one is Mark Wegener. What a horrible human being he is.
I’m all for evaluating umpire performance, but judging these umpires by the handful of bad calls shown here would be like judging the quality of pitchers based on whether they showed up on “the year’s wildest pitches” list. Even a good umpire will make an egregious mistake once in a while.
It would be more worthwhile to see umpires ranked based on how many balls they called in the zone, or strikes they called outside the zone, or to see heat maps of the zones where their calls were most often incorrect, over the course of an entire season. If an umpire was consistently incorrect in certain ways, then it would be fair to judge them as a poor umpire, and to advocate for them to be retrained or replaced.
It’s really silly to blame umpires for bad calls. As long as we continue to have human umpires, there will continue to be missed calls. Umpires can do many things to improve and minimize mistakes, but there will ALWAYS be mistakes.
The issues is not that some umpires are bad. The issue is that umpiring is a near impossible task for a human being. Ball/strike calls should be made by computers.
You got that right, Luke. A near impossible task. It’s not like baseball has been played with human umpires in dozens of leagues around the world for the last 150 years or so.
Incitatus: I’m with you right up to the point where you posit that umps who consistently make the same zone mistake are the ones deserving adverse action. Would not the umps whose mistakes are numerous and inconsistent zone-wise be the worst of the worst? With the former, and the advanced scouting and resources available, at least the pitcher and hitter can approach with the understanding that Joe Umpire has a low zone, or calls the left side off the plate a half-inch, etc. A poor but consistent and predictable zone is better than a poor and inconsistent one.
@Cass Yeah, they’ve been doing it, but doing it terribly, I am sure.
Angel Hernandez
All of them
You can easily look up the umpires names if you really wanted to know them.
Haha, nice article.
I remember watching an extra innings Angels/A’s game this year. It was like, the 15th inning, and everyone was exhausted, and some pitcher threw one right down the gut that the ump called a ball. The Angel’s announcer was totally done giving a shit that night, and he just said, “and that’s a ball right down the middle”. I was hoping it would show up.
April 29th. Actually three different candidate pitches in that 15th inning, but I can’t find that exact line of dialogue.
I wonder if analysis would show that missed calls on pitches in the zone go up late in extra inning games, as the umps try desperately (though perhaps not consciously) to get some offense going so everybody can go home.
New idea for pitchf/x: measure how far a pitchers actual pitch is from where the catcher is set up to get a much better idea of a pitcher’s control.
If a pitcher always misses the target, but most of the time ends up throwing a pitch in the zone (probably from luck), he’s obviously not better with his control than one who always hits the catcher’s mitt. Zone% might say he is – although the eye test probably won’t – and a number giving the distance of a pitcher’s pitch from his target would be very interesting.
That would give you a lot of pointless data messing with your averages.
-If a catcher calls for a high fastball or a curve in the dirt, they never actually put their glove as high or low as they really want it. Pitchers who have a lot of success with those two types of pitches would appear to miss their spots often.
-I’ve heard of pitchers who prefer their catchers to stay in basically the same place, and then they aim either above, below or to the side of the glove.
FWIW, I think this would be more under “command” than “control”.
Not a new idea. It’s called command f/x
Or it looks like the pitch might be anywhere because this is the worst camera angle in sports. You can’t learn anything from this camera angle. This is a misleading and stupid camera angle, and we shouldn’t have to tolerate it anymore.
Tell me about it. I watched maybe 70 or so Rangers’ home games last year. I hate that fucking camera. It always makes my perception of the K zone a little skewed. You would think that is something one would adjust to over time, but not for me.
It wasn’t as bad a few years ago (if memory serves). But the Rangers decided they wanted to fire Josh Lewin and make the fans at home watch the game from the shortstops’ perspective.
As an umpire (the highest level I’ve done being college wood bat), I can tell you that a lot of your reasoning for those missed calls is smack-on. It’s hard to explain the process of calling strikes and balls because, yes, in theory, you should just be looking for the ball to cross through a certain zone. But there’s a much larger “feel” component to it than I think most people expect, and I can tell you that seeing a catcher drop a ball is the equivalent to a gag-reflex for me. There have been a good number of times throughout my 15 years calling strikes and balls where a catcher has dropped a ball, or just caught the ball with such poor form, that I’ll be thinking “strike?” but my body locks up and I make a no-call. About 5 seconds later, I’m thinking to myself “that was probably a strike,” but by then it’s too late. The best way I can describe the whole process is that calling balls and strikes is a 100% reactionary process, and when the catcher looks like shit, you have a bad reaction to the pitch. Having said ALL of this, I think the worst no-call of the bunch is AJ’s.
On the other, a proper call earlier would’ve put Molina in an 0-and-2 hole, and then the rest of the at-bat changes, and maybe he doesn’t go deep.
I understand your premise, but in this case, and in the case of Molina in general – I think it’s stretching.
Firstly – the count didn’t really go deep anyway. It was a 5-pitch AB. The pitch sequence was:
Pitch 1: Called Strike (you talked about this)
Pitch 2: Called Ball (your beef pitch)
Pitch 3: Foul (runner going)
Pitch 4: Foul
Pitch 5: Home Run.
So even if Molina is put into an 0-2 count right at the start, it’s not like he looked at several more pitches. He was swinging at pitches 3-4-5. Now I get that Jackson may have approached the at bat differently on an 0-2 count as opposed to a 1-1 count, but that premise only exists until pitch 3 – when Molina gets himself in a 2-strike count anyway.
what I took away from this article: Yadier Molina not only gets more strikes for his pitchers, he gets more balls for himself. He is that good of a receiver.
Thank You, Captain Anecdote.
I just think umpires need to stop being taught to position themseleves relative to where the catcher is setting up or what handed batter is up, and just position themselves so they are looking into the strike zone.
In pretty much every example above, the umps are positioned on the edges, so their eyes arent even in a position to call a pitch going through the strike zone
I think a computer just needs to call balls and strikes. I’m not joking.
When the worst strikes come out, Leslie Nielsen will top the list for umpires.
Question for anybody who’s actually watched the video of these (since I’m far too lazy to go find them)? Any argument/frustration evident from pitchers/catcher/managers involved in these pitches?
Follow up: if they didn’t object, what does that say about this whole thing? I mean, from an objective standpoint, aesthetics shouldn’t matter in a ball/strike call, but if they have an effect on umpires/players/coaches more-or-less across the board, does maybe that mean it’s all just fine?
I’m split, personally. A strike should be a strike, but some part of me thinks baseball is way more interesting with receiving as a skill.
The Iannetta pitch was received horribly. If I saw that on that camera angle without knowing if it was a ball or strike, I’d probably make the wrong call too.
yes, the umps blew these…but what i hate most are the pitches that are clearly 4-6 inches off the plate that are called strikes…causes me to yell at the tv…and it seems like most of the time it’s the third strike that’s called this way…horrible.