MLB Umpires Missed 34,294 Ball-Strike Calls in 2018.

[Chuck]

Older article from earlier this spring, but I wasn't sure if this was posted or not.

http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/mlb-umpires-strike-zone-accuracy/ 

Bring on Robo-umps!!

 

[Docwaukee]

I wonder what the ratio of bad calls would look like if the eliminated obvious strikes and balls from the denominator.  Say those appropriately called and more than a ball or so from the edge.  

[aznhockeyguy]

That sounds like a lot but there's a lot of pitches thrown in a season.  I'm going to assume an average of 135 per team per game which is 270 a game.  15 games per day of season*162 days of season*270='s 656,100 pitches in a season.  34,294/656,100 ='s ~.052 or 5.2%.   Now that's just all pitches.  As Dochalo mentioned, I don't know how many actually required ball/strike calls because there are a significant number of balls that are hit or swung on and missed that are counted as automatic strikes and doesn't require judgement.  Also many of the pitches that are called strikes are very obvious or balls that hit the dirt.  I'm very interested in how umps do on "borderline" pitches. I'm pretty sure the missed ratio is a lot higher around those pitches and that "robot" umps will definitely get a higher percentage right. 

 

EDIT: Just skimmed the article, an interesting read and they break down their data a bit more but the good ones have an error rate around 9% and the bad ones average 14% which is a bit higher than my estimates but not by very much.  But again these figures are for all calls and not just borderline.  However, the umps as a whole are improving and are not as afraid of calling a 3rd strike when a hitter is taking in years past.

[WeaverFever]

5 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I wonder what the ratio of bad calls would look like if the eliminated obvious strikes and balls from the denominator.  Say those appropriately called and more than a ball or so from the edge.  

Exactly. How many of these pitches are subjective? There isn’t really an excuse for missing a “true” ball. But a ball on the outer edge of the plate where half of us see as a ball and half of us see as a strike is part of the beauty of the game. 

[2112]

I wonder if bias towards the batter or pitcher increases the blown call rate.  For instance the rumor was that Greg Maddox used to get several balls called strikes.  I remember him being visibly upset when he pitched against the Angel's with AL umps.

 

Another thing, these numbers are horrible,  even for the better umps.  In the real world you would be fired for an 8% error rate.  

Maybe the 2nd base ump should call balls and strikes.  

[Stradling]

Anyone have any info on how the robo umps are doing in the Atlantic League.  

[tdawg87]

Angel Hernandez was responsible for 31,877 of them.

[Dtwncbad]

Balls and strikes calls are not interfering with my enjoyment of the game.

I don’t care about this.

[Stradling]

3 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Balls and strikes calls are not interfering with my enjoyment of the game.

I don’t care about this.

That was made evident by your post in this thread. 

[wopphil]

3 hours ago, WeaverFever said:

Exactly. How many of these pitches are subjective? There isn’t really an excuse for missing a “true” ball. But a ball on the outer edge of the plate where half of us see as a ball and half of us see as a strike is part of the beauty of the game. 

Agree. The number of truly bad ball/strike calls in a game is minimal. I am sure there are many games where umps don't make any truly bad calls at all.

[yk9001]

I'm in no way convinced that they have the upper and lower strike zone for every major league player.

[Dtwncbad]

42 minutes ago, Stradling said:

That was made evident by your post in this thread. 

Translation:  You don’t care about my comment and yet posted about it.

Well done.

[Stradling]

17 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Translation:  You don’t care about my comment and yet posted about it.

Well done.

Yes. 

[floplag]

If im reading this correctly, were talking about 4 million pitches, over 11 years, resulting in about 32K errors, or less than 1%. Hardly a horrendous value considering that means they get about 99% right.
Some of them are obviously egregiously bad, i get it, which is why i think the whole "cant challenge balls and strikes" is the problem.  Teams should be able to challenge those like any other call.

[tdawg87]

2 minutes ago, floplag said:

If im reading this correctly, were talking about 4 million pitches, over 11 years, resulting in about 32K errors

No, we're talking about one year. 2018.

[Docwaukee]

2 minutes ago, floplag said:

If im reading this correctly, were talking about 4 million pitches, over 11 years, resulting in about 32K errors, or less than 1%. Hardly a horrendous value considering that means they get about 99% right.
Some of them are obviously egregiously bad, i get it, which is why i think the whole "cant challenge balls and strikes" is the problem.  Teams should be able to challenge those like any other call.

you're not reading it correctly.  

[Inside Pitch]

8 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

you're not reading it correctly.  

[floplag]

1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

you're not reading it correctly.  

 

1 hour ago, tdawg87 said:

No, we're talking about one year. 2018.

Re-read, honest mistake, the first paragraph says...
This article is based on 11 seasons of Major League Baseball data, almost four million pitches culled and analyzed over two months by Boston University Master Lecturer Mark T. Williams and a team of graduate students at the Questrom School of Business experienced in data mining, analytics, and statistics.

Then later is specific in 2018 there was about 1.6 misses per inning.   My mistake. 

Still though considering most innings have 10-20 pitches thrown, were still talking less than 10%, but i must agree that 10% assuming my very quick math is correct, is too high.

[beatlesrule]

14 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

Older article from earlier this spring, but I wasn't sure if this was posted or not.

http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/mlb-umpires-strike-zone-accuracy/ 

Bring on Robo-umps!!

 

I brought this up weeks ago. I believe some posters here defended the UMPS despite all those wrong calls.

[AngelsLakersFan]

5 hours ago, Stradling said:

Anyone have any info on how the robo umps are doing in the Atlantic League.  

100% accuracy...

[Stradling]

2 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

100% accuracy...

No chance in the world. 

[Troll Daddy]

1.6 missed calls per inning doesn’t sound all that bad too me. 

 

[Taylor]

The robo umps in the Atlantic League are already on strike.

[Glen]

6 hours ago, Taylor said:

The robo umps in the Atlantic League are already on strike.

They've also already ejected seven managers.

[tdawg87]

Robo Joe West is releasing a techno album