Jump to content

Thought Exercise: How to Improve Strike Calling W/O Robo Ump


Jagwar

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Getting rid of the union is easily the best way to do it.

Other than the fact that it’s essentially impossible to do that. 

I do believe umpires are graded on accuracy and there is statistical evidence that they’ve improved significantly over the last 15 years or so. But they still miss 12% of true balls and 3% of true strikes, per Ump Scorecard.  
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Other than the fact that it’s essentially impossible to do that. 

I do believe umpires are graded on accuracy and there is statistical evidence that they’ve improved significantly over the last 15 years or so. But they still miss 12% of true balls and 3% of true strikes, per Ump Scorecard.  
 

Oh yea, it will never happen.

But having the ability to fire these guys (or relegate them to the minors) and/or hold them accountable for their sh!t job would be great.

Edited by Sports Guy
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mentioned it in the game thread but why are umps allowed to throw out players and manager for arguing THEIR mistake?

You watch NBA/NFL coaches screaming at refs with no fallout.

seems like something that should have gone away many years ago. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robo-umps are simply not going to be an optional thing.  They're going to have to be incorporated into the game in some aspect or another.

This has been the worst season in memory for terrible ump calls in baseball, and fans all over the league are reaching their boiling point.  MLB continues to ignore this issue at its own peril. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Morgan423 said:

Robo-umps are simply not going to be an optional thing.  They're going to have to be incorporated into the game in some aspect or another.

This has been the worst season in memory for terrible ump calls in baseball, and fans all over the league are reaching their boiling point.  MLB continues to ignore this issue at its own peril. 

MLB will get concerned when the gambling sites get upset.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The union doesn’t care about quality of performance, but about protecting member jobs. They will absolutely scream at anything that interferes with jobs or that attempts to penalize poor performance.

It is possible, barely possible, that they might be induced to police themselves because there are good umpires, and then there are Angel Hernandezes, and all the empires know how sucky the bad ones are.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about something simple like a heads-up display which allows the umpires to call pitches from the CF camera.  I can't believe tying that into a visor would be difficult at all these days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Filmstudy said:

How about something simple like a heads-up display which allows the umpires to call pitches from the CF camera.  I can't believe tying that into a visor would be difficult at all these days.

By this I mean the CF camera view would include a properly sized box for the hitter similar to what we see on TV.  The bulk of the really egregious errors seem to be low in the zone (where the umpire has to work off the catcher's movement because his view is partially if not fully obstructed) and inside or outside when the umpire is lined up on the other side (again partially obstructed).  While this would still technically be human umpiring, I'm guessing truly questionable calls would drop by 85-90%.

BTW, folks might consider this robo umpiring, but this is still miles behind the heat maps and other systems they have in use for cricket right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Kill the Union and get rid of under performing umps.

Holy crap, I can't believe you said to "kill the union". :D 

Whether they kill the union or not, they need to absolutely move umpires up and down between AAA and the majors based on performance. I don't know why they think and late 50s, early 60s umpire will still see as well as a 35-year old ump. 

 

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Holy crap, I can't believe you said to "kill the union". :D 

Whether they kill the union or not, they need to absolutely move umpires up and down between AAA and the majors based on performance. I don't know why they think and late 50s, early 60s umpire will still see as well as a 35-year old ump. 

 

 

I'm not so much vehemently pro-union as I am anti-owner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the AAA system where hitters and the catcher get a certain amount of challenges a game. It keeps the human element in the game a bit but can allow for calls that obviously erroneous to not change the game. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Morgan423 said:

Robo-umps are simply not going to be an optional thing.  They're going to have to be incorporated into the game in some aspect or another.

This has been the worst season in memory for terrible ump calls in baseball, and fans all over the league are reaching their boiling point.  MLB continues to ignore this issue at its own peril. 

I'm as upset as anyone that Angel Hernandez, CB Bucknor, and Laz Diaz still have jobs, but I don't really believe this is the worst season in memory for terrible calls.  I think it just appears that way because of the data fans have access to now and the fact that social media has really focused on the issue this year.  I'm certain that the majority of umps now are incredibly more accurate on balls/strikes than the umps back in the 80s/90s.  Do you remember Eric Gregg and Ken Kaiser and Garcia, and many more of the incredibly arrogant and incompetent umps back then??  They would hold grudges and change the zone from game to game or even inning to inning.  Again, I'm not excusing the terrible strike zones from certain current umps, and I denounce the fact that terrible umps have no consequences for their incompetence....just wanted to remind people that it's still much better than it used to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Posts

    • dWAR is just the run value for defense added with the defensive adjustment.  Corner OF spots have a -7.5 run adjustment, while CF has a +2.5 adjustment over 150 games.    Since Cowser played both CF and the corners they pro-rate his time at each to calculate his defensive adjustment. 
    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
    • A little funny to have provided descriptions of the hits (“weak” single; “500 foot” HR). FIP doesn’t care about any of that either, so it’s kind of an odd thing to add in an effort to make ERA look bad.  Come in, strike out the first hitter, then give up three 108 MPH rocket doubles off the wall. FIP thinks you were absolutely outstanding, and it’s a shame your pathetic defense and/or sheer bad luck let you down. Next time you’ll (probably) get the outcomes you deserve. They’re both flawed. So is xFIP. So is SIERA. So is RA/9. So is WPA. So is xERA. None of them are perfect measures of how a pitcher’s actual performance was, because there’s way too much context and too many variables for any one metric to really encompass.  But when I’m thinking about awards, for me at least, it ends up having to be about the actual outcomes. I don’t really care what a hitter’s xWOBA is when I’m thinking about MVP, and the same is true for pitchers. Did you get the outs? Did the runs score? That’s the “value” that translates to the scoreboard and, ultimately, to the standings. So I think the B-R side of it is more sensible for awards.  I definitely take into account the types of factors that you (and other pitching fWAR advocates) reference as flaws. So if a guy plays in front of a particular bad defense or had a particularly high percentage of inherited runners score, I’d absolutely adjust my take to incorporate that info. And I also 100% go to Fangraphs first when I’m trying to figure out which pitchers we should acquire (i.e., for forward looking purposes).  But I just can’t bring myself say that my Cy Young is just whichever guy had the best ratio of Ks to BBs to HRs over a threshold number of innings. As @Frobby said, it just distills out too much of what actually happened.
    • We were all a lot younger in 2005.  No one wanted to believe Canseco cause he’s a smarmy guy. Like I said, he was the only one telling the truth. It wasn’t a leap of faith to see McGwire up there and Sosa up there and think “yeah, those guys were juicing” but then suddenly look at Raffy and think he was completely innocent.  It’s a sad story. The guy should be in Hall of Fame yet 500 homers and 3,000 hits are gone like a fart in the wind cause his legacy is wagging his finger and thinking he couldn’t get caught.  Don’t fly too close to the sun.  
    • I think if we get the fun sprinkler loving Gunnar that was in the dugout yesterday, I don’t think we have to worry about him pressing. He seemed loose and feeling good with the other guys he was with, like Kremer.
    • I was a lot younger back then, but that betrayal hit really hard because he had been painting himself as literally holier than thou, and shook his finger to a congressional committee and then barely 2 weeks later failed the test.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...