I hate umpires who think that the game is about them. It's not their strike zone, it's baseball's strike zone.
I don’t think it’s that bad. From the ALDS teams it could have been SF vs Milwaukee and Tampa vs Hou/CHW. That would be some serious woof right there.
Probably pick the Dodgers because their pitching was messed up from the WC game.
Weird thing is that Angel Hernandez umped this game but at third base. If you knew he did the game and there was a really horrible call, you'd think it was him. Doesn't say much for MLB umpiring.
I hope someone posts it publicly. I know it used to be posted on the web but I can't find it any more. Considered proprietary now?
Ran out of players I think?
I edited, because I didn't intend to post the top part of the post, but the idea was for the rest of the country, us versus the Astros is the Battle of the Cheaters, while the Dodgers versus the Braves is the Battle of the Two Teams You're Tired of Watching in the Playoffs, especially if you're old enough to remember the Braves' run in the 90s.
This me solace, as I was at that game. So my grievance knows two coasts and three decades. But i'm still pissed. This was....?
i give him Props for going the high road. But he would have 1000% justified in ripping the league a new one.
Me too.
You can't say that. Scherzer, as good as he is, could have made a bad pitch. Or the next pitch could have been a good one and Flores hits a swinging bunt that too slow to throw him out.
Thanks -- that's a lot better than i was expecting. At least the ump was consistently giving everyone a wide strike zone, which I couldn't tell for sure when the game was live. (TBS's strike zone box is too faint for me, I prefer something more visible, like the first-down line on NFL games.)
Better than I expected, too, but man, that Bryant at bat in the 4th was really, really bad. Bryant saw 6 pitches and struck out on 1 swing, with the only pitch even close to the strike zone being the one he swung at. Fallacy of predetermined outcomes and all, but it could easily have been 1st and 2nd with no outs, with Urias on the ropes at that point. I think that was the biggest at bat in the game.
I can't screenshot it on my work computer, but you can see just how bad the calls were looking at the Baseball Savant page (have to select the Urias/Bryant PA from the dropdown menu). Pitch 5 was close and maybe defensible in a vacuum. Missing Pitch 3 is very bad, however. It should have been a 4-pitch walk.
It's the consistency that's more important (to me anyway) than any abstract comparison with a hypothetical ROBOUMP. If an ump is giving everyone a wide strike zone then it's up the players to adjust to that -- it's just part of the game. But giving one team a different strike zone than another is unacceptable. That's what I was more worried above after watching last night, and it sounds like it wasn't as big a deal as I had thought.
I think that's the wrong at-bat - that's the one where he got a hit, not the one where he struck out.
Yeah I really don’t understand these and I’m skeptical of the run expectancy. This guy graded a half run better than the ump in our game 4 vs the Rays. Not sure how much stock I’d put in that number.
My guess is most of that is from the Bryant at bat, which included the two worst calls of the night. If the 2-0 is called correctly, it’s 3-0 and sure we can’t determine what would happen. But if the 3-1 is called correctly, it’s 100% 1st and 2nd no outs. That situation results in a run expectancy of 1.373. Instead it becomes 3-2, and Bryant ended up striking out. Run expectancy with one out and runner on 1st is 0.489. Of course, the incorrect call made it 3-2, not a strikeout, so I assume there’s a calculation where, from a 3-2 count, Bryant had x chance of hitting a bomb, y chance a triple, z chance a double, etc, with each resulting in a different run expectancy. wOBA is, on average, .325 in a 3-2 count, so the chances are in favor of the plate appearance resulting in a worse run expectancy than 1.373. Since the ump overall was solid, I’d expect the vast majority of the +.68 figure comes from this at bat.
