By the way, this game had lousy umpiring all over the diamond. It was not just Tschida...though he was the class clown. Kotchman's second hit of the day occurred in the 8th...not the 9th...the second base umpire was apparently smoking some good dope because Rajai Davis' ugly bluff-and-sell job worked on him. That would have scored a run on Griffey's double. The call on Ichiro at third was bang bang but Ichiro looked safe to me...you know Blowers thought he was safe...he can't say "that was a bad call, ump" but he can mumble very angrily, "that was really close there...might have been a break for the As..." which is precisely what he said.
Tim Tschida is a complete clown...he should have been fired from this game the instant Questec came online and it became ridiculously obvious how bad he was on low pitches.
Just for the record, my own numerical analysis of Tschida reveals his bias...his career home plate umpire factor is 108...meaning that teams score 8% more often when he's calling balls and strikes. That's the same magnitude of warping as playing a game at the Ballpark in Arlington. That's RIDICULOUS.
Anyone who does not believe in the validity of instant replay and a computerized strikezone is casting a vote for incompetence, cronyism, and...at least it appears to me...conspiracy (against teams considered lower in the totem pole of MLB favoritism) over fairness and reason.
In the NYY-ATL World Series, Eric Gregg got caught on the ATM camera calling strikes a foot outside, and got 20-to-life civilian status. Since then, Tim Tschida has fought valiantly to take over the coveted status as MLB's most embarrassing umpire. He's not as bad as Gregg was, but he'll do until a better candidate comes along.
If you want a quick feel for the nature of the problemo, go to MLB GameDay and review Felix' second and third "walks" of the evening, to Daric Barton and Mark Ellis respectively.
Fourth inning: I've often wondered what a man does when he cracks off a textbook curve ball, to the inside half of the plate, nice and low so it doesn't hang ... and then the umpire, who doesn't feel like bending over to get a look at it, calls this model pitch a ball.
OK, he comes up a little bit, gets more of the strike zone... and that's called a ball, as well. Hey, Felix, I'd still have to bend over to see it, thigh-high. 5 pitches, a walk to Barton.
Ellis in the fifth is even worse. Felix throws five pitches in a row for strikes, and the count is 3-and-2. He then tries to make Ellis fish a bit, going just a few inches away, and Tschida gleefully gives Ellis the free pass...
For those who just joined us: older, entitled, jaded umps blow their calls at the bottom of the zone. Tschida, in particular, lets pitchers know in no uncertain terms that he doesn't appreciate knee-high pitches on which he has no way to guess a location.
..................
Two questions occur to Dr. D, in the face of this syndrome:
...................
1. Do managers ever match up flyball pitchers to these umps? Felix is probably the league's worst pitcher-ump matchup for Tschida.
The more you could get guys like (say) David Aardsma or Jarrod Washburn types into the game, the more you could stick your opponents with the suffering.
Check out Aardsma's first batter. Two gorgeous thigh-high fastballs are called balls, but Chavez (knowing the ump) is swinging at everything up the ladder.
.....................
2. When the TV analysts tell the viewers that "the walks caught up to Felix" and "it was an ugly game" and stuff like that... is that simply because they'd be breaking code to tell the audience about Tschida?
I mean, obviously Mike Blowers knows precisely what is going on out there. Seriously. He's been through it hundreds of times. I'm guessing that he's literally not allowed to explain the nature of the problem.
......................
Ugly game? With 80% of ML umps behind the plate, this would have been a celery-crisp, two-hour, 3-0 or 3-1 win for the Mariners. We'd be talking about the M's technical excellence and the world-class execution we'd seen all night long.
As it was, we were left with the impression that we were watching a AAA game.
Ah, well. Two of the greatest pitchers in baseball -- both throwing very well -- combine for 10 walks and 7 strikeouts in 11 innings. I'm just glad it wasn't Ian Snell out there against Tschida.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
The umpiring was an embarrassment tonight and it seems to get worse each season.
I felt pretty bad for Aardsma when he peppered the knees with two beautiful heaters and the clown behind the plate called them balls. Aardsma plus a small zone was a recipe for disaster.
However we can thank Chavez for swinging at a clear ball four and popping out to left. Aardsma was then able to catch enough of the plate and get the necessary strikes called.
The Davis ball in CF was a disgrace. I have no idea how in this day and age we have to tolerate such ridiculous human error.
I know that 108 is a big number but I will wager you that if anything, it understates Tschida's impact.
Turned a beautiful, top-flight game into a morass.
By the way amigo... where do you catch the M's videos? Just curious.
You mean how do I watch the games? MLB.TV the last few years has been excellent.
BTW, did you guys see the McLouth catch/trap/disgrace this afternoon? Maybe the worst umpiring call I've seen.
...that number comes from a simultaneous linear matrix analysis of 5 variables that impact run scoring...the leading five variables. Road team (offense and defense), home team (offense and defense), starting pitchers, park and umpire.
It doesn't account for weather affects yet...but I think 108 is a good estimate for Tschida's influence on run-scoring in the absolute sense. It may underestimate his impact when you have a groundball pitcher, though...i.e. the impact is an average impact...not an impact that is style specific.
I would be in favor of turning umpiring into an english premiere league style system where all the umps get scores for their work and the worst 25% get fired and blacklisted and the top 25% get one year of immunity from being fired. Maybe if umpires thought their jobs actually hinged on...um...doing their jobs...we'd have a fair game.
What does MLB.TV cost?
..................
On TV they said that the home plate and 2B umps were way out of position to make the call. Notice that Griffey doubled shortly afterwards, but the score was still 3-3 at the bottom of the inning. Shoulda been the ballgame, but we got early returns on Brandon League.
But in the age of TV, net videos, and truth disseminated from 10,000 sources (not just NBC) they're eventually going to have to respond to the people.
One of the best things about the 21st century. No more centralized control of information.
...if you buy MLB.TV on an annual subscription, you pay 100 bucks for the normal version and 150 for the premium version for the whole year. It's cheaper than MLB Extra Innngs and the quality is just as good if you have decent broadband.
They're in a service profession...it should not be about egos...the games will go on...with or without the grizzled veteran ump. If umpires are trained on having to be right to be employed, the games will be much better to watch and the umpiring at all levels of organized baseball will improve.
Tschida when matched with a GB pitcher has more of an impact.
Felix' 6 BB's tell you all you need to know about the magnitude of the impact *tonight*...
Back in the 1980's, Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers when they went on strike, and made it stick. Promise the same on umps and we'll get your POTUS campaign rollin' :- )
You guys sit at your monitors or patch into your 70-inch plasmas? :- )
Wonder why people would buy Extra Innings, then.
Go look at the Brooks charts. You'll see that Felix had, if I counted right, 19 strikes called balls and 4 balls called strikes. That's just shameful.
Imagine yourself in his shoes.
How do you pitch, knowing that if you execute your pitch perfectly, it's a dice roll as to whether it will be called a ball?
That is the chief reason anyway.
If you have 1 MB or better, though, you can watch the full premium picture no problemo.
I use my computer monitor, but some guys around here probably have their computers hooked to their big screens. And my monitor is a 24 inch widescreen so I get a big enough picture while I'm sitting there yakking in the gameday thread at MC anyway. :)
MLB sort of accomplished it already once. The umps union proved it could be broken back in 97...if we could just get anyone fired who refused to go along with the computerization of the strikezone and umpire job security based on performance...even once...we could solve these huge glaring problems with officiating.
For cryin' out loud...the college game between Navy and U of Maryland that I went to on Wednesday had a better home plate umpire...he blew two calls all night that my father and I could see and he was making 50 bucks a game. Fire the umpires...they're disgracing the game and getting away with it.
Except I'm 47.
I never stand when I can sit, and never sit when I can lay. I'm pretty sure that watching a ballgame on a computer monitor would violate one of my moral principles somewhere.
OK...very carefully...I am counting these as strikes if the dot is within 1.5 inches of the box.
I count 22 (!) strikes called balls (17 of which were low strikes) and 2 (TWO!) balls called strikes.
Ben Sheets, OTOH had 11 strikes called balls and 1 ball called a strike. LOL
This one single game should be enough to fire Tim Tschida.
2. When the TV analysts tell the viewers that "the walks caught up to Felix" and "it was an ugly game" and stuff like that... is that simply because they'd be breaking code to tell the audience about Tschida?
he can't say "that was a bad call, ump"
Just courious.
Where is the free speach in the US? You do not have the free speach right?
...evidently not in baseball broadcasting.
Or on college campuses if you're conservative, religious or pro-military.
Or on Capital Hill if you think Obama is doing a lousy job (why, then...you must be racist!)
In certain contexts, a minority group will have the upper hand and will use negative reinforcement to punish all "unacceptable" opinions, so that (hopefully) it becomes more of a hassle than it's worth to annoy the watchdogs.
This occurred once, a few months ago, on SSI. A troll from the other side of the country, not a baseball fan, found that SSI had used one word in a non-approved way and promptly started a flame war trying to enforce code. The irony is that these people see themselves as *most* interested in free expression, and constantly represent the other side of the political spectrum as censor-happy.
Ideologies aside, the canceled speech in Ottawa last week was another example of suppression -- ironically, from those who would regard themselves as most progressive in Canada. The university VP warned the U.S. speaker -- we're trying not to encourage a big digression away from baseball here :- ) -- that Canada does not "define" free speech as we do in the USA (!!!). Neither did a lot of notorious historical figures...
Fortunately, most Canadian educators reacted strongly against this idea of "defining free speech" more rigorously, and the attempt backfired. So perhaps there's some hope of maintaining free debate in the Western Hemisphere for a few years yet :- )
......................
That said, we don't suppose that NPB players are encouraged to criticize management :- ) and the M's TV announcers are de facto employees of Major League Baseball and of the Mariners.
Geoff Baker is the local reporter who will say exactly what he thinks without fear of "access" repercussions. Jack Zduriencik gives him exactly zero punishment for this, as far as I can tell.