This is an absolutely fantastic post and something I was thinking about the other day.
Do you think that, even with the constant losing, the Mariners can gain respect by Wedge (or any of the previous managers) being more vocal and demanding of the umpires? I can't help but notice that Wedge doesn't argue very often or very... Hard (for lack of a better term). Admittedly, I've turned against Wedge and am only noticing bad things but I can think of 5 blatant missed calls that have played crucial in determining the outcome of games. At least 5 terrible calls and how many ejections (or even storm out of the dugout screaming fits)? Zero. As you said, the Mariners have worked hard to create a family friendly night at the ballpark.
It's too bad. Letting Ackley know that you have his back as he tags a guy out at second twice and then is called safe might do something for his confidence. Or showing your flame-throwing rookie reliever that you know he threw a strike to get another guy looking by throwing a tirade couldn't hurt. It's great that he got thrown out of a Spring Training game for Felix but he needs to be behind all of his players. This ball-club needs some fire and the umpires need to show some respect. Sure, winning would definitely get us there but you have to be pro-active in your attempt to get to the winning side.
.
Great discussion going on the fact -- yes, fact -- that MLB(TM) umps are ripping the Mariners off. Huge. Here is an article that is absolutely mediocre by Jeff Sullivan's standards, which means that it is an article that is absolutely sparkling by any other standard.
EXEC SUM: so far this year, the Mariners are losing -45 per 1,000 pitches compared to the norm. This makes them last in baseball. Another team is gaining +67 per 1,000 pitches.
That's about 6, 8 pitches a night, both directions. And supposing that pitch was Strike Three for Carter Capps, and then he goes on to give up two runs and the game? Oh, wait. That's what actually happened in our last loss.
Not that their OPS+ and ERA+ would support it, but ... Very, very possible that the Mariners have 8 wins and 6 losses with a league-average strike zone.
..........
The blog-o-sphere immediately begins asking what our catchers need to do to frame better. Yes, that's part of the discussion, but how do we know what % of the problem is:
- Whether the catcher has his glove moving toward the zone as he catches the ball, vs
- Simple umpire bias towards the team that is fighting for the pennant?
It's not a vague, specific principle that has me thinking about this; it is review of Bobby LaFromboise's first two outings. What in the name of Billy Martin does a catcher do to "frame" an exploding fastball at the top of the strike zone? (Bobby LaFromboise has thrown 17 pitches, and had 3 high strikes taken away from him so far.)
Those pitches weren't balls because Jesus Montero failed to get his mitt moving from high to low (towards the zone) to catch them; how the deuce is a catcher going to do that?! Those high pitches, it says here, were balls because it was a rookie Seattle Mariner throwing a pitch the umpire didn't think he could throw.
How do you know whether it's the catcher, or the organization, that is getting the shaft? Why do the contending teams always get the benefit of the doubt?
Blowers gave us the on-field way of looking at this, during the last telecast. Umpires know they'll get 1%, or 2%, wrong, and they want to get them wrong so that they cause the least damage. "And I don't know that I have a problem with that," Mike said.
Benefit of the doubt to where it does the least damage. That means not jobbing the team that is actually trying to win the pennant.
The Mariners have had a "competitive team and nice night at the ballpark" attitude for 10 years, ever since Lou Piniella left. They don't want to "get carried away" with winning. Fine. The umpires also do not want to get carried away with giving the Mariners calls.
Find one player or coach, actually in the action, who will contradict Blowers' view of the situation.
.......
Or: supposing that it WERE a question of framing.
SHOULD IT BE?
Why should the best umpires in the world not be able to use the flight of the ball as the basis for their decisions?
I don't believe that umpires DO have a noticeably easier time distinguishing the strike zone when Russell Martin is catching. I'll bet you dollar to donuts that most of Martin's pitch framing "skills" would evaporate if he moved from New York to Seattle.
I do believe it to be possible -- and absolutely the case -- that umpires enjoy working with certain catchers. But it's probably not a big factor. They obviously loved Miguel Olivo, who treated them like brothers, giving them hugs when they got a foul tip and all that. But they used this "soft" relationship to rip Olivo off on the strike zone, too.
"Framing," as such, is overstated. There are tendencies that we identify as "framing" tendencies. But are they really caused by the catchers' physical movements? Why do we get to assume that Jesus Montero's -- and NOW, Kelly Shoppach's -- strikes lost are due to the way they move their gloves? That part of it was only ever an assumption.
......
Lemme put it more simply. When and where did we first decide --- > whether the strike zones were caused by umps' bias against cruddy teams, vs. being caused by catchers? How do you know?
What does it tell us that ALL Mariner catchers -- including imported vets -- suffer this zone? And that all Yankee catchers get a great zone?
Personally I think it's a mix. 60-40, or 70-30. The larger portion is the lack of respect for the MARINERS. That's my working hypothesis. I'm open to evidence against.
......
When Zunino gets here, we might see a better strike zone. When 94 wins get here, we definitely will see one.
.
Comments
Doc - You've framed the issue of biased ball/strike calls clearly, setting up 2 possible causes. Possibly a third cause? --> Young pitchers not getting the breaks on close pitches vs veteran pitchers getting the calls? And the M's having more young pitchers than other teams..... (Iwak counting as a young pitcher to MLB, Maurer, Beavan, Capps, Pryor, Luetge, LaFromboise, Capps).
Doc, sorry I do not have the time now to do the research, but...
This is at least the 6th time in a row that the Mariner's have been in the bottom 5 teams when it comes to missed strikes... and the Mariners have been dead last at least twice before.
This is not all catchers. This is the Mariners organization that has not pressed this issue with MLB and the umpires union.
I remember an article by Jeff (I think) at LL late last year about how Felix lost over 200 strikes in 2012, and that Felix had lost about 1500 strikes over the last 5 years.
This is a disgrace for all of baseball, and we as a baseball community have an obligation to press this issue - to at least try to get Baker or someone in the national media to expose this.
1. It's a disgrace to the game.
2. It wont change unless/until technology is implemented to (step one) "assist" the umpire, then (step two) serve as the primary arbiter of ball/strike calls.
3. #2 won't happen any time soon in MLB. Tennis has proven more open to such solutions.
Hawk-eye technology has proven to be a big plus for tennis, removing the randomness of bad line calls. Fans and players can concentrate on the match, knowing a blown line call won't decide a big point, and in turn decide a big match. I believe that had hawk-eye been around in John McEnroe's era, he would have won several more significant titles because he would have had recourse for bad calls instead of just getting lost in a temper tantrum and then losing the match.
The first response I thought of was the MacEnroe might have LOST more matches with Hawk-eye, because he used bad line calls (or imagined ones) to fuel the me-against-the-world anger that drove his success (along with his substantial talent).
It may not be one or the other, but both, as the M's have been bad for a decade, and a revolving door at C with few exceptions. Have we had a good catcher since Dan Wilson? Blue has got to get the calls right, and realize that the kids can throw strikes.
Guess we'll never know for sure, but I seem to remember him losing key matches after bad line calls because he couldn't forget and move on. Anyway, for sure we can agree that hawk-eye has helped the game.
I wasn't really asserting anything, just musing. I USED to be BIG tennis fan in the days of MacEnroe, Connors, Borg, Evert-Lloyd, and Navratilova, not so much since.
Doesn't it seem fairly obvious that umpires can and are affected by framing? We see umpires get distracted by a catcher dropping a pitch right down the middle and call it a ball. When a catcher sets up outside and the pitcher misses in and the catcher has to lunge back to the inside corner, how often is that pitch called a strike?
The way Montero receives a pitch, he stabs at the ball, and I've noticed many times he kind of winces and reaches at the ball. Go watch a SF Giants game. Go watch Joe Mauer catch a game. Or Lucroy as Sullivan pointed out. The difference between them and Montero is absolutely night and day. Couldn't be more obvious if you are paying special attention to catcher receiving. Those guys are a real treat to watch when you are used to watching Mariner games. You say that there are more sinister forces at work here, and that "framing" in and of itself has "something" to do with. I don't think that's the case at all.
If that were the case, then last year the Orioles and A's were probably getting jobbed because they were expected to be in the cellar. I'd like to see if that was the case. I mean to suggest that the umpires look over the rosters every spring and make a note of which teams are trying to win the World Series and which teams aren't and then make the conscious decision to give more borderline calls to those teams in the latter group is quite an accusation. I wish someone on here with more statistical knowledge would lay out the pitch framing case. I've read other places that studies have shown that some catchers year after year get more strike calls than others, regardless of what team they play for. And just watching a game, even I can tell which catchers are good at framing and which aren't. I've never even played organized baseball, and its clear to me.
I really think if you just watched a few games caught by a known great pitch framer, and looked just for the way he receives every pitch, you'll see that framing absolutely is a skill and leads to more strike calls. Then go back and watch Montero catch a game. Couldn't be more obvious.
Let's assume for a minute that umpires are biased against the Mariners, but not because of pitch framing, and let's use the Blowers explanation that they miss in spots that do the least amount of damage. And lets assume the other option that someone else pointed out, that umpires are more likely to job young guys and not the established vets. Now consider all of this and explain Felix losing 1500 strikes in 5 years.
If umps are jobbing certain types of pitchers, it certainly isn't an 8 year veteran guy who won a Cy Young a few years ago and finishes in the top 3-6 every year. I think this is where this theory falls apart. I could see where MAYBE, just POSSIBLY you could think that umpire bias exists against those teams that aren't "really" competing. I don't believe that to be the case, but it is possible i guess. But name a tougher competitor on the mound over the last 5 years than Felix Hernandez, a guy who never mails in a start.
Makes it painfully clear throughout the games that the Mariners are getting jobbed. I understand there are better sources than ROOTs tracer technology. But as a quick reference during game action it has clearly been displaying missed calls all season. Missed balls and strikes are part of baseball but the missed strikes by Mariners pitchers appears especially egregious this year. Harang (who is far from being a young, inexperienced pitcher) had one sequence where he had thrown 3 pitches, all in the zone according to the tracer, and only one was called a strike. And, IIRC, many missed strikes are also occurring at the bottom of the zone. Capps seems to be victimized there a lot.
Other teams get the knees...the Mariners never seem to get the knees...especially not on the inside corner
We have seen how these bad calls have cost the Mariners at least one win this year, plus major factors in two other losses... and we are not one-tenth into the season.
Six plus strikes a game is HUGE. All those extra pitches to make up, the bad counts where the pitcher is at a major disadvantage, as well as the extra base runners... these calls are AT LEAST worth 5 to 8 losses to the Mariners a year. If the Mariners are aware of this poor framing, and still chose to send out Olivo, Montero, Jojima and the rest... heads should roll. I doubt this simplistic answer is the case.
Moreover, IF the catchers with the skill of framing pitches were that important, those guys would be extremely valuable... and making a ton of money.
Further, if framing was that important, Roger Hansen would be spending much more hours at Spring training and between games teaching these guys how to catch a ball
versus the multiple hours you see and read about these guys blocking pitches in the dirt.
Lastly, the UMPIRES are supposed to be professionals. PROFESSIONALS! - meaning that they can do the basics. If something as relatively simple as framing can throw off a regular umpire, it is the OBLIGATION of the professionals to get better over time... and I think we can all agree that the umpires of today certainly appear to be worse than those of just 5 years ago, and seem to get worse as the season goes on. Therefore, if framing is really the answer to this discrepancy, then MLB must do something... and it sounds like umpires are out-dated.