Contrary to Popular Opinion, MLB Needs Home Plate Umpires Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

Bono didn’t make up the line for Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World, but I remember it most from that song, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I feel the same way about home plate umpires. At least when it comes to calling balls and strikes, the home plate umpire is not only useless, but it also hurts the game for no apparent reason. The same traditionalists that think modern MLB needs this level of human interaction (and error) are probably the same people that kept (and keeping) Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens out of the Hall of Fame.

What Do the Numbers Tell Us

According to Umpire Scorecards, the most accurate home plate umpires in the league are Edwin Jimenez and Mark Ripperberger at 95.95% and 95.9% respectively. I will spare you the mathematics, geometry, Monte Carlo simulations, and technology that goes into this calculation. Suffice it to say, between the Hawkeye camera system and Statcast, they can tell when a ball is a strike and a strike is a ball.

You can see the same thing on television, because every game has a box (known as the strike zone) and replay that shows pitches inside or outside the box. Some networks show the tennis-like replay where the ball clearly lands inside or outside the zone. Chicago Cubs color announcer Jim Deshaies describes mistakes as “egregious” (wildly outside the zone) and “not egregious” (close, but a mistake nonetheless).

So, 5% inaccuracy is pretty good. It is an A at most universities. But if you were visiting a doctor with a 5% mortality rate, you might get a second opinion. The worst umpires are Rob Drake (90.99) and Roberto Ortiz (91.8). Still an A-, pretty impressive. However, the thought that 10% of their calls, 1 out of every 10 pitches, are incorrect starts to make me a little nauseous.

Umpire Scorecards also has a metric called Fav. Again, the math is crazy trying to predict how a missed ball or strike actually impacted run production. But they do it. The best umpire at an avgFAV of .12 is James Jean even if his accuracy is a pedestrian 93.59. It means that when he does make a bad call, it isn’t in clutch situations. Meanwhile, Jacob Mertz has a horrendous avgFVA of 1.48 (almost 1.5 runs per game) with a pretty poor 92.36 accuracy rating. Mertz is very much an outlier as the second, third and fourth worst are Scott Barry (.76), Brennan Miller (.75), and Bruce Dreckman (.74).

Still a real impact that these umpires are making bad decisions at crucial points of the game.

In fact, the three teams who have the worst Fav scores are Tampa Bay (-8), Minnesota (-7.63), and Colorado (-5.63) are in fourth place, fourth place, and last place respectively. Nobody would say these teams are great, but coincidence? The best Fav scores are Arizona (9.73), Seattle (8.7), and Cleveland (6.21) who are in fourth place (but .523 winning percentage in the NL West), first place, and second place. respectively.

The Real Human Error

The strike zone is a unique artefact in sports because it changes from batter to batter based on batting stance and height. No other sport really has anything like that. Umpire accuracy is based on the ump’s interpretation of the rules governing the zone. Consequently, not only does the zone change batter to batter, but umpire to umpire. Confusing for both pitchers and hitters.

This realization is so profound, Umpire Scorecards created a metric for consistency. While accuracy is the percentage of correct calls within the actual strike zone, consistency is the accuracy in the umpire’s own zone. The worst umpires are only 90% accurate within their own zone and the best umpires are around 95/95% consistent. Mind blowing.

So, an umpire not only changes the rules of the entire strike zone, they also make mistakes in their redefinition of the strike zone. Imagine in basketball, if the hoop was 10 feet one game and 11 feet the next. Or if it was 10 feet one trip down the court, and 11 feet the next. Fun concept, but horrendous in execution.

What if a first down was 10 yards one drive and 11 yards the next? What if the number of yards to the end zone changed game to game or drive to drive? Moving the goal posts is when someone changes the rules of the game or the negotiation goals. It is usually mentioned as something unsportsmanlike or in bad character. Wikipedia says, “…that means to change the rule or criterion (“goal”) of a process or competition while it is still in progress, in such a way that the new goal offers one side an advantage or disadvantage.”

Baseball does this intentionally every game.

The Impact is Even More Nuanced

Let’s say that the Fav metric is too complicated leading to erroneous results that may or may not be trustworthy. In the case of the base loaded, 3-2 count, the results of an erroneous call are straight forward: either someone received a run with a walk or didn’t receive a run with a walk. Any other scenario is based on run expectancy which is just a predictive model.

However, any pitcher or hitter will tell you that any bad call impacts the At Bat tremendously. The difference between 2-1 and 1-2, the difference between 3-1 and 2-2, the difference between an out and 1-2, the difference between a walk and a strikeout is tremendous.

The call changes the approach to the At Bat for both hitter and pitcher in such a relevant way, that it can’t really be quantified. What happens after that would take more understanding of the multiverse than anyone can explain given our scientific understanding of quantum mechanics and the universe at large.

If you want to see how upset players can get with poor calls, check out Kyle Schwarber’s meltdown after a bad strikeout on Jomboy.

Solutions are Obvious

The frustrating part of this issue is that the solutions have already been presented, executed, costed out, and tested in the Minors and Spring Training.

Just about every single sport has challenges including Tennis and the NFL. Oh, baseball has them too, just not on balls and strikes. Allowing the pitcher or batter to challenge a call is an easy rule change. I have seen challenges in action at the Single A and Double A level, and it doesn’t even slow down the game. The review is almost instantaneous because they already see the correct call in the booth.

MLB tested the Automated Ball Strike (ABS) system this past Spring Training with positive results. In general, 52.2% of challenges resulted in overturning the call. On defense, catchers have the best eye, resulting in a 56% overturn rate, while pitchers have the worst eye at 41%. Hitters are in the middle at 50%.

Surprisingly, Spring Training games averaged only 4.1 challenges per game. The good news is the game was only lengthened by one minute per game.

Not surprisingly, hitters challenged more pitches in high leverage situations (2-2 or 3-2) but were less successful (44%). Obviously trying to get one more swing to avoid a strikeout. Likewise, teams issued more challenges later in the game as they tried to change the outcome but were less successful (60% success rate in the first three innings, 51% in fourth through sixth, 43% in seventh and eighth, 46% in the ninth.

Clearly, challenges work, but why stop there and not just completely automate the calling of balls and strikes? Like I said, the technology to evaluate each pitch is already at each game and can be relayed to the home umpire to simply make the call.

The overall right answer is to do both. Automate the calls and give the pitcher, catcher, and batter some challenges.

Imagine taking away the excuse of a bad strike zone away from the batter and pitcher. Imagine taking away this useless, game impacting, margin of error from the game. Yes, it is one less thing to complain about and what are fans for, if not complaining. We’ll just have to pick on the talent.