The Umpire Hates Your Team

Okay! So for the 5 people that read this, I submitted my dissertation which means the waiting game starts. In the meantime, I can get back to looking at baseball.

Short post for today. I was of the opinion that the Mariners were getting hosed by umpires so I used this year’s Savant data (from the start of the season until June 17) to have a rough look at called strikes. I’m only interested in outside balls calls as strikes — so called strikes that missed the outside corner.

I reduced Savant data to only called strikes and with clarification from Tom Tango, I used the plate_x variable and identified called strikes as those what were >=0.83 inches off the outside corner depending on handedness.

I then categorized the called strikes two ways. First, if the called strike was in favour of the team when pitching (i.e., the number of called outside strikes when the Mariners were pitching). Second, if the called strike was against the team when hitting (i.e., the number of called strikes when the Mariners were hitting). I then subtracted the two values to calculate the difference. Negative values indicate the team is being punished, positive values indicate a benefit. Take Cleveland for example, 61 pitches by Cleveland pitchers missed the plate but were called strikes. In contrast, 66 pitches missed the plate but were called strikes when hitting, giving the team a score of -5 (more strikes went again them than for them).

The table lists the result of the exercise.

Three things to note here. First, the Dodgers are the most favoured team here at +30 (101 when pitching, 71 when hitting) with the Giants in second (+29). My Mariners, who I thought were getting hosed, are actually +9. Second, the Yankees are closest to parity (64, 63).

Third, there’s a cluster of teams being disadvantaged: Dads, Rangers, Boston, and Brewers.

The Padres have had 108 outside strikes called against them (the most in the league), Oakland is second with 106, Boston third with 102, Texas fourth with 101, and the Cards fifth with 100.

The Dodgers are particularly interesting. They’re the most favoured team (+30) but Savant isn’t too favourable to their catchers’ framing skills: both Smith and Barnes are league average in general. Even more interesting, at least in my mind, is that Texas is heavily penalized (-35) but Savant has Trevino as one of the better catchers by pitch framing so far this season.

The Mariners, incidentally, have been subject to much fan discussion on our catchers. Both Murphy and Torrens are below average pitch framers per Savant but Murphy is slightly above average on the outside-outside corner. Regardless, it doesn’t seem that Murphy and Torrens have cost the Mariners too much. The mariners, incidentally, have 76 positive outside strikes — 8th best in the league (what?).

Does the umpire hate your team? Maybe. Also depends on your catcher skill and the opposing catcher skill — something I think I can add next time I look at this.