POLL~ UMPIRE CALLING PITCHES

[radness]

How many pitches per game do you think an Umpire gets the pitch calls incorrect?
In other words they missed calling balls/strikes correctly.

*This is Per Pitcher
( so you're guess is accumulated missed called pitches from one pitcher per game)

* This is from your experience watching softball games. Not a statistic from a Pro Sport.

 

[SoftballDadnWV]

Depending on the quality of umpire, I have seen much more than the 9 I voted, and at times I have seen umpires not miss much - nothing obvious anyways, which means the ump likely got it right.
I umpired two high school baseball games one night, several years ago - both behind the plate, these were quality teams - all four teams had really good pitchers and were good defensive teams and both games finished in less than an hour and half each - but still tiring behind the plate. About the 4th inning of the second game, one coach comes out and grabs a bat on the ground to take back to the dugout and says casually "Blue, I think that last strike was a little high" (his batter struck out - and the coach isn't supposed to be talking ball/strikes anyways) I replied "Coach, I have probably seen 300 pitches...if that was the only one I missed, I think I am doing pretty good" He shook his head in agreement and laughed as he walked away.
With that said, any ump can miss pitches. What you have to hope for in my opinion is consistency with a strike zone that resembles what the rule book says. If you get that... don't complain much.

 

[FP26]

In my experience, most umpires do a pretty good job, and generally seem to care about making the correct call. That said, it is physically impossible to get every call right. There will always be a few. Unless the call is blatant, I tend to give the umpire the benefit of the doubt. I rarely challenged any ruling on the field, but always did so respectively if it was necessary.

I always had conversations with the pitchers and catchers between innings. How is the zone? Is the umpire calling consistently? Are they giving you the river? Etc. We then used that information in our pitch calling. Typically the biggest difference from umpire to umpire was how they called the outside pitches. The inside part of the zone always seemed consistent (because of the umpires setup location). But sometimes one umpire would offer more of the river than another umpire. We saw that as an opportunity.

In 12 years of coaching there was really only one umpire that we dreaded to see. We always seemed to run into him at a specific event (location), and it always created frustration. That frustration was the result of what I would call a lack of consistency. In many cases it seemed as though this particular umpire changed his zone from inning to inning, and sometimes from batter to batter.

 

[kibadbo]

I think a better question would be how many pitches do the coaches and spectators miss. The umps have a MUCH better angle than everyone in the yard (except the catcher.) Not to mention the umps are way less biased than everyone at the game. But everyone will judge as if they are an absolute authority of what was truly a ball or strike?

Assuming an ump has no malicious intent, vision impairment, or substance abuse issues they will be right more often than anyone else in the park. The most honest answer to this question is "more than zero, but significantly less than you believe."

Except when my kid plays, then those guys screw up constantly.

 

[marriard]

In many ways it doesn't matter. And I know that sounds weird, but close calls are close calls. Better umpires will get more and more of these close calls right, but the reality is when you look at the visuals available for MLB umpires you can see where they miss and most of the misses are borderline. You are talking about making a call based on an inch or two on a visualized floating 3D strike zone.

So. a better measure it is how many pitches does an umpire get BLATENTLY wrong in a game or per 100 pitches (which I would prefer). Like total miss. The miss down the middle - the ball way off the plate, etc. If you see one really on or off the plate and watch the game - that is where normally where the crowd really reacts versus close calls.
It is as simple as that. Avoiding BLATENT errors is the #1 goal. Apart from game management and maybe consistency , it is probably what separates a lot of the good from very good and great officials.

 

[radness]

✔ 6 per game.

1 pitch per inning per pitcher.
Very plausible probability.
Given any umpire any day.

Considering the amount of pitches thrown per inning, missing 1 in 10 would be a reasonable request of consistency.

*That can go either way for or against the batter or pitcher.

 

[PJR202]

****Since I think some were offended by the relaying of my HC's words, I deleted my larger answer.

So my answer, though...8 - 12 times.

 

[Cougars]

In many ways it doesn't matter. And I know that sounds weird, but close calls are close calls. Better umpires will get more and more of these close calls right, but the reality is when you look at the visuals available for MLB umpires you can see where they miss and most of the misses are borderline. You are talking about making a call based on an inch or two on a visualized floating 3D strike zone.

So. a better measure it is how many pitches does an umpire get BLATENTLY wrong in a game or per 100 pitches (which I would prefer). Like total miss. The miss down the middle - the ball way off the plate, etc. If you see one really on or off the plate and watch the game - that is where normally where the crowd really reacts versus close calls.
It is as simple as that. Avoiding BLATENT errors is the #1 goal. Apart from game management and maybe consistency , it is probably what separates a lot of the good from very good and great officials.

I think this is the best way to look at it. When we are playing, as long as there aren't too many "horrible" misses, and the zone is consistent, I'm good.

If you follow 'Umpire Scorecards' on twitter, they break down every MLB game. Their stats are overall accuracy of 94%. That's with having the ability to dissect every pitch. So the theoretically best/highest trained umpires would "miss" 12 pitches in a 200 pitch softball game.

With a 'pitchtrax' type system at a random travel softball game, I would guess the accuracy % is stunningly low, if comparing to MLB level. But again, that's really not important if the misses are borderline

 

[marriard]

The question for me is how many times my HC says this, standing somewhere near the borderline of "within earshot"....

"Good gad all-mitey. And that's why you're a middle school ump."

"Wow. Woooow.......Woooooow. Where do they GET these people?"

Ah yes, the "Bully" coach who thinks they are clever and are 'looking to see how far they can go'.
And then they act all shocked when they get called on their behavior.

Good umpires know how to deal with these coaches. They always back down.

 

[Greatdaytobeawildcat]

"Good gad all-mitey. And that's why you're a middle school ump."

I don't think this is the insult you think it is, middle school coach.