MLB and Umpires Reach 5 Year Agreement

Major League Baseball owners and the World Umpires Association, the exclusive bargaining representative of all full-time Major League Umpires, have both officially ratified a five-year labor agreement, the parties announced today.  The pact covers the 2015-2019 seasons.

The Most Pitcher & Hitter Friendly Umpires

As a quantifiable skill, pitch framing has been garnering a lot of attention in the past few years. While most research on that front has focused on a catcher’s ability to get extra strikes called, at Baseball Info Solutions we have developed a methodology for dividing the credit among the catcher, the pitcher, the batter, and the umpire. We call our system Strike Zone Plus/Minus, and the details of the methodology will be explained in The Fielding Bible—Volume IV coming out this spring.

A longtime umpire’s battle with endless hardships. | SportsonEarth.com : Anthony Castrovince

A story of going on.

AP sources: Umpires, MLB reach 5-year agreement

NEW YORK (AP) — Several people familiar with the deal say Major League Baseball and its umpires have reached agreement on a five-year labor contract.

The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Friday because both sides still need to ratify the deal next month.

Neyer: How friendly should umpires be with players?

Its “Livan and Eric Gregg” not “Adam and Steve”!

Tuesday, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with Dave Pallone, who before Tuesday was baseball’s best-known gay umpire. I was interested in Pallone’s take on current umpire Dale Scott’s public acknowledgment of his sexual orientation, and Pallone was great; the fruits of the interview are here.

But there was something I didn’t ask Pallone about: his sexual relationships with players, during his umpiring career. In particular, he devotes a few pages to a fling with a young star he calls “Wes”.

Was this appropriate?...

Actually, I think it was wrong. Just because they were player and umpire. I think Pallone crossed a line.

Umpire Dale Scott comes out, but too soon to laud MLB - NY Daily News

Thoughtful commentary.

Grantland - Rung Up: Are Postseason Umpires Actually Baseball’s Most Accurate?

“The goal each and every season,” MLB spokesman Mike Teevan told me via email, “is to have the most deserving Umpires working Postseason games.”

Mission accomplished!

Joe West named ALCS crew chief

“Hi everyone. I’m Major League Umpire, Joe West.”

Matt Kemp and the Problem With the Umpire Strike Zone | FanGraphs Baseball

How often exactly is that pitch called a ball? It seems to me Kemp could have easily been called out on strikes on the first pitch but wasn’t. When talking about a 0.2 inch difference, I get that two nearly identical pitches were called differently, two nearly identical pitches which, in isolation, could easily be accepted as either a ball or a strike. Matt Kemp should have swung at one of them.

The setting for you: 3-1 Cardinals, top 9, Kemp leading off against Trevor Rosenthal. With the count 1-and-2, Rosenthal threw Kemp a fastball down and away.

Ball. All right, makes sense. Seemed a little off the plate away. At 2-and-2, Rosenthal came back with another fastball down and away.

Strike. All right, makes sense. Perfectly spotted, barely missed the plate. You see this pitch called a strike pretty often. The only problem being: welp. See, there was this other fastball, right before. Now we get to move on to just an absolutely amazing .gif. This is the problem with the umpire strike zone, in a couple of seconds:

Dodgers are in big trouble, and a frustrated Kemp sounds off on ump - CBSSports.com

Ultimately, the players need to overcome whatever game conditions they face.

“You’ve got to be accountable, man,” Kemp continued. “When we do bad things, we get punished. We can get sent down. When stuff like that happens, you should be gone. There should be some type of punishment.”

WSJ: Scoring in Baseball Is Down. Blame the Umpires A Study Found That Umpires Have Expanded Their Strike Zone in Recent Years

The rate of correct strike calls has increased 9% from 2007 to 2013, Mills found, while the correct ball rate has increased 2.63%. According to Mills’s analysis, these shifts can account for as much as 40% in the decrease in ERA over that span. And it isn’t just that umpires are calling more strikes; they’re doing it more accurately. In particular, umpires have been calling lower strikes, by the batter’s knees. The odds of getting a hit on one of those pitches, Mills said, are 27% lower than other pitches.