Who is wrong? Umps or announcers?

[jtur88]

Why doesn't somebody settle it, once and for all? Do the umpires look and see who is batting, and who is pitching, and expand or contract the strike zone accordingly? Saturday on Fox, Buck and McCarver said it again: "Pitches like that are going to be called strikes when you're struggling like Ortiz is." One of them said it, and the other repeated it almost word for word.

Let's get to the bottom of this. Do the MLB umpires look at the scouting reports before the game, and decide who gets a big strike zone and who gets a small one? How do the umpires know that Ortiz is 3-for-42 or whatever? Why do they care? Do the announcers talk to the umpires? Do the umps tell them that they fudge the calls according to who the players are?

The announces have been saying this for years. They are accusing the umpires of not being objective---and even worse, justifying the umpires for doing so. If they are wrong, why don't they stop saying it? If they are right, why aren't the umpires fired? If the announcers are wrong, why don't the fans care. If the umpires are wrong, why don't the players care?

[bedir than average]

Announcers have been wrong about a lot of things for years

[Simp]

I heard one of the Tigers announcers this weekend talking about how Kenny Rogers "needed" certain pitches to be called strikes and that a good umpire will recognize this. He was serious.

[Grandstander]

I think that the announcers get this "information" in the form of complaints from players they talk with before the games. When someone is going bad, it's understandable that he will blame an array of factors and among the more obviously available choices are the umps. The pitcher who is walking a lot of guys is getting squeezed by the ump, the batter who is striking out is the victim of an ump's "expanded zone."

The announcers pass along these perceptions as if they were facts. And after passing x number of such complaints along, they decide to codify matters by proclaiming that umps are inclined as a group to stick it to struggling players. It becomes conventional wisdom and people forget to really think about it.

[Simp]

Another thing the announcers are usually wrong on is balls/strikes. They must have a bad view of the plate from the booth but I find it hard to believe they don't have monitors. A ball will be way off the plate and the announcer will say "that just missed!".

[Grandstander]

Our typical tv view of the strikezone is distorted. The centerfield camera is most often located above and to the pitcher's right. Where our eyes see the strike zone, isn't the actual stikezone, it is really higher and further to the right than the perception that we receive.

And of course the strikezone we perceive when attending a game, is going to be distorted by our seat location. Even if the announcer is directly behind the plate, he will still be far above it and in no position to judge the vertical aspects of the pitch, however, he will be well set up for judging whether the ball is over the plate or not.

[jtur88]

Some stadiums are equipped with a device that purports to show whether the ball crosses the plate within the strike zone. Anybody know how accurate that is? When the ball is well outside the "K-zone" or whatever, Joe Morgan in particular invariably defends the umpire for calling it "within the tolerance" of a strike. What he apparently means is that if the umpire misses by 3 or 4 inches, he is to be given the benefit of the doubt. It is also widely stated that being consistent is more important than being right. It is not clear if the umpire has the discretion to call pitches that bounce in front of the plate strikes, as long as they call all bouncers strikes. The Braves capitalized for years on the apparent tendency of umpires to call a pitch a strike if it hits the mitt target, unless it is an obvious intentional pass, in which case a pitch hitting the mitt is usually called a ball nevertheless. Javy Lopez could set up in the on-deck circle and get called strikes. Once they made him get back into the catcher's box, but that only lasted for a game or two and he was right back out there.

[jackmcmanus21]

I think that we should trust the home plate umpires judgement, no matter what

[WraparoundScore]

Originally Posted by bedir than average

Announcers have been wrong about a lot of things for years

So True

[Simp]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Our typical tv view of the strikezone is distorted. The centerfield camera is most often located above and to the pitcher's right. Where our eyes see the strike zone, isn't the actual stikezone, it is really higher and further to the right than the perception that we receive.

Yeah, but I'm also talking about the overhead shot. The pitch (to a righty) will be in the left-handers batting box and the announcer will rarely correct himself. I think I heard Keith Hernandez do it once. Besides, I don't often get it wrong even with the distorted view. The overhead shot usually supports me.

[fabio61]

They need to install blue lasers in the ground and pointing upward along the front edge of home plate, and two sets of yellow lasers from the letters to the knees, even with the front edge of home plate from each dugout (one for righty batters and one for lefty batters). Turn them on at full power as soon as the ball leaves the pitchers hand - he will have to paint his fingernails with a special reflective surface - and shut them off 1 second later. The skin of the ball should also be made of laser reflective material so that the ball will turn green (blue AND yellow) as it passes home plate if it is in the strike zone. The reflected laser from the ball could be sent to a GPS satellite over the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and relayed to the STRIZOSAT in geostationary orbit over the Indian ocean, which will verify it was indeed a strike or not, then that info would be relayed back to the umpire's GPS transponder at which point he would call a 'ball' or a STEEEEEEEE-RIKE!

[Grandstander]

I once played in a league where they used those laser eyes to determine balls and strikes. It was okay at first, but then I went into a bit of a slump and the machine started expanding the strikezone on me.

[Simp]

fabio61's post, for all it's sarcasm would still be far better than the way it's currently done.

[GonnaHitem]

I think the announcers are wrong a lot of the time.. although the umps do have their moments

[Triad]

Some announcers are dunderheads, plain and simple. I have the misfortune of being subjected to Mariners announcers who have no clue. So many of them are just sensationalizing anyway.

I remember watching a college basketball game, and when the player missed a free throw, the announcer actually said, "Oh, he missed it! He's usually a 77% shooter from the line..." Think about that. In the first case, he was incredulous that something that occurs 23% of the time occurred. And then he added a condition to a probability factor.

The one thing I've liked about Skip Carey on the Braves broadcasts is that he's willing to admit what he doesn't know, and he's not stuck on himself. Same with Chris Berman and Jon Miller. They're a rare breed. So many other uninformed announcers put on this air of having an advanced form of analysis.

Tim McCarver, while he does know a lot about the game, doesn't know his own limits. He frequently wanders out of his element.

Joe Morgan also knows a lot about the game, but he has some very misguided notions about probability, tendencies, etc. Morgan would be awful as a tactical manager.

I would love to have Keith Hernandez announce every game I watch. He knows the inside game, and he knows how to convey what's going on on the field to others. And he's not blinded by silly baseball myths.

Some other announcer gems:
• When they say that a great hit is going to help a player's confidence, as if someone other than the player made the hit for him in the first place.
• They talk about which team has the momentum, but then an inning later, they're talking about the other team having the momentum, and then it's back to the other team later. If momentum truly meant anything, then it wouldn't keep changing so much.
• When they say that a player is "due". There's no such thing as being due. The law of averages says that things will even out eventually, but previous failings do not increase the likelihood of success on subsequent occurrences.
• Talking about come-from-behind wins as if they were some dramatic occurrence. The visiting team scores a run in the top of the 1st, and then the home team ends up winning the game, and that counts in their list of "come-from-behind" wins.
• When they mention someone has something like an 8-game hitting streak. Big whuppin' deal. You can bat .250 over 8 games and have an 8-game hitting streak.
• When they say "he pops him up." I'm sorry, but the pitcher did not pop up the batter.
• When they speak in future tense. "And he's going to make the catch..." Is the announcer a psychic?
• When the announcer screams in excitement prior to telling us what happened, and we have no idea why he's screaming. Such as a great defensive play by the home team, and he's already screaming when he says "Grounded to short...!!! Betancourt gets to his feet and throws him out!" This is probably manifested the worst in basketball, when the announcer gets excited about a 3-point attempt, before it even gets to the basket. "Iverson for three!!!......... He misses..." Are we really supposed to be excited that a player is attempting a 3-point shot?