Getting Squeezed

2012 All Starting Pitchers through April 17thThe above shows which starting pitchers are not getting the strike calls they should according to PitchFX data.  Ervin Santana seems to have been royally squeezed in his two starts this year.  Here's a heat map of all his pitches that were called balls so far in 2012:

Total Called Balls = 87; Missed Strike Calls = 14 (Click image to enlarge)

Now take a look at last season's list:

2011 All Starting Pitchers (min. 500 pitches thrown to PitchFX strike zone)Justin Masterson is the one name that has reappeared in the 2012 top ten list of squeezed starting pitchers.  His name shouldn't be a surprise - he's one of many sinker ball pitchers that made the top ten for the 2011 list.  The high and low parts of the strike zone are often the most difficult for umpires to call consistently correct since they change slightly batter by batter.

Expect to see more sinkerballers sneak their way into the 2012 list as the season progresses.

Umpire Review: Opening Weekend (Part Two)

While Ed Rapuano's strike zone was bigger than any other umpire's during Opening Weekend, Tim Welke had the tightest strike zone gauged by missed strikes in the PitchFX defined strike zone.  In the April 5th game between the Blue Jays and the Indians, Welke had a 64.5% correct call rate inside the strike zone.  He missed 39 of the 110 PitchFX strikes, the majority of which came against lefty batters.

Tim Welke Called Strike Rate on Pitches inside the Strike Zone to left-handed batters (Blue Jays vs. Indians - 4/5/2012)For some reason, Welke was ignoring the lower inside part of the zone to lefties in that game. Granted, no other umpire on Opening Weekend had as many pitches in the zone to call. Welke's 110 strike zone takes were almost 40 more than any other umpire during Opening Weekend (in a game that was over 5 hours long).  Still, a 64.5% correct call rate is pretty low.

Welke's rate last year was 75.1%, which was the 6th lowest among all umpires. He's just not much of a pitcher's umpire.

On the flip side, Jerry Meals was perfect in his 2012 debut behind the plate in the Dodgers-Padres game on April 6th.

Meals correctly called all 45 pitches that hit the PitchFX strike zone. In addition, he incorrectly called just 13 strikes that were actually balls according to PitchFX data.  Although I would certainly love the implementation of a computerized strike zone at some point in Major League Baseball, I have to take my hat off to Jerry Meals for his performance this past weekend. He was the closest thing to a robot behind the plate as we've seen so far.

Umpire Review: Opening Weekend (Part One)

Throughout the 2012 season we will take a look at the accuracy of MLB umpires by comparing their ball/strike calls to PitchFX data. With every team now having completed at least one series, let's take a look at the numbers.

First up, let's see which umpires expanded their strike zones during Opening Weekend:

All MLB Games through April 8, 2012

Ed Rapuano manned home plate duties in the Wednseday night MLB opener between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins.  He seemed to be giving pitchers some help as 16 of the 94 pitches taken out of the strike zone by batters were called strikes. As a point of comparison, league average called strike rate on pitches out of the zone last season was 9.7%.

Again, Rapuano's expanded zone on Wednesday was a product of 16 erroneous strikes. Over the remainder of the season, he'll likely move closer to his average from last season (9.3%).

137 Taken Pitches / 49 Total Called Strikes / 16 Strikes Outside the ZoneFrom the above graphic, you can see that Rapuano was favoring the outside strike for both lefties and righties. Five of those strikes came against Marlins batters, while eleven came against Cardinals hitters. It didn't seem to affect the defending champions too much as they still managed to win the game 4-1.

Next up, we'll take a look at missed strike calls within the PitchFX strike zone....