Opening That Window
by Brent McLaren
For years I have been fascinated by the statistics of baseball: who hits best on grass, day games, home, away ,,,, many of the little oddities that make numbers intriguing. I love to examine hitting trends, the batter / pitcher duels and both short and long-term patterns. If I sit in the stands I will have a scoring pad with me. This past winter I beta-tested as baseball scoring software package for a US company so "spring training" was spent electronically scoring game after game.The question arises: can the same statistics we track for the player help the umpire refine his or her game? Certainly if we exampine the professional umpire development programs the work of the umpire evaluator, their notes and stats are an integral part of the official's growth and maturity.
Background
My son is a pitcher. Solid mechanics, good control and velocity. Developing and maintaining his skill is an every day, year round activity. He will work in a rotation with his house league team that usually brings him to the mound once or twice each week for about five innings in total. Add to this the travelling team practices and tournament weekends and he will maintain a healthy pitch count in game situations each week.Last season (summer of '95) I stepped back a bit from umpiring to assist as a pitching trainer for his travelling team. Between the practices and tournament games I kept very detailed stats, not just on my pitchers and batters but ultimately on the umpiring crew as well.
Have you noticed ...
I can look at my pitching stats sheet and tell you a lot about an umpire. One thing that always amazed me was how often a young pitcher will spring out to an 0-2 count only to run the count to full before retiring or walking the batter. Here are just a few of the trends my sheets revealed :- the third pitch with the count 0-2 was never called a strike
- the 3-0 pitch is an automatic strike
- if the count is 0-2 it will most likely go to 2-2 before a strike will be called
- the first pitch, that if not swung at, was always called a ball
- a breaking ball or changeup was rarely a called strike
- pitches in the outside half of the plate go unnoticed
- at 3-2 the umpire's call was 90% strike, or 90% ball
- some catchers rarely get called strikes
Breaking the myth
They say you can't call the strike or ball from the dugout. To the largest extent that is true but there is another side to the reality. Good catchers are trained to not move the glove after the pitch arrives. They set up with the pocket "down the pipe." A pitching coach knows where his catcher is setting up and also knows, may have even called, the pitch that is coming. If the ball goes directly into that pocket, and there is no movement you can get a clear picture of the call. Between innings your pitcher and catcher will tell you as well, albeit a touch biased, but usually accurate.If I were a coach I could use this trends to my advantage. My tally showed me how to "play the umpire." Don't call an outside breaking ball if the umpire only called inside.. In an 0-2 situation the next pitch was not going to be called so signal the batter to take the next pitch ... surprise 1-2. Similarly if pitchers arrived at an 0-2 count the situation calls for an "out" pitch (breaking ball in the dirt, high fast ball, changeup at the knees) to encourage the batter to swing - or - if they were playing the umpire game as well, might look to chase down a runner in a 1-2-3 play or throw a developing pitch.
More important is how these stats can improve my plate work and the work of the other umpires.
Trends and Improving the Novice Umpire
How can these statistics prepare better umpires? Perhaps we should follow the same pattern established by the professional crews in training. Several times, particularly at the start of each season, an evaluator should sit down with the crew after a game. Talk about what went right for them and their perceptions of the game, its strengths and moments that could be improved on.. Look at game situations and will add a "what-if" situation to advance rules knowledge.. Finally look at the scoring sheets.It is not necessary to point out things to the umpire but simply guide them through the game once more. They can discuss the plays, the calls and usually see any patterns themselves.
Patterns emerge. One umpire notices that he has two innings of three up, three down ball for both teams then has one inning where every base was occupied, followed by two more up and down innings and another merry-go-round. What is consistent is that this is the pattern of the last two games as well. Why? Could it be that your concentration went down a notch in those innings.
Here is an amazing, and proven bit of information. Students are programmed to focus for specific time periods then have a period of "packing their books and moving to the next class." True! This pattern will repeat itself after school, on the diamond, just as it would between math and english class. Younger children concentrate from commercial to commercial! Why should their performance on the field be any different?
Some umpires readily admit that they do not like to call a "third strike" unless the pitch is perfect. The statistics bear this out. There is not one umpire who has not mumbled "Lord, let this pitch be down the pipe and belt high" in a tight game ending situation, does that mean however that the strike zone is different for first and second strikes then it is for third? Remember, the coach can play to the umpire's strengths and weaknesses as well as the coach can play to the players.
Once you become aware of a trend you can focus in and fix it. Similarly, you can have positive trends and can reinforce those quality experiences. The time to establish "the complete game" is during those initial years of umpiring. Good habits can grow and less desirable habits can be easily weeded out.
The more time we put into our young umpires the better quality we will ensure for the future of our local organizations.
Pitching Statistics Sheet
Click here to download my Pitching Statistics Sheet ~in zip compressed format (approximately 15k). It is a Quattro Pro 5.0 spreadsheet which I normally print on a laser printer.The game sheet is different from most scoring sheets in that it gives detailed information on the performance of pitchers. You do not enter the game by innings but by batter. At the end of the inning draw a line across the bottom of the last batter's score and continue in the box underneath next inning. The box beside "I" is filled in with the inning number.
Track each pitch by indicating the type of pitch and how it was called. If the batter swung at a pitch a check mark accompanies the pitch type. Because you move along the strike/ball line (the second pitch will be in the second box, third in the third etc.) with each pitch you easily see trends emerging in the pitcher.
Track each batter who hits and where they hit to creating a "splatter chart." This is essential if you will meet a team several times during the season. You will also know not to throw a ball up in the zone, or to serve up a curve ball if you track this information.
Finally, the tally areas allow you to track the number (#) of pitches thrown in an inning, the total in the game and a ball / strike count. Later you can generate the tons of percentages you may use to track your player's performance.. The other tally section allows you to see how many times a count came up in a specific game. Again, information you may find interesting or useful can be generated.
By combining this pitch information with regular scoring notation the coach can get very serious data from this sheet, certainly more than a regular scoring sheet. I hope you find it of value in your coaching and in working training umpires.
..... written June 1, 1996 by Brent McLaren
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