THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Suspend that ump

I’m sure if that was Pedroia he would’ve done the same thing......not.

Could somebody expand on the details of the situation?  I can see it’s the 3rd inning, so I don’t think it compares to John Lackey’s first 2009 start for quick ejections (He threw 2 pitches at Ian Kinsler leading off the game, 2nd one hit the target, and Lackey was gone.)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TEX/TEX200905160.shtml

In 2003:

http://www.jmls.edu/intheloop/previous/2003/07272003/index.htm

What about those times when a coach is screaming in your face and gets ejected? Bellino says he and his fellow umpires try to keep ejection to the barest minimum “because it means paperwork after the game” and it will lead to a review by the supervisors from the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation.

Reading that article linked to the pic, the umpire better have a damn good explanation.  I’d like to see umpire suspensions when they overreact.

Rally: I meant from time of last strike to ejection.

I have no idea what happened there, but as far as I can tell, the batter doesn’t protest or even look surprised when he gets tossed.  Maybe he really did say something ejection worthy.

Or maybe Bradley knows if he gets mad and shows it he’ll get in a fight with the ump, wind up suspended, his manager will have to run out to restrain him, and his ACL would tear in the process.

Ten bucks says Bradley wrote some nasty stuff about the ump’s wife on the bottom of the bat. CLEVER one, that Milton.

he’s showing up the umpire. maybe if derek jeter does it he gets the benefit of the doubt that he thought it was the final out and wasn’t intending to show up the umpire. bradley doesn’t. welcome to life.

If he was frustrated with himself, he couldn’t drop his bat?  If he thought there were two outs, he couldn’t drop his bat?

Since the umpires act on the basis of giving the players the benefit of the doubt because as this ump himself has said, they don’t want to go through the paperwork of justifying their actions, then you can’t make the conclusion that he WAS showing him up.  He MAY have been showing him up. 

If you give them a reasonable doubt, you have to be, what 95% sure of his intent.  You can’t be 50% sure can you?

i don’t think he should drop his bat. but then i’m of the type that can’t stand petulance.

if i’m judging intent and i see milton bradley drop his bat and stand in the batter’s box after been called out looking, i think it’s quite reasonable to judge his intent to be to show up the umpire. and, yeah, considering who it is i think i could say very easily with a straight face that when milton bradley does that, i’m 95% sure he’s doing it to be a dick.

No offense Larry, if you are 95% sure of that, then there’s a reason that you wouldn’t be an MLB ump.  There’s simply no way that if you see that happen 20 times, that 19 of those times is because of intent-to-show-up.

This just goes into my big mental pile of “things that I hate about umpires.”

simply no way, huh. i see. unfortunate that we can’t test the hypothesis.

players shouldn’t be doing that in the first place. frankly, i don’t even care what his intent is (maybe that’s my bias). act like an adult.

I thought what Bradley did was entirely consistent with him thinking that he was the third out, and expressing some frustration at having been fooled by the pitch.

The immediate reach for the batting gloves wasn’t, IMO, consistent with trying to show up the ump.  Again, it was the sort of thing someone does when preparing to hand his gloves to the batboy in exchange for his fielding glove and hat… I think the ump has a pretty quick trigger…

Unless of course Bradley said something that crossed the line to go with it, but I couldn’t tell.  We’ll probably find out more…

I’m not seeing it.  Then again, I’m more used to hockey.  Even there abuse of the officials will get you some box time, but in general, there’s a little leeway.  The players know they can mouth off to vent their frustration, the ref lets it go, and then when he says, “You’ve had your say, go sit down,” the player nearly always does.

larry/15 - I can see your point but it goes both ways.  The ump can act like an adult too.  Even if it’s on purpose, does it really hurt Big Blue’s feelings that much?  Bradley’s not about to agree about the call, nor feel happy even if he does.  These guys have such a thin skin nowadays, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts it’s mostly because they don’t have any practice in dealing with a mouthy player.  All it takes is a little humility and good humor.

Bradley drops his bat like that on walks too. I don’t think he meant anything by it and he didn’t act suprised by the ejection because he’s used to it.

Really?  You mean Bradley’s done that a few hundred times?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  This makes the ump look far worse.

Bradley clearly thinks that there are three outs. He’s frustrated at getting fooled and/or getting a bad call.
Sequence of events:
1) Called strike 3
2) He drops his bat and starts to take off his glove.
3) Catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher.
4) Bradley bends over to pick up his bat.
5) Umpire starts his motion to toss Bradley.
6) Bradley walks back to the dugout calmly even before the umpire is finished tossing him.
7) Umpire finishes motion in tossing Bradley.

My inference is that Bradley thought there were three outs. Seeing the ball fly in front of his face (and not rolling out to the mound and the catcher running back to the dugout) made him think, “Oh shit, there aren’t three outs.” At that point, he begins to pick up his back and walk back to the dugout, not even looking at the umpire.

For someone else who might be so schooled in Bradley’s thought processes, I wonder if light could be shed on why he made no reaction to the umpire when he has so often previously.

Bradley’s got one of the greatest eyes I’ve ever seen. In my experience of watching him, he gets pretty pissed at himself (sullenly) when he misses seeing a ball. He gets pretty pissed at the umpire when he thinks the ump missed it. This reaction is MUCH more consistent with the former and not the latter.

It’s probably fair to expect that umpires will be on high alert when Milton Bradley is in the game. 

my guess is that this ump decided to himself that he’s instituting zero tolerance toward Bradley and as soon as Bradley did something that even slightly smacked of irritation, he was ready with the heave-ho.

It definitely looks like Bradly thought the inning was over. 

But even if he didn’t, it is simply unconscionable for an ump to eject a player who has said nothing, looked at no one, and has not made even a gesture of hostility. 

At worst, he was pouting.  Big deal.

Fwiw, according to a post on USS Mariner, that was a AAA umpire.

It actually looks like he thought the inning was over. After he drops his bat, he starts taking off his batting gloves. Then he realizes the inning isnt over, picks up his bat and walks away.

Good job, ump.

Sigh.  Just one more piece evidence supporting the argument to minimize the impact umps have on the game.  I can appreciate the difficulty of what they do, but just call the game and leave your ego at the door; Nobody cares if you feel shown up.

I wonder if there is an objective classification system that umps must use to explain their decisions to eject.

Milton has spent the better part of a decade building up a large negative bank account with the umpires by acting like a child.  As a result he gets the benefit of the doubt rarely, if ever.  It certainly doesn’t look like he deserved to get tossed here, but that is just part of the cost of employing a guy like Milton.