THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Standing where he stands now, behind the catcher, reduces the parallax problem described so well by Colin in his article about scoring fly balls and line drives.  Having the ball strike umpire stand any where else increases parallax and would decrease accuracy of calls.  This is also the reason that the CF camera that is offset from being directly in line with home plate and pitching rubber makes the umpire’s ball strike calls look wrong. 

The problem with having the umpire stand behind the pitcher is that it is impossible for him to tell whether a breaking ball is breaking out of the strike zone before or after it crosses the front of the plate.

I have done both (behind the pitcher once though), and I felt the biggest difference between the two positions is depth perception.

If accuracy of calls is the goal, by far, the best place for the Ball Strike Umpire to sit is at a desk.

This is from Bruce Weber’s Book As They See ‘Em:

The best way to position yourself to call balls and strikes is a matter of some debate in umpire-dom, and if you watch major league games, you’ll see some variety, though generally the stances are variants of two fundamental styles. One is known as the scissors, in which one foot is placed well in front of the torso, the other behind; the position is often referred to as vertical, meaning your legs are in line with the path from the pitcher’s mound to the plate.

Mastering the stance means being able to fall into it naturally, pitch after pitch — without checking your feet, the distance behind the catcher, your relationship to the plate and the batter. It means trusting the catcher to catch the ball, not flinching when a pitch comes in high and seemingly right at your nose. It means keeping your head completely still and “tracking,” that is, following the ball with only your eyes until it disappears in the catcher’s glove.

I agree with BJ.  I actually think that without a doubt, the best place is behind the pitcher, or thereabouts.  Watching a game on TV is a proxy for standing behind the pitcher, especially if you mentally adjust for the fact that the camera angle is offset, which is not that difficult.

As I have “proven” several times on this very site, it is easy to nail almost the exact location of a pitch when watching on TV.  When you are crouching behind a catcher and a ball is coming at you at 80-100 miles an hour, and you are potentially distracted by the batter and catcher, it is a wonder that you can call pitches with any accuracy at all.  Actually, the only reason that you can call pitches with reasonable accuracy from behind the plate is thousands of hours of experience.

Put someone behind the pitcher who watches baseball but has never umpired before, and they will do a pretty good job.  Put someone behind the plate who has never been there before, and they will be lost.

I heard or read somewhere that the only reason that the ball/strike umpire is behind home plate is to give the appearance that he is “in charge of the game.”

Put it this way:  I have umpired a Little League game from behind the plate one time in my life. I have umpired on the field probably a dozen times.  That is the extent of my umpiring experience.  I know that I can do better than a major league umpire watching TV, and I am pretty sure I could do just as good a job in person standing behind the pitcher.

Let’s not forget that the home plate umpire does more than just call balls and strikes. He is responsible for determining whether a ground ball is fair or foul prior to reaching a base, catcher’s interference, calling plays at the plate (think about steals of home), ensuring legal catches by a catcher on fouls back toward the screen, etc.

Like a catcher, he is the one umpire who has the whole field of play in front of him. My guess is that it was decided at some point that the behind-the-catcher position best balances all of the home plate umpire’s responsibilities.

"Forgetting, for now, that the umpire needs to be protected from a batted or thrown ball, where is the ideal place to place a pair of eyes...to call balls and strikes?”

It’s a very limited-scope question.  We’re only concerned with calling balls and strikes, and we’re not concerned with batted or thrown balls.

If I ask the question that includes the reality that the umpire has to be safe, then we’re severely limiting our options, and the discussion potential.

If you insist that the Umpire needs to actually be on the field (a mistake, imo), the best place, ignoring safety concerns would be about 10-15 feet in front of home plate, back to the pitcher.  It is probably best that the umpire be sitting on a chair, or other suspension device, that allowed his head to be positioned exactly in the middle of the strike zone (if that strike zone were projected to the umpires position 10-15 feet in front of home plate).

Even with this, there are still going to be issues involving depth (the strike zone being a volume of space, rather than a plane) that would all be better resolved with multiple cameras and/or electronic tracking devices.

Set one umpire up directly to the right or left of the plate (whichever is opposite the hitter), but several feet away (10? 20? not sure what would be best here, but enough where he can clearly see the whole zone without having to move his head up or down, and where he can see the pitch coming in his peripheral vision soon enough to anticipate when it will cross the plate).  He is only looking for height of the pitch as it crosses the plate, not whether it goes over the plate.  Set up a second umpire in a lifeguard chair behind the catcher (where he is now, but in a lifeguard chair) looking down to judge only whether the pitch crosses over any part of the plate.  For a pitch to be a strike, both umpires have to call it a strike.  If one or both do not call it a strike, it is a ball.

The reason you typically see 1 or more horrible calls by an umpire is precisely because they are behind the plate. If they were behind the pitcher, they might miss some close ones, but they would never make an egregiously wrong call.  I’m not saying that the ball/strike umpire should not be stationed behind home plate.  I am just saying that anyone who tells you that that is the best place to judge balls and strikes is from behind the plate, which is what most umpires will tell you, is flat out wrong.

If we’re going to talk about moving the home plate umpire, why not just leave him where he is and give him some sort of handheld indicator that tells him in real time where the PITCHf/x system tracked the ball in relation to the strike zone?

That’ll work…

If you are going to give him some sort of portable device that tells him how to call balls and strikes, why make that a function of the Home Plate Umpire at all?  What value is the umpire behind the plate adding to the electronic system?  Or is he there simply to replace the electronic system in case of failure?

If you are going that route, again, why not remove teh ball/strike caller from the field entirely?  Surely an Umpire sitting at a desk with not only PITCH/fx data but also with multiple camera views and preferably some “at locus"(home plate) sensor data would be able to be perfect (in a way that we know PITCH/fx and human behind the plate Umpires are not).

Right, the point of the question is not to give him an electronic device (a 3rd, 4th and 5th eye in the case of PITCHf/x).

I’m thinking totally from the perspective of the human eyes, and how they can position the ball as it moves through the air at 75-100mph, on some sort of curved line.

I think the first question we ought to answer is whether the vertical or horizontal location of the pitch matters more.

I’d say that the current position probably offers the best view of horizontal pitch location. (MGL, is it possible that it was easier for you to call balls and strikes from behind the pitcher because that was the view you were accustomed to for TV? That may not be the case for an experienced umpire.)

"(MGL, is it possible that it was easier for you to call balls and strikes from behind the pitcher because that was the view you were accustomed to for TV? That may not be the case for an experienced umpire.)”

Sure that is possible, but given the one or more egregious calls that an umpire generally makes behind the plate per game that you would NEVER make from watching on TV and presumably from behind the pitcher, I would have to think that behind the plate is NOT the best position.

As I said, I’ll bet on myself watching TV versus any ump, compared to pitch f/x.

Taking the umpire out of the equation…

If your life depended on getting a ball/strike call correct, whose opinion would you trust? The pitcher, the catcher, or the batter?

I’d trust the pitcher. So that’s where I’d put the umpire.

An ump that far from home plate might suffer a bit on foul tips and catcher’s interference calls, but those are few compared to borderline strikes that get screwed up.

Brian, exactly the way I was thinking it.  They each have an advantage.  I think the pitcher has the most advantage, which is why I’m positioning my umpire between home and the mound.  And I think the batter has some advantage, which is why I’m putting the ump closer to the line.  And the catcher has the “line of sight” advantage, which is why I’m making my umpire crouch so that his eyes are as much in the plane as possible.

So, that’s why I’m putting my umpire in the midpoint of home, the mound, and the foul line.

The question then becomes, if that’s the ideal spot to put the umpire, where exactly should you start moving him when safety becomes a concern?  Do you start to move him toward (and behind) the catcher, toward (and on the other side) of the batter / ondeck circle, toward (next to or behind) the pitcher?

Tom, I think an ump in your proposed spot would have trouble calling the horizontal direction. What would he or she use for references?

One thing I have been studying is the egregious mistakes by umpires. Things like check swings can really throw off an umpire. I wonder whether re-positioning would fix that. I also wonder if MLB is using the PITCHf/x data effectively to train umps on things like that. I doubt it.

Umps should spemd time with their families and if their children are old enough to watch sportsline.com they can question the computer , together after the correct call is always made and without “further review”

I think that also the fact that the plate umpire is in foul play has something to do with it. If the umpire were behind the pitcher he may actually block the view of a play for varying players depending on where the play is at. Especially this year in the MLB. In my opinion putting an umpire in this position poses a hinderance to players in a high traffic are right in the center of the infield. If a ball goes up the middle on the SS side and the SS makes a throw to first base he would be ducking throws constantly. Whereas, if the ump is behind the plate. He is out of play and when the ball is struck he is in a better position to not interfere with the throw. Not to mention he is ultimately in a better position to make a call in a squeeze bunt to bring a runner home or another bang bang play at the plate that he would be out of position for if he was behind the pitcher. The plays at the plate are the most important (in my opinion) because runs determine the outcome of a game and you can’t score till you cross the plate…

Howdy

I was watching an old silent movie this morning called ‘ The Busher ‘.  The movie was made in the mid 1920’s.  The character in the movie get’s signed by a fictitous Major League team, the ‘ St. Paul Pink-Sox ‘. My question are as follows.  When did Major Leaugue Baseball move the umpire from behind the Pitcher to behind the Catcher? I think that such a move was of benefit to the Hitter and this makes me wonder what was Babe Ruth’s average before the change and after and, more importantly, his at bat average of strikeouts and home runs ?  Thanks.

Babe Ruth would have never had balls and strikes called from behind the pitcher during his ML career.  Umpires have stood behind the plate since at least the 1880s.  I don’t think they ever called pitches from behind the pitcher (sometimes amateur leagues use that position when they have only one umpire, but I don’t think it was ever used in professional baseball).

In really old depictions of the game, you sometimes see the umpire standing off to the side behind the plate, several feet away from the action.  I’ve read reports from as late as 1870 of a professional umpire sitting or standing back there rather than right behind the plate.  At that point, calling balls and strikes was not really a significant part of the job (the rules on pitching and balls and strikes evolved greatly in the 19th Century; before the 1870s, I don’t think there even was officially a strike zone).  I am not sure exactly when they became required to position themselves behind the catcher.  They began wearing chest protectors in 1885, so likely at some point before then.  There are references to umpires wearing masks well before that.