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Friday, January 15, 2010
Should umpires end up being biased against pitchers with poor control?
Chris Moore says yes in this article on The Baseball Analysts.
Basically, he explains a fairly simple concept based on Bayesian probability, and he is correct. If an umpire sees a pitch that appears borderline to him, he has to assume that if it comes from a control pitcher that it is more likely to be a strike than if it comes from a wild pitcher, even though if the umpire did not know the pitcher, the chances of it being a strike, in his estimation, might be the same.
He concludes:
Umpires absolutely should be biased to give pitchers with good control a wider strike-zone. If an umpire does not give a pitcher with good control a wider strike zone, then he is being unfair.
Unfortunately, his conclusion is 100% incorrect. While it is true that the umpire should call more strikes on a pitch that he judges in isolation to have an X percent chance of being a strike if the pitcher is a control pitcher, as compared to a pitcher with less control, he should only do that to an extent that the result is that each pitcher ends up with exactly the same strike zone once the pitches are measured correctly and independently (of the identity of the pitcher).
Where he comes up with the idea that is “fair” that an umpire ends up giving more strikes to the control pitchers I have no idea. Another example (like JC’s aging article) of good research and a correct concept (Bayesian probability as applied to the chances that a pitch is in the strike zone in the eyes of the umpire) yielding a 100% incorrect conclusion, or at least one that is worded poorly (that it is “fair” to award the control pitchers more strikes).
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