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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Umpire strike zone size
Josh takes a look.
I must say, this looks a bit of a step back from others that I’ve seen. Suppose that an umpire has pitchers that throw alot of pitches in the middle of the strike zone. The way Josh calculates it, that’s included in his metric.
The way the other guys have done it, they looked for a “contour” of x-inches of width where the called strike to called ball ratio was 1. Basically, the wide pitches and the center pitches tell us nothing about the umpire.
Or, do they? Perhaps, rather than a step back, Josh took a step to the side. If a pitcher is throwing alot of pitches in the middle of the strike zone, he may be doing it in ANTICIPATION of a smaller strike zone from the umpire. So, if an umpire happens to see alot of down-the-middle pitches, then that may tell us something. Except.... Josh removed any pitches that the batter swung at.
So, I think there’s alot of different considerations here, as to exactly what it is that Josh (or, the interested reader) actually wants. I’m not sure that Josh answered his intended question, or some other intended question. And, it’s quite possible, that the huge sample size mitigates any of this anyway, since umpires are not paired with pitchers.
Anyway, lots of things to consider, and reformulate…
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