Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The following is an exchange between a reader and Bill James, where the reader quotes a report in the Boston Globe to that effect, and Bill James describes a true story where a ball-sniffing dog would separate the two kinds of balls. The seam-thing is the first I heard of it, but, given different standards and different manufacturing plants, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I also remember one year Felipe Alou suggesting that the balls were different (might have been 1997 or 1998), that the balls were “slicker” (meaning harder for the pitcher to grip, either because of the material, or the seams).
Bill, per the Boston Globe, minor league baseballs have more pronounced seams than major league balls (which is why Dice-K uses the MLB variety in his rehab games). Is there really a difference? If so, wouldn’t every team and every pitcher be better served by using the real thing, rather adding adjustment to s different ball to all the other pressures and changes pitchers face when they reach the majors…
Asked by: greggb
Answered: 5/22/2012
The balls are different, but I didn’t know they would let you use major league balls in minor league games. I would presume there would be an economic barrier to the wide usage of major league balls in minor league games--if not an outright prohibition on it. Major league balls are more expensive.
This is a true story; the Red Sox minor league equipment co-ordinator used to have a dog that had been trained to tell the difference between a minor league ball and a major league ball. We would sort the balls into “buckets"--major league balls in one bucket, minor league balls in the other. Major league teams have dozens and dozens of buckets of balls around for batting practice and such like. Anyway, if there was one major league ball in a bucket of minor league balls, that dog would smell it, and he would remove all the balls from the bucket until he found the major league ball, put it in the major league bucket, then he would put the minor league balls back in the minor league bucket. True story.
Alan posted a letter from (.doc file) the testing facility that says:
The Major League balls are manufactured in Costa Rica and have a compressed cork sphere per the specifications. The Minor League balls are manufactured in China and have a cork center as specified in “1996 Minor League Baseball Proposal”. This cork center is the likely source for the decrease in performance, which results in a comparable Minor League ball hit of 391.8 ft under the same conditions as the Major League balls [at 400 feet].
It should be noted that an 8 to 9 foot drop in batted ball distance would lead to a 25% drop in the number of home runs. It’s all well-and-fine to say that there might be an eight foot difference in home runs due to the difference in ball configuration, and to you and me, that sounds like a small number, but the reality is that it has a tremendous impact.
There’s also this quote, that talks about how a ball could meet specifications, but would have a drastic impact:
This means that theoretically, two baseballs could meet the specifications but one ball could be hit 49.1 feet further than the other could be hit. This 49.1 feet is the combination of the increased distance of 8.7 feet for the ball being on the light side with respect to weight (i.e. 5.00 oz. as opposed to 5.25 oz.) and an additional 40.4 feet for the COR being biased to the high side (i.e. 0.578 versus 0.514). However, it should be noted that the balls investigated in this study did not exhibit this potential 49.1-ft difference. Thus, the tested baseballs indicate that the 1999 and 2000 baseballs fall within a tight range of batted-ball performance and that the 1999 and 2000 baseballs are for all practical purposes the same with respect to batted ball performance. The 49.1-ft value is purely academic—it was not seen in the balls tested.
Basically, the plants do a great job of producing balls within a tight range, but the specs allow for a huge margin of error.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
This fellow is giving us a log of his efforts.
I will say that writing a baseball sim is a great way to learn to code. When I was learning Turbo Pascal, gosh, in the 1980s (I’m getting really old), the first thing I did outside school was to program a baseball sim, because I wanted to know how to construct a batting order for my softball team. Unlike baseball, where the talent level is very close 1 through 8 (or 9 in the AL), in your neighborhood softball league, the talent gap is enormous. So, I wanted to see whether we should pack our lineup, or spread the hitters around. I still use that old sucker (it’s not like code deteriorates).
Anyway, any time you want to learn something, be it a programming language, or excel or whatever, apply it to something sports-related. That’s the best way I learn.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Someone want to check this out?
Tom:
I was wondering if you would be interested in taking a look at an iPhone app that I released earlier this year called Batter vs. Pitcher. Much like the Pennant iPad app, it incorporates the Retrosheet.org professional baseball play-by-play event data, but that is where the similarity ends. My app focuses on batter/pitcher match ups, providing summary stats and at-bat details. These stats can be invaluable to people researching the history of the game or fantasy baseball players looking for information to give them an edge on who to sit and who to start. There is also a game mode in the app that baseball enthusiasts should like.
If you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, and you would like to try the app out, here is a link to the app in the iTunes App Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/batter-vs-pitcher/id445287806?mt=8&ls=1
Here is a promotional code so that you can get the BvP app for free:
(removed. email and tell him Tango sent you; I don’t know if he will give it to you, but I sure hope he gives it out to at least 5 of you guys )
Also, there is a free “Lite” version of the app available at this link:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/batter-vs.-pitcher-lite/id459881743?ls=1&mt=8
If you don’t have a device that the app is compatible with, please feel free to pass the promotional code along to someone who will use it. And if you do use the code, please let me know if you have any questions or problems, or any comments or ideas you might have about the app. Thanks for your time.
Brian Prescott
Wave 39 LLC
Monday, September 05, 2011
By , 12:27 AM
Most of you probably read about or watched the controversial umpire call in the PHI/FLO game yesterday. If not, here is a recap:
Score tied 2-2 in the top of the 6th. No outs and Howard on 1st for the Phillies. Hunter Pence hits a line drive to the wall in RF. The Marlin’s RF’er goes back and leaps for the ball at the top of the wall. Some fans ostensibly reach over the wall at the same time. The ball caroms off the wall and Pence has a double with Ryan on third.
Peterson and some other Marlin players are motioning that the fans interfered with the ball. The Marlin’s manager comes out and argues with crew chief Joe West.
The umpires get together, view the play on video, come out, and declare Pence out for fan interference and send Howard back to first.
Manuel, the Phillies’ manager comes out of the dugout to argue, gets ejected from the game (I guess you can’t argue replay calls), and files a protest.
The Phillies and their fans are basically arguing that the play is not reviewable since only a “HR call” is reviewable. They are also arguing, I guess, that even if the play was reviewed as a “HR call,” they cannot then rule on interference based on the replay.
I don’t think there is a clear answer, I don’t know how the protest will play out (protests are rarely upheld), but I have some comments nonetheless:
First of all, I think that the chief umpire, West, lied afterward about several things in order to cover his ass, similar to the way Doug Eddings lied after the “ball hitting the dirt after a K - or not” - episode in the playoffs a few years ago.
For what it is worth, West is generally considered a terrible, arrogant umpire. Eddings is also considered a terrible umpire (along with C.B. Bucknor and Angel Hernandez). From many years of watching baseball, I agree with that consensus (about those 4 umpires).
Here is what West said according to MLB.com and other media websites:
“Because the Phillies wanted me to go look to see if it was a home run, I’ve got to judge whether it went over the fence or not,” West said. “But the plate umpire [Chad Fairchild] already thought it was spectator interference. So now we go look at the replay, we have to take all the evidence we get from the replay. That’s why we came out with, ‘This is the correct ruling.’ ”
He said that the Phillies wanted him to see if it was a HR. Manuel said he did not. If you watch the video, it does not look like Manuel ever came out of the dugout until after the review. So who exactly on the Phillies wanted or asked for a review (to see if it was a HR)? Plus it definitely did not look like a HR so I am not sure why anyone on the Phillies would ask for a review. If anything, they would NOT want a review because of the possibility of fan interference. And who else but Manuel could or would ask for a review? Again, I don’t think he ever came out of the dugout prior to the review.
That being said, according to the rules, no one needs to ASK for a review I don’t think. Here is the rule according to MLB.com:
“Instant replay will apply only to home run calls—whether they are fair or foul, whether they have left the playing field, or whether they have been subject to fan interference. The decision to use instant replay will be made by the umpire crew chief, who also will make the determination as to whether or not a call should be reversed.”
The bolding is mine. Obviously the decision is up to the umpires (the crew chief - West), but the above rule doesn’t say that anyone has to ASK for a review.
That being said, the rule clearly states that replay will only be used for HR calls. So did West decide to review the play to see if it was indeed a HR (absent fan interference or whatever I guess)? I don’t think so. I think he wanted to placate McKeon and the Marlins and see whether there was interference or not. I think that afterward when he realized that he couldn’t do that, he lied about the, “Phillies wanting to review the call to see if it was a HR?”
He didn’t have to use that lie (if indeed it was a lie). He could have simply said that there was some question among the umpires that it might be a HR, so they decided to review it. That would be perfectly legit, as far as I can tell from the above rule.
Now, let’s say that the review was legit. Can they review the play as a “HR call” (obviously when they say “HR call” in the rule, they also mean a “double call” which might have been a HR, IOW a “possible” HR) and then also decide whether it was interference or not? That is the part that is not clear, and I don’t think that there is anything in the rule that suggests they can or they can’t.
In other words, if an umpiring crew properly reviews a “HR call” (fair or foul, over the wall or not, fan interference or not), can they rule on something else that they happen to see (clearly, I assume) in the video? For example, what if they see that the fielder threw his glove at the ball, which is a penalty in and of itself, and they did not see that in live mode?
Now, the replay rule also talks about fan interference. Here is that part again:
“Instant replay will apply only to home run calls—whether they are fair or foul, whether they have left the playing field, or whether they have been subject to fan interference...”
So maybe according to that, they CAN rule on interference. The rule says, “whether they (the batted ball presumably) have been subject to fan interference.”
Obviously this ball WAS subject to fan interference, so it seems that they can rule on it, as long as they were reviewing the play based upon whether it was a HR or not, and not whether there was interference or not.
Back to Country Joe’s statements. Remember he also said this:
But the plate umpire [Chad Fairchild] already thought it was spectator interference. So now we go look at the replay, we have to take all the evidence we get from the replay. ..
I think he is lying about that too! There was no indication that any of the umpires thought it was interference. If they did, they would have called the interference right away, I think. Perhaps, when they got together after McKeon came out to argue, and after the Marlins were complaining about interference, Fairchild said something like, “You know, the fans might have interfered with that ball.” But clearly no one called interfercne right away or at any time for that matter.
Again, even if one of the umpires thought they might have seen interference, or there was some legitimate question as to whether it occurred, they can not, as far as I can tell, look at the replay to clarify that only. That seems to be what they did. I don’t think anyone thought that it might be a HR and I definitely don’t think anyone on the Phillies asked for a HR review.
Now, let’s say that they reviewed the play properly and determined (correctly) that there was fan interference. What is the remedy?
Here is the rule on that:
When there is spectator interference with any thrown or batted ball, the ball shall be dead at the moment of interference and the umpire shall impose such penalties as in his opinion will nullify the act of interference. If spectator interference clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball, the umpire shall declare the batter out.
Again, the bolding is mine. The first part can not always be clear since an umpire can not always know what would have happened if there was no interference. If you watch this video and ask 100 people whether Peterson would have made the catch, I think you are going to get something like a 50/50 response, 70/30 at worst (and I’m not even sure in what direction). But the second part is clearer. The interference must clearly prevent a fielder from catching the ball. Sort of like clear and convincing evidence or some such thing.
Was it clear that Peterson would have caught the ball? I don’t think so, but that is a judgment call.
If MLB decides that the review itself was proper and that the interference call was also proper, I don’t think that they can uphold the protest based on the wording of the interference rule since that is a judgment call. West and co. can simply say, “We thought that the interference clearly prevented the RF’er from catching the ball,” and that would be the end of the story…
from Amazon
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date