I watched a AAA game the other night with a bunch of umps. "We" all noted a few problems.
1 - Nobody on, ball hit down the first base line. U1 signals fair, then follows the ball down the line (at PGE park, there is an area that is in play down the line that you cannot see unless you go down there, so anything on that line you go out!). Anyway, plate ump never left from behind the plate, when clearly the mechanic is that he follows the batter runner. Had their been a throw back at 1st base, nobody would have been there to call it!
2 - Plate blue was VERY fast coming up on called strikes, and especially fast on called third strikes! We noted that MANY batters were "turning" on his calls, and about 5 throughout the game stayed to "jaw" on him. Interesting. I didn't get that many looks, nor had that many turn on me when I did the plate. But that is another story!
3 - We gave up guessing which side of the mound U3 was going to be on with runner on first, less than two outs. Generally, he would be in deep B, EVEN when a left handed batter was up.
But, we also seen him go to deep C with a right handed batter up. We seen him change positions in the middle of the at bat twice. It made no rhyme or reason, and I tell you what, I would NOT want to be that guy on the strong side of the batter making a check swing call being out of a good position to call it. Anyway, he generally looked like he didn't really know WHERE he should be. Oh well.
4 - We observed that the plate ump sure seemed to be looking for trouble after any close call he made. He ALWAYS looked over at the dugout the call was against. To tell you the truth, it looked like he was baiting them to say something to him. Classy!
Overall, I didn't see this crew do anything "better", or look any sharper than any of the replacement crews I worked on. I certainly seen a few replacement guys call MUCH better games at the plate than this AMLU guy did!!! Every time I worked the plate, I got a compliment and a "thanks" from both catchers. I seriously doubt this guy did!
