Two News Items

[lawump]

Delmon Young's "indefinite" suspension has been changed to 50 games.

The Hardball Times (I don't know who they are) has conducted a statistical analysis to answer the question: "are minor league replacement umpires biased?"

Their answer: Yes.

You can read the story here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...mpires-biased/

If you don't want to read it, their concluding paragraph states:

"The season is still young and we need to collect more information to better understand the effects of the replacement umpires, but so far all the evidence all points in the same direction. Home team batters appear to have an advantage at the plate. Furthermore, there may be other effects of the new umpiring population that are more difficult to quantify or assess with traditional statistics such as strikeouts and walks. It is clear, however, that we need to be more careful than ever when analyzing minor leaguers' performance. The initial evidence suggests an appreciation for a prospect's home and away splits may be particularly important this year."

[David B]

Originally Posted by lawump

Delmon Young's "indefinite" suspension has been changed to 50 games.

The Hardball Times (I don't know who they are) has conducted a statistical analysis to answer the question: "are minor league replacement umpires biased?"

Their answer: Yes.

You can read the story here:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...mpires-biased/

If you don't want to read it, their concluding paragraph states:

"The season is still young and we need to collect more information to better understand the effects of the replacement umpires, but so far all the evidence all points in the same direction. Home team batters appear to have an advantage at the plate. Furthermore, there may be other effects of the new umpiring population that are more difficult to quantify or assess with traditional statistics such as strikeouts and walks. It is clear, however, that we need to be more careful than ever when analyzing minor leaguers' performance. The initial evidence suggests an appreciation for a prospect's home and away splits may be particularly important this year."

And just reading on ESPN and they are backing the change as far as I could read.

The article on their site notes heavily that the umpire was a replacement umpire.

So the fact that he is a replacement umpire is supposed to make a difference in the penalty (that's horrible of ESPN)

Ought to be interesting to hear their comments tonight on baseball tonight.

thanks
David

[SAump]

50 hours of community service. Now is that fair enuf?

I suppose instead of signing autographs before the game, he could also join our fellow umpires on the AMLU picket line for an hour before each of the 50 ballgames. He would then be providing the UMPIRE community with a great service. After all he threw a bat at an UMPIRE, so the umpire community service should count towards the community service requirement. It helps raise awareness for our AMLU brother's plight and would be a more appropriate action than a simple apology. Will the AMLU contact him with the idea and would the leasgue approve his support for umpires?

Would it make you HAPPY to see that Delmond Young supports STRIKING umpires demanding more money from MiLB after MiLB punishes him with 50 game suspension for throwing a bat at an umpire? After all, the ball is round.

[WhatWuzThatBlue]

Didn't I discuss the probable bias a few days ago? I could have sworn that I wrote that the biggest problem for the replacements is that they may feel indebted to the local club. That favoritism exists at all levels and no one knows that more than the Atlanta Braves pitching staff and Eric Gregg.

A replacement umpire will not kill the career of a MiLB player.

[Peruvian]

Originally Posted by WhatWuzThatBlue

A replacement umpire will not kill the career of a MiLB player.

From what I understand in the Southern League, the office is in charge of the assigning, NOT the local clubs. May be different in other parts of the country, though.

[LMan]

In a MLB game televised a few weeks ago (Cubs and somebody), the announcers went on and on about how PU Mike Winters was/is supposedly 'known' for favoring the home-team pitcher with his strike zone. Every time this F1 got a close pitch they cackled, 'see? there he goes again.'


I don't think umpire-bias tales are unique to any level or regular/replacement umpires.