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."