High Plate Stance
 

I was just watching the highlights for the Yankees / Diamondbacks game on Baseball tonight.

The plate umpire had the highest stance I have ever seen. For the pitches they showed, the bottom of his rib cage was at the top of the catcher's head.

From what I saw, he had a good zone, but he seemed way too high to get a good look at the low pitches.

Anybody else use this high stance ?

He wasn't using the GD, so he was in tight on the catcher.

Bill Welke

http://members.cox.net/jimtheump/welke.jpg

Jim, Thanks for the picture. But none of the pitches I saw on BT showed him in a stance that low. He was significantly higher.

Although, if you notice in this picture, his head is higher than the batter's.

Doesn't look overly high to me. The old timers with their balloon/raft jobs worked much higher.

I took that screen capture from the first inning of the game. I'll have a look at the later innings.

The only explanation I can find is that what you were seeing was his adjustment when he gets squeezed out of the slot. Here are two captures of him in the slot, followed by two captures of him when he gets squeezed out. Note in the last one he is at his highest probably because the batter is short and crowding the plate.

http://menotomyjournal.com/welke/welke2.jpg
http://menotomyjournal.com/welke/welke3.jpg
http://menotomyjournal.com/welke/welke4.jpg
http://menotomyjournal.com/welke/welke5.jpg

Granted, he was higher than most work but as the old saying goes, "If I calls'em and they don't b_tch, then I'm doin' good!"

Regards

I don't think being lower necessarily gives you a better look at low pitches. As long as your head height is consistant, you'll have a good look at all pitches (providing you're not too low).

If you do end up too low, you'll start missing the lower part of the zone because you're not going to track the ball as well. I was told this a couple of years ago by some pretty good umpires, when I adjusted up a bit, the bottom of my zone got a lot better.

I watched most of the game and Welke's zone was erratic. He missed more than a few pitches and was getting complaints from both sides.

Hmm,
 

I would agree with Kaliix -- I don't remember a game in a long time when I saw both pitchers and hitters complain as much as last night.

Regards,

Then you missed the Padres/Devil Rays game Tuesday night. Phil Cuzzi was absolutely brutal, and missed many pitches for both teams. Both managers and players from both teams were chirping all night. He missed two pitches that would have been strike 3 (called them balls, pitch track showed them to be strikes) and caused Greg Maddux to react by walking off the mound muttering. He ended up walking 3 batters for the first time this season, and it was due to Phil Cuzzi's horrific, inconsistent strike zone.

The most brutal of these missed strike 3s caused Maddux to say something, so Cuzzi comes marching out to Maddux hollering at him. Maddux was great, he just turned around and walked toward 2nd base umpire Jerry Crawford, leaving Cuzzi to argue with himself.

On the other hand, last night's game featured one of my favorite umpires, Tom Hallion, working the plate. Very few, if any, complaints. Had a great big zone, everyone knew they had to swing the bat, and was very consistent.

"That's enough, Blue, now let's play ball." :D

Glad I'm not the only one who watches the Umpires as much as the players.

Here's a possible reason for his inconsistency. The following is a short video clip of a pitch to Jorge Posada from last night. Notice that Welke never really locks in on this pitch, and his head never comes to a stop.

(video is WMV format, 1.5MB, and will stream in Windows Media Player)

Click here for the video clip

Cuzzi's inconsistency, in my opinion, comes from hiding himself behind the catcher and working way too low.

Here are two video clips of the calls you're talking about.

In the first one, Maddux has a big reaction to Cuzzi's call off-camera.

The second one is the incident you talk about where Cuzzi comes out to confront Maddux -- but all Cuzzi says is, "Who are you mad at? Me or you?" Although it happens off-camera, Maddux responds that he's mad at himself. You can tell by Cuzzi's reaction.

All I have available to me is the Devil Rays' feed, and they don't use pitch tracking. So I don't have the San Diego Carl's Jr. Pitch Tracking for these clips.

Maddux/Cuzzi vid one

Maddux/Cuzzi vid two