Article -- Four Strikes and You're Out

Originally Posted by CT1

He lost me here: "The umpire’s job is simple..."

Do you disagree with the rest of the sentence?

[CT1]

Originally Posted by AremRed

Do you disagree with the rest of the sentence?

Of course. Calling balls & strikes is only part of PU's job. It's certainly the most scrutinized part, but he's got other responsibilities as well.

Actually, I agree that the zone gets bigger on 3-0 and smaller on 0-2 counts. But that's an accepted part of baseball that the author doesn't seem to grasp.

[RPatrino]

Some people did a lot of work, and really didn't give us any information that we didn't already know. The fact that 'bias' exists is not new. Bias in and of itself is not good or bad in this case, it just is. The expansion of the zone at 3-0 and the constriction of it at 0-2 is more a cultural and historical phenomenon rather than an error in judgement.

The statistical analysis of any human performance has to take into account the fact that as humans, we are not perfect. Umpires are not robots, we see pitches through the lens of a human eye, not a high speed digital camera. There are so many random factors that could affect the performance of an umpire, that statistical inferences might be irrelevant, and in no way should be the only way to evaluate performance.

Originally Posted by CT1

Of course. Calling balls & strikes is only part of PU's job. It's certainly the most scrutinized part, but he's got other responsibilities as well.

Actually, I agree that the zone gets bigger on 3-0 and smaller on 0-2 counts. But that's an accepted part of baseball that the author doesn't seem to grasp.

Given that the article is specifically about the calling of balls and strikes, I think it was fine for the author to write that.