Comments on: Overhauling Umpires

By: toad

toad — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:33:18 +0000

I wonder whether it would be good to increase somewhat the number of major league umpires, so as to be able to give more time off during the season. It’s a demanding job, especially at home plate, and weariness could easily affect quality.

An increased number of major league openings might also create a bit more incentive for minor league umps as there would be more job openings.

Also, I wonder whether it would be helpful to require umps to spend some off-season time on training, review of games and mistakes, etc. If you raised the salaries you could certainly impose this sort of thing.

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:50:18 +0000

While I agree that Eddings is an outlier (next umpire is more than 0.4 behind him), Derryl Cousins isn’t all that far from the next few people (he’s only 0.03 from Randy Marsh, 0.07 from a couple of human beings).

There is a better case that Bill Miller (#2 on the hit list) is an outlier (0.07 above #3 Hirshbeck) than that Cousins is.

That I recognize all of the names except Miller despite not having paid regular attention to a full baseball season in this decade probably demonstrates that you have a solid point. Just questions the idea that both ends are extremes.

By: Marc Schneider

Marc Schneider — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:20:58 +0000

I don’t really understand what the antitrust exemption has to do with it, but I suspect that MLB will increae its use of instant replay and then forget about it. They certainly aren’t going to rush out and pay minor league umpires more money. And I’m not sure MLB has any more (or perhaps less) of a problem with officiating than the NBA, where we have a referee serving time for gambling-related offenses and many people think the refs fix games anyway.

No doubt the umpiring has become increasingly worse, although the advent of instant replay, especially on balls and strikes, might make it appear worse than it actually is. It’s a bit unreasonable, after all, to expect umps to call all borderline strike/balls correctly. But there is little excuse for the mistakes on the bases.

By: Tweets that mention Overhauling Umpires -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Overhauling Umpires -- Topsy.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:05:11 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by J.C. Bradbury, Mick Hunt. Mick Hunt said: Overhauling Umpires http://bit.ly/17VZgK [...]

By: David

David — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:28:31 +0000

Interesting post, J.C. One question – you state, “If MLB started whacking bad umpires, the expected value of the job will plummet.” Might that only be true for bad umpires? A good umpire could see his expected value rise through more opportunities because they are getting rid of bad umpires. Also, getting rid of bad umpires, there would likely be quicker promotions up through the ranks, so it would be easier for umpires to see quickly where they stand. Because of this, there would be less risk – if it took 2 years instead of 10 to see you were not going to make it to the majors, you have lost less. Because of that, the pool of applicants could increase. What do you think?

By: Jason Graham

Jason Graham — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:11:14 +0000

Does MLB have any incentive to change the status quo thanks to their antitrust exemption? Yes, the umpiring has been less than ideal during the playoffs but I suspect if there aren’t any egregious errors in the World Series the public outcry will lessen dramatically and the only pressure on MLB will evaporate.

By: Millsy

Millsy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:00:21 +0000

Really interesting stuff, JC. Great points about the opportunity cost here for umps. From what I know, a lot of them are even college graduates who turned down other job prospects for their chance at baseball.

I have a quickly rising umpire friend who is currently at the AA level and expects to be paid pretty much dirt for the next 5 years at least (he’s 27). He’s a college graduate and has to deliver pizzas in the off season, missing out on gaining other skills as you say. When he told me even what the best umpires at the MLB level get paid, I was surprised as well. It seems to be a strange way of handling things for such a performance-oriented industry.

I’m really curious how umpires (who seem to be in a very tight circle with one another) would react to the idea of removing the ‘tenure’ aspect, and rewarding performance. Maybe I’ll shoot my friend this link and see what he thinks. I know from talking with him that in the umpire circle, ‘change’ and ‘innovation’ isn’t exactly a welcome construct.

It seems like there are a lot of egos–similar to the scouting vs. sabermetric problems–that feel that they really don’t need to be monitored or Questecked, and that adjusting their calls to the attitudes or playing style of the players is good enough reason to not follow the rules exactly.

Perhaps there is a learning curve with self-adjustment to the rule book and styles of play, rather than performance problems. The longer the tenure, the more willing the umpire is to ‘give a call’ for framing a pitch a certain way or ‘slapping the tag’ correctly? Is there a reward they get from making calls in that way either from the team or the fans? That may not be an excuse, but it could be a factor in your model there.