MLB's Gameday: Mission accomplished

Major League Baseball appears to have achieved the desired perfection they sought from the Gameday live game reports.

The ultimate goal? Provide a visual account of the game that would prevent the viewer from reasonably second-guessing the umpire.

Check out the latest version.

The batter only looks moderately more dopey than the earlier version. But balls and strikes? You really can't tell much. All three of the pitches shown here (delivered to Dustin Pedroia by Mariano Rivera) look like strikes.

And this version is not an aberration. The images are much harder to judge than the angled view one gets during a live television broadcast.

Happy days for MLB. No more using Gameday to second-guess umpires.

Willits versus Kazmir in the 7th

Not boxing. Baseball.

A key at-bat during the baseball game between the Devil* Rays and the Angels occurred in the 7th inning. Reggie Willits came to bat against Kazmir with the Rays leading 2-1, a runner at second base and two out. Willits worked Kazmir for a walk. Kazmir was visibly upset (trusting the radio announcers for that one) and Rays manager John Maddon was tossed for questioning the balls and strikes on his next visit to the mound.

Turns out I was wrong that Gameday disabled the visual at-bat histories. I just didn't work the interface properly the other day. Here is the Willits at-bat:



I added a vertical yellow line to aid in judging Kazmir's case. If the Gameday graphic is any sort of accurate guide, Kazmir looks like he has a good one. A pitcher throwing near the strike zone usually gets the benefit of the close call, and Kaz was unquestionably near the strike zone against Willets on every pitch. Kazmir got no benefit on pitches 3, 5 or 6, each of which was ruled a ball and each of which was arguably over the plate (by rule, only a portion of the ball needs to end up over the outline of the plate). Pitch 5 was in almost the identical location of pitch 6, by the way, accounting for the fact that you don't see it represented except by the edge of its outline.

It appears Willits got three favors from the ump.

Bad luck for the Rays, for there's no knowing how the later stages of the game were affected. But such is common to baseball. You just hope that mistakes even out over the long run.

And despite any mistakes by the umpire, here, I can only offer respect for the effort they give. Judging sports that involve rapidly moving objects seems extremely challenging to me.

But all things considered, I'd rather see this kind of thing happen to the Yankees than to the Rays.

Note: It occurred to me rather belatedly that Gameday images would be subject to copyright. That kind of takes the fun out of things, even if a fair use argument is plausible.

Rangers capture finale; Devil* Rays win series 2-1

The Rangers rode good-enough pitching, timely hitting and a bit of help from the home plate umpire to salvage the third game of a three game series against the Rays with a 6-3 win.

The officiating perhaps was not the key to the game, but it was frustrating.

In the top of the sixth inning, designated hitter Eric Hinske was called out on strikes following a pitch that appeared well outside the strike zone. Hinske questioned the call ("What?" "That was a foot outside!") and was tossed from the game after he had started away from the home plate umpire back toward the dugout ("******' ********!"). The red indicates my fairly confident renderings of Hinske's take via lip-reading.

It was then that I discovered Gameday's latest innovation intended to protect the umpires from having their work questioned by fans. Whereas under last year's system I could click on any inning and obtain the graphic for any at-bat, the current system appears to have disabled that feature. But I got a screen capture of the called third strike on Carl Crawford--the one that ended the game with two on and two out.



I added the vertical yellow line to help illustrate that the third called strike appears distinctly outside the strike zone (unless you're the umpire). But you may be wondering "What about that first pitch? That ball looks like a strike." Good point. The problem is that the Gameday set up was showing low pitches up over the hitters' knees for some reason. Akinori Iwamura got called out on a third strike right about the spot where that first pitch is mapped. The pitch appeared low.

All in all, the Rays did not play well enough to win, so the criticism of the umpire constitutes an interesting diversion.

Is the strike zone different for the Yankees?

I was too busy to blog about the Rays extra-innings win over the much-hated New York Yankees last night.

I watched just a little bit of the game tonight. It seemed like Rays pitcher J. P. Howell wasn't getting much benefit of the doubt on the ball and strike calls. I decided to use MLB GameDay for the semi-forbidden purpose of graphically verifying my impression. Here's the at-bat of Doug Mientkiewicz in the key fifth inning (Mientkiewicz led off with a weak single and later scored the third run of the game, starting off a big inning for the Yankees):



I noted a number of weeks ago that MLB removed the strike zone from the graphic, but it's very easy to see that pitches 1 and 3 were well within the strike zone.

I've heard it mentioned that Yankees hitters get favorable treatment at the plate; the team exhibits terrific patience while at bat and one wonders whether that patience causes the supposed favorable treatment or vice-versa.

This at-bat provides a small piece of evidence supporting a tiny strike zone for Yankees hitters. Allow me to admit that I have no idea whether or not Yankees starter Paul Wang had his pitches called the same way. I'm willing to forgive inconsistency from umpire to umpire if each ump calls it about the same for both teams.


*****

MLB Gameday site mum on strike zone disappearance

Major League Baseball has an official Gameday site, which includes updates on various changes to the program.

May 17, 2007
Gameday chat update

Sept 04, 2007
Video Tour and Chat Update

No special announcement of the strike zone changes (the Sept. 4 entry is the most recent as of this writing). People noticed, however. Here is a selection of comments from the Video Tour and Chat Update entry, in chronological order:

Where's the strike-zone gone?

Posted by: miquelcastillo@yahoo | September 6, 2007 08:30 PM

Yeah I cant see it either this $uck$ I cant tell how good the calls are. Home Run Big Papi!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: mphamod@hot | September 6, 2007 08:43 PM

what happened to the strikezone, i can't see it either

Posted by: x@yx | September 6, 2007 10:43 PM

The strikezone is gone and that is horrible. Maybe they dont want people to see how bad some of the calls are? Also the indepth pitch information is not coming up. I am not happy with this.

Posted by: porterhouse8@g | September 7, 2007 08:07 PM

WHERE THE HELL IS THE STRIKEZONE! AND NOT EVEN A DAMN SORRY FOR THE LIES!

WE'RE TIRED OF WAITING. GO TO ESPN.COM!

IN THE PREVIOUS AT-BATS THING ON TOP, ALL OF THE BALL SPOTS ARE GREY! WHAT THE HELL GUYS?

Posted by: synjoker@aol | September 7, 2007 11:02 PM

Yeah, I noticed how bad the calls were last week.. and poof! the strike zone is gone. funny how that works. Thanks MLB [official site of Major League Baseball] -- Also I can't seem to turn off the pitch animation, it slows everything down -- thanks for the faster, lighter GameDay, MLB!

Posted by: tweeddel@yahoo | September 8, 2007 07:21 PM

I've moved to ESPN Gamecast. Get your act together MLB Gameday

Posted by: tweeddel@yahoo | September 8, 2007 07:29 PM

i'm on gamecast too. no strikezone, that's horse**** mlb. you guys are a bunch of cowards, go after the umps instead of the fans.

Posted by: schmitmg@hot | September 9, 2007 04:22 PM

No strike zone? Why don't you just replace the pitch interface with a giant banner reading "We hide the poor quality work of our employees!"

Posted by: tytrain@g | September 9, 2007 04:53 PM

Where'd the strike zone go? Afraid we will hate the umps? Newflash: WE ALREADY DO!

Posted by: acenorthpaw@hot | September 9, 2007 05:40 PM

Obviously, MLB doesn't care about what the fans think. No strike zone!!! I guess they don't want to show up some of those worthless umpires that should have retired years ago.

Posted by: jlf001@sbcglob | September 10, 2007 08:05 PM

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THE STRIK ZONE? UMPIRES UNION COMPLAIN ABOUT IT MAKING THEM LOOK BAD FOR MAKING BAD CALLS?

Posted by: synapses11@yahoo | September 12, 2007 08:05 PM

(Gameday)

I altered the e-mail addresses to help foil spam and omitted posts that stuck to the original subject.

It seems very hard to escape the conclusions advocated by these fans. MLB did not want fans using Gameday to second-guess the umpires.

The funny part is that they made the move unannounced. I'd like to see the fuss persist until MLB addresses the issue.

This guy helped get rid of the GameDay strike zone

The first two pitches were, by Mr. MLB Gameday Operator’s standards, off the plate. (Full screencapturery is also available.) Not borderline. Not justbarelytouching the strike zone. You could put Leyland’s Marlboros between the outside edge and the pitch location. It’s not like the home plate umpire was Enrico Palazzo.
(The Futon Report)

This is before I took note of at-bats by Johnny Damon and Melvin Mora, so for anyone who thinks it's my fault ...

Something's gone missing (Updated)

Was the technology a little too good?
Last week, I posted about the Devil Rays' win over the New York Yankees, and I added a bit of commentary about the "Gameday" graphic as it applied to Johnny Damon's ninth inning at-bat. I used a saved image from the "Gameday" graphic, which showed a pitch called a strike where the pitch looked like it was right over the heart of the plate--but I admitted that I had no idea whether or not the graphic corresponded closely to reality.

After the Rays beat Baltimore earlier this week, I posted a similar graphic showing how Melvin Mora was called out on a pitch that was too high to fit the strike zone. At that time, I noted that the graphic represented the situation reasonably well (if anything, the pitch was less a strike than it appeared on the graphic).

Something changed this week.


This is the graphic I clipped to show how Mora was unfairly called out on strikes.


This is a graphic I clipped tonight. See what's missing?

That's right--no more strike zone. I visited most of the other games for which a Gameday version was available, and none of them show a box representing the strike zone any longer.

That, I think, is Major League Baseball covering for its umpires.

Update: The before-and-after comparison makes clear another change that I noted later.
The top of the graphic has a mugshot of the pitcher opposite a mugshot of the batter. Below those photos and the accompanying statistics you see a horizontal space with a black background showing the location and number of pitches during previous at-bats. Note that in the more recent screenshot the pitches no longer show in color, making it tougher to figure out which pitches were called strikes and which were not. Sneaky, MLB! The umps must be giving you some grief over Gameday, eh?

Rays take 2-1 series win over Yankees with 8-2 victory

I figured Edwin Jackson would have trouble shutting down New York's offense in the second game of the series. I haven't seen enough of Jason Hammel to make any kind of solid prediction, but Hammel had struggled recently. The righty surprised me--and probably the Yankees--by turning in a solid pitching performance, besting Andy Pettitte to pick up his first major-league victory as a starter.

Carlos Pena hit three homers for the Rays during the series. He now ranks second in the American League with 34, trailing Alex Rodriguez's impressive 45 dingers.

It certainly didn't matter with respect to the final outcome, but Johnny Damon's at-bat in the ninth inning gave me some pause.
Let me state up front that I have no idea how close the MLB "Gameday" graphic comes to representing the actual position of a ball relative to the strike zone. I figure they probably have some "umpire" poking a screen with a pointer or something like that to register the position of balls and strikes. That said, pitch no. 2 is as close to the middle of the plate as I've seen for a pitch called as a ball.

I dig the "Gameday" feature. It's a fast way to get caught up on a game when you're in the midst of doing other things. Not all the ballparks are equipped to simulate the path of the ball from the pitcher to the catcher. That's one of the nice things about the Rays visiting Yankee Stadium.

Anyway, the Rays beat the Yanks convincingly in two of three games, scoring 9, 6 and 8 runs in the three games. The big difference for the Rays since the pounding from the Yankees the last time the teams hooked up for a series was the Rays' bullpen upgrade. The team has shipped off a host of relievers with hideously swollen ERAs. The replacements have been solid, if unspectacular, and "solid" represents a spectacular improvement.