MLB reportedly admits Anthony Rizzo's controversial slide vs. the Pirates should have been called illegal

There, that didn't take long now did it? St. Joe probably will still maintain that we should be teaching our kids to be dirty players, but that's his problem.

• We now have rules not being enforced that were put in place to enforce prior rules that were in place but not being enforced by umpires.
• We now have instant replay that is consistently not picking up mistakes made by the umpires on the field. And apologies to teams impacted by these errors are just not going to do the trick too much longer. 

MLB and Instant replay are a joke. But, at least they aren't as big a joke as Joe Maddon and Anthony Rizzo. 

from cbssports.com
MLB reportedly admits Anthony Rizzo's controversial slide vs. the Pirates should have been called illegal

Breaking: Source indicates the league believes interference should have been called yesterday re Anthony Rizzo's 8th inning slide at home plate. Both teams have been informed of that decision which differs from the call on the field and the umpires video review.  

Rizzo had already been forced out at the plate before the slide. Had the play been called interference, the Pirates would've been given the out on Diaz's throw to first base. It would've made a significant difference in the game. Consider the situations:

• Rizzo slide called legal: Cubs up 5-0, runner on second with one out.
• Rizzo slide called illegal: Cubs up 3-0, runners on second and third with two outs.

Maybe those runners score and the Cubs take a 5-0 lead anyway. Who knows? I do know a 5-0 game is very different than a 3-0 game though. Both Cubs manager Joe Maddon and Pirates manager Clint Hurdle would've used their bullpen differently.

MLB rule 6.01(i) says the "runner attempting to score may not deviate from his direct pathway to the plate in order to initiate contact with the catcher (or other player covering home plate), or otherwise initiate an avoidable collision." Rizzo, clearly, deviated from his path to initiate an avoidable collision. Was it a dirty slide? I'm not sure. Was it against the rules? For sure.

For whatever reason, MLB's replay crew did not see it that way at the time, and the play stood. The slide was called legal. Now MLB has reportedly backtracked, and informed both teams the slide should've been ruled illegal. That doesn't help the Pirates now, but at least the league is acknowledging the mistake.

Shared via CBS Sports
http://cbssportsapp.com

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Close Call Sports & Umpire Ejection Fantasy League: Dangerous Precedent - GHSA Overturns Judgment Call

This is a very disturbing development since now that you have precedent, you have encouraged legal do-gooders nationwide to step in and do the same thing. Similar to the economics rule that says when you subsidize something, you get more of it, in law once you establish a precedent, it gives birth to copy cat cases nationwide.

Ridiculous stuff. Thanks Georgia, and thanks MLB because in my opinion this is the unintended consequence of instant replay.

And soon, one of these days, these same do-gooders will be calling for instant replay in HS baseball games, subsidized by John and Jane Taxpayer. Because the law of unintended consequences never stops there when government bureaucrats and lawyers are involved. It takes the stupid unintended consequences and tries to "fix" it thereby giving birth to more stupid unintended consequences. And billable hours for the lawyers BTW.

So buckle your seat belts folks we're in for a really perilous, slippery slope kind of journey in the world of youth sports.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

http://www.closecallsports.com/2017/05/dangerous-precedent-ghsa-overturns.html?m=1

Dangerous Precedent - GHSA Overturns Judgment Call

In a decision contradicting years of legal precedent & NFHS rules, GHSA reversed an umpire's judgment call as the result of a post-game protest filed by the losing team.

Last week, we reported the curious case of Lee County vs Johns Creek High School and the Georgia playoff game that hinged on a single appeal play ruling in the bottom of the last inning of regulation.

To recapitulate, with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 7th, a Johns Creek batter received a fourth ball and walk to force the apparent winning run. After a protest from defensive Lee County's head coach that Johns Creek baserunner R2 failed to touch third base, the umpires ruled the runner out on appeal, pursuant to NFHS Rule 9-1-1, and cancelled the run pursuant to 9-1-1 Note 2.

Lee County went on to win the ballgame, and Johns Creek protested that it should have won instead due to an umpires' error.

Upon receiving Johns Creek's initial protest, GHSA Executive Director Gary Phillips on Thursday ruled the umpires' decision was one of judgment and, therefore, not protestable; the ruling must stand.

Board of Trustees President Glenn White.

GHSA counsel Alan Connell disagreed and granted Johns Creek not a protest, but an "appeal."

On Friday, a GHSA Appeals Board heard the appeal and, like Phillips, declined to uphold it.

On Monday, the GHSA Board of Trustees elected to overturn the umpires' call—based on the rationale that the Board of Trustees felt that the judgment call had been incorrect.

POLITICAL SIDEBAR: The GHSA has been dealing with organizational issues, even prior to the Johns Creek & Lee County baseball incident. In February, GHSA Board of Trustees President and Model High School Principal Glenn White voted to recommended that Executive Director Phillips resign; Phillips accordingly agreed to retire at the end of the 2016-17 school year. Meanwhile, Georgia House Bill 415 and Senate Bill 2013 proposed that the state replace the GHSA with a new statewide governing body.

Georgia State Representative John Meadows in February "said he gets more complaints about the GHSA – from schools, referees, coaches and parents – than about everything else put together, 'and basically I'm sick of it.' He added, 'I don't think they know what their job is.'"

Clearly not.

Contrary to decades of legal precedent, Trustees President White made it clear that the Trustees sustained the appeal and overturned the on-field officials' call based on a matter of judgment—not on an issue of rule interpretation:

It swayed me to believe that the wrong call was made and that it was not in the best interest of students to support that call. The bottom line is what's right and what's wrong, and I thought it was right for Johns Creek to go back to Lee County and play a third game. 

If it's the second inning of a baseball game or second quarter of a football game, you've got plenty of time to overcome a bad call,'' White said. ''This situation is a different. It's a semifinal state playoff game in baseball, and it's the end of the game. I just see that differently. That had lot to do with swaying my opinion. 

It's just not practical to review every missed call and every kid that was (called) safe but was actually out. We have set a precedent, so we need to get ready because there will probably be other people coming to see us.

This is odd, as GHSA Bylaw 2.92(e) states, "The National Federation prohibits the use of video tape to review an official's decision."

As for the legality of overturning an umpire's on-field judgment call after-the-fact, the Courts have routinely ruled, for approximately 35 years, that such practice is not legally tenable:

> 1981: Georgia High School Association vs Waddell: The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that it does not possess authority to review the decision of a high school sports official. In what was, at the time, a landmark decision to establish long-term precedent, the Supreme Court held, "We go now further and hold that courts for equality in this state are without authority to review decisions of football referees because those decisions do not present judicial controversies."

> December 2005: Brown vs. OSSAA. Referees ejected player Tucker Brown for fighting at the end of a game, resulting in an automatic two-game suspension, pursuant to state association rules. Brown's mother sued the OSSAA seeking an injunction to allow Tucker to play. In an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision, the Court opined, "It is not within our province to act as 'super referees' to alter or overturn the referee's determinations. Neither may we, because a referee does not make a call, do so for the official -- we may not 'call the game' or construe the official's failure to see every infraction as arbitrary."

> December 2005: Haverstraw Stony-Point Central School District vs NYSPHSAA. The District and high school wrestler Frank Rodriguez filed a lawsuit against the state after a referee's assessment of a two-point penalty against Rodriguez cost him his state title match. A judge refused to entertain the District's lawsuit, writing that, "To establish a precedent of reviewing and potentially reversing a referee's judgment call from the distant ivory tower of a judge's chambers would cause unending confusion in the interscholastic athletic system."

> December 2015: Oklahoma City School District vs OSSAA. The District, on behalf of Douglass High School, filed a lawsuit against OSSAA claiming that an on-field official's judgment call caused its team to lose a game, and that OSSAA failed to allow it to replay the game so as to remedy the situation. In ruling for the OSSAA, Judge Bernard Jones wrote that "what transpired during and to some degree after the disputed quarterfinal could be considered by many as a tragedy. More tragic, however, would be for this Court to assert itself in this matter...There is neither statute nor case law allowing this Court discretion to order the replaying of a high school football game."

> November 2016: Fenwick High School vs. IHSA. Fenwick filed a lawsuit after the IHSA failed to reverse an on-field ruling. The judge ruled in favor of the IHSA, writing that it is not the court's responsibility or jurisdiction to overturn an on-field referee's call, even though Fenwick suffered irreparable harm as the result of an official's failure to properly apply a rule.

Perhaps Judge Jones wrote it best, "this slippery slope of solving athletic contests in court instead of on campus will inevitably usher in a new era of robed referees and meritless litigation due to disagreement with or disdain for decisions of gaming officials—an unintended consequence which hurts both the court system and the citizens it is designed to protect."

Thus, GHSAA Board of Trustees President and robed referee White's decision runs in direct contravention to not only years of legal precedent as specified above, but the NFHS baseball rulebook itself. Although, as we wrote, the NFHS vs GHSA allowance of protests is legally ambiguous (NFHS requires a clearly delineated protest procedure, GHSA doesn't specify one in its Bylaws), let us assume for the purpose of discussion that protests are authorized.

Rule 10-4 states, "Any umpire's decision which involves judgment, such as whether a hit is fair or foul, whether a pitch is a strike or a ball, or whether a runner is safe or out, is final." Rule 10-5 states, "The use of videotape or equipment by game officials for the purpose of making calls or rendering decisions is prohibited."

Rule 4-5 states, "It is optional on the part of a state association as to whether protests are permitted. When allowed, protests are permitted regarding rules one through nine only."

Thus, a protest concerning the umpires' conduct (the Johns Creek complaint alleged "inappropriate conduct" on the part of the umpires)—such as a judgment call delineated by 10-4, or any other conduct related to Umpiring Rule 10—is prohibited by Rule 4-5.

Johns Creek's original protest cited Official Baseball Rule 5.08(b), as opposed to the High School rule 9-1-1, regarding runner responsibility to touch bases on a game-winning walk (OBR requires just the batter and runner from third to touch their respective bases; NFHS requires all runners to touch up).

As for the question of the appeal's validity, while OBR requires all appeals to be live ball in nature, NFHS authorizes dead ball appeals. At the end of the game, appeals may be filed at any time until the umpires leave the playing field (umpires remained on the field throughout the process).

Conclusion: GHSA Board of Trustees President Glenn White "thought it was right" to overturn an on-field official's judgment call because he felt "that it was not in the best interest of students to support [the on-field] call," which he deemed a "wrong call."

In an odd reversal of fates, Official Baseball Rule 7.04 states, "No protest shall ever be permitted on judgment decisions by the umpire," whereas NFHS Rule 4-5 does not explicitly state this (though it certainly implies it by saying that protests shall only be permitted regarding rules one through nine only), leaving it up to the state to delineate the protest procedure. The GHSA Constitution and Bylaws, however, fail to prescribe such a process for baseball protests.

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NCAA head of officials on controversial play: 'We never saw what everybody saw at home' | Yahoo Sports

So an official had the chance to "get the call right", the mantra that brought instant replay to the table in the first place and ignored replay evidence on the mantle of "protocol". Are you serious?!? And not just any official, the NCAA Head of Officials!?!

Sir, You saw what everybody else saw, you failed to act on it. The fact that you saw it after the refs left the table doesn't mean you sit on it. You already wasted two minutes reviewing what you did have.  You had time to act and correct an error -- the mandate of instant replay -- and failed to do so, PERIOD.

from Yahoo Sports:
NCAA head of officials on controversial play: 'We never saw what everybody saw at home' | The Dagger - Yahoo Sports:

However, after the officials left the monitor and made their ruling, Adams said he saw the zoomed-in view of the ball clearly touching Winslow’s finger. At that point he had the opportunity to quickly make a decision. “I saw it after they had left the monitor, and actually thought about, is it in my prerogative to get up, run over to the table, buzz the buzzer, and tell them to come back and look?” Adams said. “That’s how critical I thought the play was and concluded that this is a job for the guys on the floor. I’ve never done it before. Why would I do it tonight and perhaps change the balance of the game?” 

It’s pretty surprising that Adams wouldn’t blatantly admit that a mistake had been made and even more surprising that he’d admit that he had the opportunity to correct the mistake. To do so, it seems like he would have had to forgo protocol that had been followed with the replay system for the entire season.

Beyond that, Adams seemed to cast a bit of blame toward the review system itself and said that the incident will be looked at moving forward.

“They’d already left. It will be one of the things we will follow up on,” Adams said. “We’ve been told time and time again that nobody at home will see anything you didn’t see. And I will tell you that’s not what happened last night. That’s not an excuse; that’s just laying it out for you.”

'via Blog this'

He honestly said "Why would I do it tonight and perhaps change the balance of the game?" ?!?!

Fool, by not calling them back and correcting the call, you PERHAPS CHANGED THE BALANCE OF THE GAME. You are charged with getting the call right and you failed to do so!!! And YOU SAW IT, you failed to act on what you saw basing your failure on PROTOCOL?!?

Somebody needs a new job. Or a new spine.

I got your one shining moment right here

So I guess Robo-Ref and Robo-Umpire have just been pushed back just a bit. How quickly we've gone from "We have to have replay" to "Why even have replay?"

Congratulations to Duke. Why they seem to be on the right side of these calls more often than not, I don't know.
. 

from USA Today:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/duke-wisconsin-out-of-bounds-call-justise-winslow-ncaa-final

Why even have replay?

Why waste everybody’s time taking two minutes to look a replay, giving analysts, viewers and anyone else with two eyes the chance to see what should been the correct call, only to have officials walk away from the sideline desk to say the exact opposite? Replay in this NCAA tournament seems to have gotten more wrong than right. In this case, it was a contended out-of-bounds call that had actually gone off the fingertips of Justise Winslow, not a Wisconsin player as had originally been called.

 Two minutes, probably dozens of views of multiple angles of replays and three highly trained officials, deemed good enough to be reffing in the biggest game of the year, disagreed with all three CBS analysts, all of Twitter and every American watching. Even a non-delusional Duke fan had to know this ball was out on Winslow.

But, alas, the three men who needed to know didn’t. Duke retained the ball up 63-58, hit a three pointer on its next possession, went up 66-58 and basically clinched the game with 1:24 remaining. It was an ugly game with a fun back-and-forth pace, but it didn’t deserve to be decided by officials who couldn’t tell what was plainly obvious.

Is it time to start calling him "Big Game" Bumgarner?

Why not? The stats don't lie. He's been as tough as nails in the post-season since he arrived on the major league scene. Sometimes overshadowed by Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum, but never under-appreciated by his teammates or the fans.

from Giants Extra:
POSTGAME NOTES: Forget retirement, Ishikawa is now making a push for another ring; Bumgarner slams Cardinals - Giants Extra:

I found this to be incredible: Bumgarner has made nine postseason starts for the Giants and four of them were shutouts (he went nine in one of the four). “You know, he’s so good at what he does,” Bochy said. “He executed all night against a tough lineup. He’s a guy that you want out there to start things and he gave us all we were asking.”

In the past week, I’ve heard a lot of Bumgarner’s teammates say they’re thrilled that he’s getting so much notice nationally. He’s now officially one of those guys, the Lesters and Verlanders and others with reputations for coming through in the postseason. (On a related note: Why does James Shields get the ‘Big Game’ nickname? Seems there are better options.)

'via Blog this'

On this play with Kolten Wong, it went without mention by the genius commentators at Fox, but:

a) Wong was inside the baseline, not in the running lane where he belonged when the contact was initiated. If anything Wong is interfering with Bumgarner rather than Bummer obstructing Wong.

and

b) Perhaps if the Cardinals didn't waste the umpires time reviewing this play, they would have been more focused on what was going on ie: the phantom Bumgarner balk. Replay will never totally remove the human element from the game and it is not outside the realm of possibility that the crew was mentally replaying the prior play with Wong in their mind to prepare for the post-game analysis and commentary and just whiffed on the mini-balk when it snuck up on them.  

And it was a balk, IMO. However, unless it was mysteriously ruled a three-run homer balk, the Cardinals still have no chance of coming back. So there. 


http://m.mlb.com/video/v36795853/nlcs-gm1-bumgarner-nearly-balks-before-fanning-cruz

I get that these guys don't know the rules, and if Tim McCarver over the years wasn't proof positive enough, then Harold Reynolds spinning a web of rule book ignorance trying to explain the early inning drop / catch by the Cardinals RF should be the final straw. If you don't understand the definition of a catch, you have no business whatsoever trying to explain the rule book, much less question umpires judgment. And he spun himself a nice little 180 there BTW by trying to imply that the rule book was a bit tricky there. No Harold, the rule book is pretty black and white there, it's your understanding, or lack thereof, that is a bit sketchy. Nice try though.

Note to MLB: Do what the NFL does and have a rule book expert on stand-by for these "tricky" replay scenarios. It would help the credibility of the broadcast.

Nice picture of Ishakawa with the Eagle backdrop as well as a great back-story to yesterdays game and that being the story behind Ishakawa's last and likely final chance in this latest stint with the Giants. It goes to show that sometimes there is a thin line between success and "what might have been" in baseball. Good to see Ishakawa having this type of success.

BTW2: Did anyone else pick up on Verducci mentioning Romo and the persistent use of the slider by saying "you could wake him up from an afternoon nap" and he could throw that pitch? And how is that not at least a subliminally offensive comment given Romo's Mexican heritage? I mean, he didn't mention a pre-game nap or any old time of the day nap, but a siesta. Maybe Romo can wear a T-shirt to voice his displeasure.  I hereby lodge a political correctness protest on Mr. Romo's behalf and demand an immediate apology from Fox Sports for the offensive comment against the Mexican-American community in general and Sergio Romo specifically.

For future reference (definition of a catch):

A CATCH is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it; providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession. It is not a catch, however, if simultaneously or immediately following his contact with the ball, he collides with a player, or with a wall, or if he falls down, and as a result of such collision or falling, drops the ball. It is not a catch if a fielder touches a fly ball which then hits a member of the offensive team or an umpire and then is caught by another defensive player. If the fielder has made the catch and drops the ball while in the act of making a throw following the catch, the ball shall be adjudged to have been caught. In establishing the validity of the catch, the fielder shall hold the ball long enough to prove that he has complete control of the ball and that his release of the ball is voluntary and intentional.

Rule 2.00 (Catch) Comment: A catch is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball. A fielder may reach over a fence, railing, rope or other line of demarcation to make a catch. He may jump on top of a railing, or canvas that may be in foul ground. No interference should be allowed when a fielder reaches over a fence, railing, rope or into a stand to catch a ball. He does so at his own risk.

If a fielder, attempting a catch at the edge of the dugout, is “held up” and kept from an apparent fall by a player or players of either team and the catch is made, it shall be allowed.

 

"Experimental" rule key to unlock Giants offensive high

The Giants find the secret to offensive success!! 

• Find a loophole in a rule, like MLB Rule 7.13 perhaps...
• Delay game due to replay 10 minutes
• Listen to Hawk Harrelson slippery slope snap analysis about players wearing skirts
• Watch opponent fall apart at seams 

Maybe the WSox shouldn't have walked a .196 hitter on four pitches, or turned Pagan around to the left side where he's a much better hitter and maybe you get out of the inning with AT WORST, a tie game. From there you force the Giants to score another whole run by their own selves, which they have struggled to do lately in case you haven't noticed.

The way this game was going the Gigantes wouldn't have scored on the Sox lefty if they extended the game until Sunday.

BWDIK?? 

MERCY!!!!

POSTGAME NOTES: Giants, White Sox react to play at the plate; Peavy gets first win as a Giant - Giants Extra

				POSTGAME NOTES: Giants, White Sox react to play at th... Bruce Bochy pushed hard for this rule, but this isn’t exactly what he had in mind. Bochy, a former catcher, wanted to keep catchers from getting blown up a...
				View on blogs.mercurynews...	Preview by Yahoo

Bruce Bochy pushed hard for this rule, but this isn’t exactly what he had in mind. Bochy, a former catcher, wanted to keep catchers from getting blown up at the plate. Major League Baseball did the right thing, presenting a rule that’s supposed to protect guys who have little chance on bang-bang plays. But it’s vague, and there are loopholes, and we saw one of them today.

By the letter of the law, Gregor Blanco was safe. But Blanco didn’t think he was safe. He slid across the plate and then walked slowly back to the dugout, squinting as he looked back at the scoreboard. He didn’t know the plate had been blocked until he went back to the clubhouse to watch the replay. Bochy didn’t think Blanco was safe. He dropped his head and looked down at the seeds at his feet. And then …

It's nicknamed "The Buster Posey Rule" but it should be more aptly named "The Eliminate Egregious Collisions at Home Plate Rule". That just doesn't roll off the tongue as well, so I see why they they named it after Buster.

This is what the rule change was supposed to take out of the game. 

 

It shouldn't have necessitated an "experimental" rule change, which allowed a committee to go to work and make decisions. A committee of one should have decided this and "experimental" should only refer to drug use. 

Somebody must have been smoking weed before they introduced this rule change on Major League Baseball

So a backup OF for the Marlins is still deciding the outcome of games and the fortunes of teams seasons many years down the road. Way to go Scott Cousins!!!

As for Hawk Harrelson's analysis, if the Hawk thinks putting a skirt on players is going to dampen interest then perhaps he hasn't watched A League of their Own. Mercy!!!

Giants score run, still fall to A's - McCovey Chronicles

Game Summary: Angel Hernandez S*cks, Giants score a run. One run. Yippee!!! Baby Steps.

Angel Hernandez actually makes the case for using instant replay on ball / strike calls. He is that horrible. Maybe more post-game drug testing for umpires?

from McCovey Chronicles:

Giants score run, still fall to A's - McCovey Chronicles:

This is Angel Hernandez

'via Blog this'

Angel Hernandez's strike zone for RHH tonight

Giants broadcaster says Angel Hernandez “does not belong in the big leagues”

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140708&content_id=83715478&notebook_id=83819594&vkey=notebook_sf&c_id=sf

Machi tossed after disputed call

 07/08/14 | 00:02:47

http://m.mlb.com/sf/video/topic/8879100/v34422937/?c_id=sf

Replay rules fail the Giants, hand win to D-Backs

Well, it was a pivotal point in the game and a bit of a momentum turner. But the Giants helped out a little bit and I sure hope this isn't a preview of coming attractions from this years bullpen.

from sbnation.com:
http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/4/2/5574402/instant-replay-baseball-mlb-giants-diamondbacks

Looking forward to the human element going away? It's standing behind you with a mallet.

So you have a system that doesn't have the right angle to overturn the prior pick-off play at first base: http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63817564/v31752091

Which leads to this play at the plate (same runner):



HE'S OUT!!!! But alas he's not, so "We've got to get the call right" is held hostage to the silly rules.

NEWS FLASH: Olney adopts my fifth monkey in the booth proposal. 

Think about how this could be streamlined: There could be a fifth umpire or other approved official sitting in the same seat where Dunston and others are being asked to review calls, on site — and then if there’s a call that needs to be reviewed, that fifth umpire can signal to the crew on the field for a brief pause. The crew chief can call time, and when the correct call is determined, that can be relayed to the umpires on the field. Bada bing, bada boom, just as all scoring plays and plays in the last three innings are subject to review.

Better late than never. Actually it is too late to help salvage the Giants unbeaten season.

Oh well, the new MLB replay system, crating new ways to make major league umpires look like screw-ups.
Thanks Bud.

Manny Machado makes an incredible play look routine

9/1/13: Manny Machado barehands a slow grounder and fires to Chris Davis at first base, who makes an incredible stretch for the out


The best part of the Machado play is the way he transfers the ball from a five finger, change-up grip as he picks the ball off the ground to a normal two-finger grip. This allows him to get enough on the throw to make the play. 

This is the best value of instant replay, to get a better appreciation for the skill required to make some of these outstanding plays, which some of these guys appear to make routinely. 

Try making that type of transfer on the run while at the same time making an accurate throw. 

You have to wait / fast forward to the end of the clip to see the super slow mo of the transfer, but it is well worth the wait. If guys have been making this play in the past I have never before seen it with the naked eye. Good thing my eyes were fully clothed this time.  

A MLB umpire talks about framing - just catch the ball, let me sell the strike!!

Diamond Demo: Lucroy's catching

 02/26/13 | 00:04:36

Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy talks with MLB Network about how he frames pitches and places his feet when crouching behind the plate

Lucroy talks about the footwork behind the plate and framing. A 4 1/2 minute catching clinic. "Just catch the ball and stop it" - Catching 101. Below there are some great articles from Baseball Prospectus on the issue of catchers framing. This gets more and more attention from baseball announcers and the entire instant replay crowd. So in the interest of fairness you can read some observations from a MLB umpire on how he views framing.

The catchers mentioned in the articles like Lucroy and Jose Molina of the Rays are worth their weight in gold. They will have a job even if the hit .225 because of what they bring to the defensive side.

The main thing is to receive the ball "quietly", without a lot of movement. No pulling or jerking pitches "back into the strike zone", you know what that tells everyone in the ballpark. Catchers are selling the location as acceptable to the umpires and umpires are selling the call to the other 50,000+ umpires at the ballpark. That's how the game works.

What is left unsaid in almost every analysis EXCEPT that of the MLB umpire below is that, in the umpires mind, the decision of ball-or-strike has been made BEFORE all of this so-called framing or selling goes on. But try to sell THAT to the instant replay fanatics.

http://www.qcbaseball.com/skills/catching_framing1.aspx

from Baseball Prospectus:
Baseball Prospectus | Spinning Yarn: Removing the Mask Encore Presentation:
by Mike Fast
September 24, 2011

Exaggerated glove and body movements are well known to be distracting to umpires. As Brent Mayne wrote in The Art of Catching:

Simply catch the ball firmly. When the pitch and glove meet, that’s where the action should stop. The catcher should have enough strength to stop the momentum of the ball so that strikes don’t turn into balls. Think of a gymnast “sticking” a landing. Just “stick” the ball, hold it for a brief second, then throw it back.

Catcher Receiving Techniques Having covered the derivation and accuracy of the measurement, let us turn to the question of what catchers are doing to gain or lose a strike call. Are there mechanical differences in technique between the best and worst catchers?

I selected two of the best catchers—Jose Molina and Jonathan Lucroy—and three of the worst catchers—Ryan Doumit,Jorge Posada, and Jason Varitek—and reviewed video of their borderline pitch calls. I observed two primary differences in technique between the good and bad catchers.

Both Molina and Lucroy displayed stable, quiet mechanics when receiving borderline pitches. Posada was the opposite, often jumping, bouncing, and shifting his stance and lunging and swiping to catch pitches. It was almost painful to watch him behind the plate. Varitek and Doumit had more stable stances, but each displayed a negative behavior that appeared to cost them strike calls. (Posada displayed both of these negative traits, and more.)

It is worth mentioning that one should not compare receiving mechanics on curveballs to mechanics on other pitch types, as was done in this analysis of Lucroy. Catchers typically set up with a different stance on curveballs to prepare to block a possible pitch in the dirt. Curveballs also drop much faster from the front of the plate to the catcher’s glove than other pitch types do. (The numbers reported above include all pitch types, but one potential improvement would be to look at receiving numbers for curveballs separately, though the smaller sample size could be a challenge.)

Let’s compare Varitek to Lucroy. According to my metric, Varitek cost the Red Sox about 16 runs by losing 101 expected strike calls in part time duty over the last two seasons. Lucroy took over the starting job for the Brewers in the middle of the 2010 season and has gained about 41 runs by getting 284 extra strike calls since then.

Lucroy got extra strikes for his pitchers both on the bottom and outside edges of the strike zone. Varitek did not get these same calls for his pitchers. Let’s see how they compared in 2011 on calls to right-handed batters.

Lucroy’s glove moved a few inches at most, but Varitek’s glove traveled about two feet down and then back up.

I also reviewed video of 10 pitches caught by Jose Molina along the outside edge of the zone to left-handed batters and 12 pitches caught by Doumit in similar locations. Eight of ten pitches received by Molina were called strikes, and 10 of 12 pitches received by Doumit were called balls. Let’s see how they compared in 2011 on calls to left-handed batters:

'via Blog this'

Matt Lucroy C - Gonzalez Hitter

Jason Varitek C - Ben Zobrist Hitter

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May 21, 2013

BP Unfiltered

Former MLB Umpire Jim McKean on Catcher Framing

by Ben Lindbergh

 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20623

Jim McKean worked as an MLB umpire from 1973-2001, serving on three World Series crews. He became one of MLB’s umpire supervisors after retiring from active duty and has since served as an umpiring consultant for ESPN. He offered his thoughts on the influence a catcher’s receiving skills can have on an umpire’s calls.

On catcher framing: "Everybody says, ‘Oh, he’s a good framer, he’s a bad framer,’ and that’s just an entertainment word. It’s just, he caught the ball correctly. And what I mean by that is if he catches the low pitches with his palm up, so the ball comes up, catches the high pitch down, catches the outside pitches with the fingers turned in. But catching the ball correctly means the steadiness of the glove. As long as the ball is received steadily with a strong hand, then it’s a lot easier to see the pitches. And every time they do that and they go ‘Oh, he’s a good framer,’ well, no, he’s just catching the pitch correctly. That’s just my interpretation. And I was in the big league for about 30 years, so I’ve seen all sorts of catching, and good catching will make it easier for umpires to call more strikes.”

On whether he preferred calling pitches behind catchers with good receiving skills: "Lots of times, you want to work, obviously, behind catchers who catch the ball correctly. And if you want to use that word ‘frame’—but ‘frame,’ to me, is like you’re trying to trick somebody. And they don’t trick you because they hold it and turn it, move it, and they go, ‘Oh look, I’m framing’—he’s not, you’re not fooling anybody. You see the guy move the ball, and my first words are, ‘Hey, keep that glove still or it’s going to be a ball.’ Very rarely do they do that. I’ll tell you, he can pull that ball in anywhere, if it’s not in the strike zone, they’re not going to call it a strike. … Little League you see guys pulling the balls all over, and you go, ‘Oh, look, he fooled the umpire.’ Well, that’s easy, easy. It doesn’t happen at the major-league level.”

On the difficulty of calling strikes for catchers with poor receiving skills: “You get guys that catch a low pitch and drive it into the ground. And it might be in the strike zone, but it’s borderline low, it could be in the strike zone. If you catch it correctly, with the palm up and on the plate, you’re going to get it called a strike. If you don’t, it’s going be called a ball. Because it’s very difficult to call a strike when a ball is in the ground, even if it goes through the strike zone. And a lot of people don’t want to tell the truth, but that’s the way it is. Balls and strikes will be called where they go across the plate and how the catcher catches.”

On pitches that umpires can’t see: “I don’t know if it has something [to do] with the hitter’s location, and how they crowd the plate, and everybody wears this armor on their arms and they’re all crowding the plate—I mean, in my day if you got into the batter’s box you either batted up at the front of the box or the back of the box, you didn’t necessarily crowd the plate. That takes a lot of the strike zone away from the umpire, and believe it or not, it’s nearly impossible for the umpire to see the four quadrants of the plate, in other words, all four corners. Especially with your head location, if it’s inside, you’re going to miss the back quadrant if it’s a right-handed hitter. When you can’t see them all, that’s just human nature. People say, well, you stand up high to see a ball. If you stand up high, then you can’t see the low pitches. You stand too low, you can’t see the—I mean, there’s parts of it, you’re not going to see everything. But experience and judgment tells you what’s a ball and what’s a strike.”

“You get big catchers, too, and that makes it difficult. You’re constantly telling them, ‘Hey you’ve gotta get down, you’ve gotta get down, I can’t see.’”

On a catcher setting up outside for an outside pitch: "I will definitely go out there with him, because I know where that pitch is supposed to be. Now, the problem you run into is, when a catcher moves out there, you move out there a little bit with him. Then they throw the ball inside, and it’s in the strike zone, and it looks like he’s diving to catch it. And that’s very difficult to call a strike on. You can do it, and most of the time the hitter’s going to look at you and say, ‘Jimmy, how can that be a strike? He’s diving back to catch it.’ But again, we have to worry about, supposedly, where it goes through the strike zone, because it’s going to be recorded. We can look at that later and say, ‘Look, that second ball is in the strike zone!’ And also that recorder doesn’t record everybody screaming at you. You know what I mean? That’s a big part of the game. When I’m looking at the game, I’m looking just at the game itself, I’m not looking at the conditions. And that all goes into umpiring. I’ve never had a computer or a video replay of everybody screaming at me.”

On the catcher’s job vs. the umpire’s job: "What you’re doing as an umpire is, you’re a manager, and you’re trying to keep everybody happy. Now I’m not saying you call balls and strikes according to who’s screaming and yelling. That has nothing to do with it, because you’re going to reap the benefits of working postseason play and playoffs and All-Star games on your percentage that you get the pitches right and wrong. And they keep a percentage of every pitch that’s called, and whether it was right or wrong. And of course the guys with the higher percentages, those are the guys that are going to work the postseason play. So you’ve got to be correct. But I’m just talking, you know, on a single pitch here and there. If a pitch is through the strike zone, and the catcher takes the glove and rams it into the ground and you call it a ball, most of the time they’re not going to say too much about it. So a lot of the onus is on the catcher. And that’s where this ‘framing’ word comes into being. Because the umpire, basically, looks just for one thing: the ball in the strike zone. He doesn’t have to worry about catching it, and moving, and calling pitches, calling curveballs, fastballs, putting fingers down. All I’ve got to worry about is, ‘Did that ball go through the strike zone or not?’ That’s my job first.”