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- Title
New metrics for evaluating home plate umpire consistency and accuracy.
- Authors
Hunter, David J.
- Abstract
The availability of pitch-tracking data has led to increased scrutiny of Major League Baseball umpires. While many studies have attempted to rate umpires based on their conformity to the rule book strike zone, players and managers tend to accept deviations from this zone, provided that umpires establish consistent zones within a game. Using tools from computational geometry, we propose new metrics for assessing the consistency and accuracy of an umpire's ball and strike calls over the course of a game. We apply these metrics to pitch-tracking data on all ball and strike calls made during the 2017 MLB regular season, giving some characterizations of the variation in performance of MLB umpires. This analysis demonstrates that measures of consistency can complement current accuracy-based evaluations of umpires.
- Subjects
MAJOR League Baseball (Organization); BASEBALL competitions; BASEBALL players; BASEBALL umpires; BASEBALL rules
- Publication
Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2018, Vol 14, Issue 4, p159
- ISSN
2194-6388
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/jqas-2018-0061