Holland got Squeezed

by BAC on May 28, 2009 4:16 PM CDT

Last night, as I was watching the game, I kept thinking that Holland was getting some pretty bad calls that weren't going against Burnett.

So, I went and looked at the PitchF/X from last night and it seems to bear out that impression.

Here is Holland's graph from last night:

via brooksbaseball.net

By my count, there were at least 8 (maybe 9) strikes not called last night against Holland. By contrast, Burnett shows 4 missed strikes.

via brooksbaseball.net

Burnett threw 30 more pitches and had 4 less missed strikes called against him. I think its fair to say that Holland got screwed last night. While Holland wasn't great, he could have, and should have, had a lot better line.

The rest of the series appears to be pretty even with both starting pitchers having about 5-7 missed strike calls per game and no discrepancy of more than 1. So, Holland's 8 was the highest of the series and Burnett's 4 was the lowest while also having by far the biggest discrepancy. Suck.

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stuff

I guess Holland’s stuff is so filthy that umpires can’t accurately call balls and strikes when he is pitching. :)

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by RangerMad on May 28, 2009 4:24 PM CDT reply actions

Considering

Rangers will swing at anything close to the strike zone, its not too surprising that the opposition doesn’t get many balls called in teh strike zone.

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by DJCahill on May 28, 2009 4:28 PM CDT reply actions

Holland

He’s gotten squeezed a lot, only explanation I can think of is umps don’t want a rookie getting all uppity.

Too bad holland can’t face the free swinging astros every start

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by rentz on May 28, 2009 4:34 PM CDT reply actions

The black lines on these graphs are 1 foot from the center of the plate.

Anything on the black lines from left to right can not be considered “missed” because the edge of the plate is 8.5 inches from the center, not 12 inches. Taking this into account, the score is Holland 4, Burnett 2.

From top to bottom, the zone is merely an rough estimate. It varies by batter, so one person’s bottom edge might be a lot higher than someone else’s.

To be fair, you’d also need to look at called strikes out of the zone.

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by NoNameOnCard on May 28, 2009 5:04 PM CDT reply actions

5 for Holland.

I missed one.

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by NoNameOnCard on May 28, 2009 5:05 PM CDT up reply actions

Also you have to account for the diameter of the ball and add 1.5" on each side.

So the center point of the ball has a 20" spread as a strike zone.

Also, the strike zone is 3-dimensional.
Not sure how a 2-d chart can acurately depict the zone and account for the variable verticle size of the zone.

by Evil Monkey on May 29, 2009 2:53 PM CDT up reply actions

This is one thing i hate about Salty catching

He seems to never keep the ball up there an extra second or frame pitches, especially borderline ones.

by gamerabcd on May 28, 2009 6:16 PM CDT reply actions

my thoughts exactly

I was a Ranger fan when being a Rangers fan wasn't cool.

by JTodd on May 29, 2009 9:27 AM CDT up reply actions

people said the same thing about laird

"I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it." - Mitch Hedberg

by rentz on May 29, 2009 9:35 AM CDT up reply actions

if you had ever umpired

youd realize that does absolutely nothing.

by Fireal20 on May 29, 2009 12:08 PM CDT up reply actions

Yeah

I can’t recall an ump ever calling a ball and all of a sudden look down and reverse his call. The umps at the major league level know the call the moment it crosses the plate whether they are right or not.

If anything I think holding it up there long may have a negative effect because the ump may get the impression you are trying to show him up or question his calls and he may shrink his zone.

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by bigsteve on May 29, 2009 3:05 PM CDT up reply actions

it's also how you receive the ball

if you catch the ball a certain way and hold it for a split second you can get calls, and it can effect calls later. You don’t hold it for an extremely long time, which would negatively effect a call later, but you hold it ‘til he makes the call, especially if it’s close the ump could have called it a strike/ball and missed the call. That may get you a makeup call later. This happens.

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by NothinG on Jun 1, 2009 3:31 PM CDT up reply actions

This is just whining.

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by t ball on May 29, 2009 1:53 PM CDT reply actions

It really is

Im tired of seeing people bitch and moan like the umps are out to get us. if an ump misses 4 strikes out of 100 pitches thats pretty damn good. it sucks if its a missed third strike or called ball 4 but in the end we get just about as many calls as the other team does.

Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.

by bigsteve on May 29, 2009 3:07 PM CDT up reply actions

Concur...

you could put up one of these charts for just about every starting pitcher in every game and it would show the same thing. Some close pitches are called and some aren’t. That’s just part of the game.

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by slc ranger on May 30, 2009 10:46 AM CDT up reply actions

I've noticed how on Holland's sweeping fastballs

They have a lot of motion from left to right against right handed hitters, that to my eye look like they fly across the strikezone before hitting the catcher’s glove outside of it. Perhaps there’s too much movement on it for Umps to accurately access consistently.

Perhaps not though. I could be completely wrong.

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by Brandon Worley on May 29, 2009 2:49 PM CDT reply actions